Reddit reviews Wild Brews: Beer Beyond the Influence of Brewer's Yeast

Someone might come along and tackle your list of Qs but sounds like you could use a book or two.

https://www.amazon.com/American-Sour-Beers-Michael-Tonsmeire/dp/1938469119

https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Brews-Beyond-Influence-Brewers/dp/0937381861

I've done two sours with some wild yeast I caught.

• My best tip would be use separate equipment. I'm not as worried about my glass carboys, but I have duplicates of all of my plastic accessories/fermenters.
  
  
• It takes lots of time, too. My first sour, which I made very plain just to see how the yeast performed, smelled like vomit for about the first 4 months it was bottled. Now, it tastes great.
  
  
• Fruit is very helpful, in my experience. The two brews I did were almost identical recipes, both with the same wild yeast. One got 1lb/gal of blackberries added to the secondary for about 7 months. This beer is much more refreshing/tart, and not very fruity. The non-fruit one is earthy, like a brett-only beer, with a mild tartness. Not that it's bad, but I prefer the sourness that the berries added.
  
  
• Also, I recently bought this book. However, I haven't read it, so I can't comment on it's usefullness.
  
  Hope that helps! Cheers and good luck!

Reading through Wild Brews right now, and realizing how little "style guidelines" matter to the Belgians. The beer they make is the beer they make, and that is that. This is why many of the "styles" are related more so to the region, rather than the ingredients. I highly recommend the book to anyone looking into spontaneously fermented beer, or just if you love to learn about beer. Reading it makes you thirsty though.

Wild Brews is a great book.

Noonan's Lager Book http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0937381829

Wild Brews http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0937381861

Farmhouse Ales http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0937381845

Brew Like A Monk http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/093738187X

Jeff Sparrow's Wild Brews: Beer Beyond the Influence of Brewer's Yeast is a great place to start.

If you want to make a good sour, read Wild Brews. It's a great book, just like everything else BP publishes. Brewing a good lambic is a lot more complex than throwing a sour culture and some fruit into a pils/wheat wort.

I don't consider Orval sour. Brett can produce lactic acid, but it is not nearly as proficient as some bacteria, which is where the sourness in the RR beers is coming from. Orval is definitely "wild" fermented, meaning it uses something other than brewers yeast for fermentation, but isn't particularly sour. Check out this book if you want to know way more than could every be useful.

Orval uses one strain of brettanomyces bruxellensis in their beer when the bottle it. RR uses a combination of probably 3-10 different organisms in their beer. Cantillon in Belgium claims over 200 organisms are found in their beer, which is fermented from organisms existing in the air and structures of their brewery.

Horse blanket/barnyard tends to be the descriptor. If you're unhappy with that, I see tons of other descriptors in that thread. I'm not sure what you're looking for.

horse blanket, musty, funky, crawlspace, and urine soaked hay (in a good way). Compost pile, funky, moldy, poop, manure. musty basement, barn, sweaty leather, musty hay, decomposing organics, Tack room, barn, hay, manure, plastic, damp soil., Pony quilt, maybe "forest floor" and "dirt" which people do say, 1) Cow pasture
2) Dairy farm
3) Cow manure


"Brett produces phenols.
Some give the clove and smokey aromas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-ethylguaiacol
4-ethyl phenol gives the barnyard and horsey aroma.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-ethylphenol

Ethyl Lactate gives the furity aroma.

A compound called tetrahydropyridines gives a urine aroma (often termed mouse urine).

You can look those up. Some of you will not be convinced though.

If you are more interested read this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Brews-Culture-Craftsmanship-Tradition/dp/0937381861"





Here's a more scientific take on it by Aroxa, but I don't think that's what you're looking for either.

http://www.aroxa.com/cider/cider-flavour-standard/4-ethyl-phenol/

Hope you find better descriptors. Please post if you do.

Infections all move at different rates. Acetobacter will show up pretty quick, but something like brett takes months to get really established (there's a graph in wild ales).

That said, this guy is totally fine.

As /u/brewtality mentioned, The Mad Fermentationist is excellent.

I would also recommend Wild Brews by Jeff Sparrow. It is, to me, the Bible of homebrewing sour beers. Well worth checking out.

Books are an excellent gift idea. I would also recommend Wild Brews

http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Brews-Beyond-Influence-Brewers/dp/0937381861

^Is this the book you're talking about?