Long Term Aging of Wild/Sour Beer in Summer??

[nadeaunm5]

I have had problems over the last 2 summers where my sour beers end up getting way to sour during the summer months. My basement is a daylight basement and it ends up getting pretty warm down there in the summer +70 deg.

Some of my beers even at +20 ibu will get down in the low 3's and some actually at 3.0 ph (gotta love the ECY Bugfarm, it a beast)

I'm thinking of just buying a used giant chest freezer and putting as many of my carboys in there as i can and setting the temp at 55-60. My only concern with that is mold or moister issues from sitting that long in a closed environment.

Any one out there have better suggestions?

 

[stz]

I bet you've got this down anyway, reducing the temperature will slow the rate down, but not fully halt it. You could use cultures which don't produce acetic, limit oxygen contact for those that do in the presence of oxygen, sour using a method which doesn't continue, ie kettle souring, if using a mixed method introduce the souring strain later when the beer has attenuated lower. There are loads of ways to achieve this. You could produce a fresher beer and get into blending to reduce the acidity. All sorts. Sounds fun.

 

[SanPancho]

my vote says make big ass batch of sour base, keep it in bsmt. blend as needed. that gives you the ability to make anything from a mouthpuckering 3.0pH to something more like a mildly tart beer up towards 4.

or kettle sour. but even if you kettle sour, its still nice to have some sour base laying around for blending when needed.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

I would be surprised if it's souring down that low due to the temps. Pretty much all sour breweries age it in barrels either outside, or not temp controlled at all.

Lack of residual sugars, and low pH should all but remove the possibility of mold growth during that aging period. You can get an evadry or similar if you're worried about humidity.

 

[hirschb]

I have been trying to up the IBU's, which I see you're already trying. My only other suggestion is to have some all-brett carboys. Blends like TYB Amalgamation or ECY Dirty Dozen should give you brett funk/complexity with little acidity. I've started this process here in tropical Aus, and am hoping that when my beers start maturing, I have plenty of sour and non-sour beer that will make some nice blends.