Balancing acid in sour beers

If, as I proposed, the malty Amber finished at 3P and you blend some portion of it into a mixed fermentation beer in an effort to increase the pH, you’ve invited additional extract to a mixed ferm party

The microbes present in the mixed ferm beer will consume the residual extract that was blended in, generating additional acid, EtOH and, you guessed it, CO2.

There are obviously ways to account for this, and perhaps the blanket statement "just blend it down" is meant to encompass this complexity, but it’s important to undwrstand that simply adding less acidic beer to more acidic beer isn’t going to yield the desired result.

Originally posted by HornyDevil

Originally posted by bitbucket

Originally posted by SamGamgee
Blending.

This. Plus taking appropriate measures to curb or at least restrain the formation of acetic acid.

You can buy various microbe blends that attempt to balance the acid formation by providing the correct proportions of brettanomyces, lactobacillus, saccharomyces, and sometimes pediococcus but much depends upon your IBUs, pH, temperature and other environmental factors, so they really can’t provide an exact balance.

Proportions of microbes don’t matter as much as the recipe and fermentation technique that you mentioned. Microbes have different growth rates so if they are all in the same environment, they will each grow at different speeds.

Originally posted by CLevar
If, as I proposed, the malty Amber finished at 3P and you blend some portion of it into a mixed fermentation beer in an effort to increase the pH, you’ve invited additional extract to a mixed ferm party

The microbes present in the mixed ferm beer will consume the residual extract that was blended in, generating additional acid, EtOH and, you guessed it, CO2.

There are obviously ways to account for this, and perhaps the blanket statement "just blend it down" is meant to encompass this complexity, but it’s important to undwrstand that simply adding less acidic beer to more acidic beer isn’t going to yield the desired result.

Originally posted by HornyDevil

Originally posted by CLevar
If, as I proposed, the malty Amber finished at 3P and you blend some portion of it into a mixed fermentation beer in an effort to increase the pH, you’ve invited additional extract to a mixed ferm party

The microbes present in the mixed ferm beer will consume the residual extract that was blended in, generating additional acid, EtOH and, you guessed it, CO2.

There are obviously ways to account for this, and perhaps the blanket statement "just blend it down" is meant to encompass this complexity, but it’s important to undwrstand that simply adding less acidic beer to more acidic beer isn’t going to yield the desired result.

Sorry, didn’t see the part where the amber ale wasn’t a mixed fermentation and that it finished at 3P.

I certainly understand what you’re saying, and maybe this is a topic for another thread, but blending beers with different acidities may very well be what you need to do to achieve a desired result. That’s why blenders have acid and neutral beers to add to blends. They are, of course, of similar terminal gravities and include the same microbes as the base beer.

Originally posted by CLevar
As an example, we’ve been brewing a SS fermented hoppy saison with brett that will finish ~1.4 P. We then blend in 20% acid beer (pH < 3.4) to the saison (pH ~4-4.1). The resulting pH is ~3.65, and after two weeks we can package. The pH usually drops 0.05 to 0.1 in this time with little/no change in gravity.

We had been adding LAB to the SS fermented portion, but the WP hop addition was too large for the LAB to handle. The blending achieves the flavor profile that we are looking for, but we have to be cognizant of the different variables at play.

Originally posted by CLevar
IBU, mash profile, fermentstion with Sacch prior to pitching other microbes.

Perception of acidity can really be adjusted with terminal gravity too.

Originally posted by mandy5212

Originally posted by CLevar
IBU, mash profile, fermentstion with Sacch prior to pitching other microbes.

Perception of acidity can really be adjusted with terminal gravity too.

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I have a sad that this thread, one of the only worthwhile ones in this forum for a while, gets polluted with this kind of shite this quickly.

Originally posted by HornyDevil
I have a sad that this thread, one of the only worthwhile ones in this forum for a while, gets polluted with this kind of shite this quickly.