Don Quijote clone recipe

Originally posted by OldSock
Boil for a couple hours with a few ounces of well-aged hops (or aim for ~10 IBUs if you are using fresh hops). THis isn’t as big a deal when not doing a true spontaneous fermentation

Originally posted by OldSock
Cantillon does one to two years in oak primary before the beer is combined with the fruit in stainless steel tanks, usually for two to three months before bottling.

Originally posted by OldSock
Most of their fruit beers tend to be 2-3 lbs of fruit per gallon, start on the low end (about a gallon of juice mixed with 4 gallons of beer).

Originally posted by HornyDevil
I’ve always wondered why anyone uses hops in sour beers. They inhibit lactobacillus and since we’re not selling it, don’t have to answer to any government agency, and bitterness isn’t a desired characteristic in sour beers I just don’t see any reason to use them

I think that the amount of time on fruit is a good guideline, but I think that you can get a beer sour and complex in less time than a year or two. 3 - 6 months of fermentation is probably ideal seeing as lacto is done pretty quickly and Brett is basically done in 3 months.

Agreed on this amount of fruit. Any less and you’ll be disappointed with the fruit character.

If the OP decides to use the Welch’s concentrate, he’d need to double the amount that I posted to get it in that range.

Originally posted by OldSock
If there is anything I’m really coming to accept from two years of researching how different breweries make their sour beers, it’s that there is never a single right/ideal answer to any step/ingredient. There is only developing a complete process that fits your time/equipment/tastes.

On this subject, I have a batch aging that took half a batch of 100% dark Munich sour base and combined it with a half pound of D90 and 46 oz. of Welch’s Concord grape concentrate. Brewed the base beer in May and put it on the grape concentrate in September. Will probably bottle it in December or January. Anxious to taste what the grape conc. did to the base as on racking the base was nicely tart, but lacked any real complexity.

Message levifunk

Horny, You ever bottle this yet?

Originally posted by Unclerudy
Horny, You ever bottle this yet?

I was thinking of taking my new england cider out my barrel that it has been in for a year, and throwing in a lambic that I am brewing this weekend. Or letting the beer ferment in the carboy and then add it to the barrel later with the juice concentrate.