This is a great tool for sour makers. We spend so much time aging these beers we want to make sure we get things right. What I am able to do with this tool is mix and carbonate very small samples of beer and taste how they will be under carbonation.
Recently I carbonated my golden sour straight from my 5.2 gallon barrel. I wanted to taste what this beer was really like before determining what to mix in with it. To my surprise, its really great as is. I do think it could use a tiny bit of funk and a bit more lactic twang.
With these two things in mind I went to work. I brewed up a 5 gallon batch of the base golden ale recipe. I split that into two 2.5 gallon fermentors.
Batch 1 got dosed with American Farmhouse yeast from White Labs. This has been sitting for a week and the yeast has taken it down from 1.052 - 1.008. I am going to let this one sit a bit more with a hope that it will go down another 2 points.
Batch 2 was dosed with Lactobacillus Delbrueckii and Lactobacillus Brevis for 2 days prior to adding yeast. After the two day period I added a blend of Brett Trois and my "house" strain of WLP 550. After a week this beer is only down to 1.022. Still got a ways to go. I'm calling in the big guns and going to order up some Wyeast French Saision. This yeast is known to plow through almost anything. Last time I had a slow and sluggish fermentation I used this yeast and it was down to terminal gravity within a few days.
Once they are both finished I will do a little mixing and testing with my plastic bottle. Once I finalize a mix I will be off to the races towards bottle day.
