I Brewed the recipe in the June issue of Zymurgy with a twist from another article in Zymergy of march 2011. I used this recipe with a sour starter, using the Vienna grains for the recipe to start my starter. # days into the starter I measured a PH of 3.8, did my mash and brought the pre wort to a boil, cooled and pitched my starter, let it go 48 hours, had an aggressive fermentation, brewed the beer at this point(gravity is 1.062, awesome sour flavor) and pitched the bret and saison yeast with virtually no aggressive fermentation activity. After some consults, I think the easily converted sugars were consumed and just complex sugars remain for the bret to consume. Will rack this to the secondary, wine soaked oak chips and currents on Saturday, Will get a good taste and gravity then also. Hoping to get an awesome sour/Saison Modified beer. Will Update this post as things progress.
B-cubed
I wouldn’t move it to secondary until the yeast have done what they can. you’re asking for a stall. Take a gravity reading and see where it is at now. if it was 1.062 when you pitched the yeasts it should have come down some. patience is particularly important when working with mixed fermentations as the conditions created by your sour starter are far from ideal for your yeasts and so they will likely work more slowly.
Thanks for the tip, I will do that first.
Measured gravity at 10.20, racked it and got a good taste, horseblanket strong at this time, sour is awesome, the currents and more time should add a little more sour, hoping horseblanket decreases a little over time, expecting about 6 months min in secondary.