Hey guys,
I'm brewing a saison this week for a competition in two months and I wanted to add a little tartness to the beer. The finished product will be kegged, force carbed, and bottled from there. I've considered the many options available and am wondering if you guys have any ideas I could use to add some sour to the beer. Below are my ideas on how I want to do this and my reasons for/against them:
1. Adding lactic acid to finished beer.
This might be enough for me as I only want a little sour, but I hear it's very common to get diacetyl if you add too much, and I don't want to screw up this beer up. I'm also worried it won't be what I'm looking for, as I hear it's pretty bland.
2. Doing a sour mash and blending it with the beer.
I read over the process and it sounds a bit difficult to do unless you have an easy way of controlling the temperature. If anyone has tried this method and can chime in, I'd love to hear your input, especially if you can tell me how long it takes for the souring to begin or how many lbs of grain they used, etc.
3. Doing a gallon of a sour, pasteurizing it, and adding it to the beer.
This is the direction I'm leaning towards, but I can't find any information on if anyone has actually tried this. My idea would be to grab a gallon or so of the wort and add the dreg from a crooked stave bottle. Let it ferment for a month and a half or so, pasteurize it by bringing the temp up to ~150*F to kill the yeast, and blend it with my saison before bottling. I've heard many issues with BOILING the finished beer, but I haven't heard much about the effects a sour would have just heating it up enough to kill the active yeast. And I definitely don't want this beer to continue fermenting after bottling.
Thanks for any input!