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rom the Mad Fermentationist
http://madfermentationist.blogspot.com/2009/04/brewing-sour-be
er-with-acid.html
So you wanted to brew a sour beer, you pitched the requisite microbes, waited a year or more for them to do their job, and and when you finally give it a taste it is just mildly tart. Pro-brewers take this opportunity to blend, but what if you don’t have any acid beer to blend. Can you just take some acid and use it to sour up your ale? Wild Brews claims that you get a "harsh and medicinal" flavor if you just add food grade lactic acid (the main acid in sour beers), but it sounds to me like the author is talking about adding acid to a clean base beer (not to a beer that already has some acid and funk).
To answer some of these questions for myself I decided I would give acidifying a bottle of the Temptation clone I brewed 18 months ago that never got sour enough...
Click through for more on spiking with lactic acid, acetic acid, phosphoric acid and a malic/tartaric/citric acid blend.
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I bottled the first "doped" sour beer I have made about a week ago. A honey wheat sour with ~2 oz of 88% lactic acid. I added the acid after 6 months in secondary when it seemed like there hadn’t been much lactic acid production despite plenty of bugs and warm temps. The Brett did a good job cleaning up the slight buttery note the acid has over an additional few months of aging. I’m just waiting for carbonation to kick in now.
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I’ve made a couple "sour" beers with the addition of citric acid via fruit juice. Not the same kind of sour, mind you, but good none-the-less.
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How are you carbing it, out of curiosity?
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I bottle condition all my sours. It was less than a year old so I didn’t even pitch extra yeast at bottling.
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There are a number of breweries, including one that has won a number of GABF medals, that simply add lactic acid to all of their sours.
I don’t really care how their doing it, I like it!
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Who’s this?
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My guess is Cascade brewery, but that it just a guess.
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It sucks that it takes more then a year to make my favorite style.
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Which brewery? is it confirmed or just speculation?
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I had heard that as well, but their website repeatedly says "lactic fermentation"http://www.raclodge.com/on_tap.php
This article also mentions wild yeast for Vlad the Imp Alerhttp://www.pdxfoodpress.com/?p=7239
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