Flanders Red Type Sour

[spykeratchet]

I have been toying around with the idea of making a sour for awhile now. I know that the process takes longer and that you need an extra set of anything plastic, which I have. The idea as of now is to make a basic red malt bill that is barely hopped add some plums and brett and let it sit. Ill then rack it to secondary with red wine soaked oak chips and some more plums and give that a few months.

As I am new on the sour front, here are a few questions:

1. When they say brett can take awhile to develop its sourness, how long are we talking?
2. What sort of time frame are we looking at for primary fermentation to complete?
3. Are the plums and red wine soaked oak going to be too much? Either or? Don’t soak the chips?
4. Is the brett going to be fine on its own or should I get a bug blend?

[bdaugherty]

my first sour red is in the works right now and i am so far very pleased with the results. i used rosealre blend it has a regular ale yeast and i believe brett, lacto, and pedio. but you can check wyeast website to be sure. i would read about all the funk blends and make up your mind on what you want to add to your beer there are lots of options.

oak is typical in flanders reds i dont know if soaking oak in wine is necessary but if you want i dont see how it can hurt too much.

i fermented in primary for around a month. then transfered. i didnt notice and sourness til around six months. i added an oak stick around 3 months also.

now at nine months there is a nice amount of sourness. and plenty of complexities going on i am tempted to bottle it now but told myself i would give it a year so what another three months.

my advice would be to go more pure or to style with the first batch. then you will have lots off funky guts left to pitch fruit beers onto. these later batches will mature more quickly and allow you to experiment more often.