Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

[mashani]

One of this biggest reasons for boiling the wort above and beyond hop utilization is to kill off the lactobacillus produced from mashing the grain. If you've ever forgotten about your grain in the mash cooler for a day and opened the lid, you can smell the sour like it smacked you in the face.

Some old world Berliners weren't even boiled. You pitch your yeast, and you get your sour too anyways when you do it that way as long as you don't load the beer too full of hops but that's just wrong in a Berliner anyways.

[FedoraDave]

I'm arguing the fact that you stared a thread asking for guidance on brewing a Sour. You received 5 pages of great responses on numerous ways to achieve what you were looking for from many well accomplished brewers. You decided to follow the advice of the owner of your LHBS, who gave you a recipe for a sour flavored beer. You say he likes sours, does he brew them? Either you didn't raise your concerns that you stated above or he doesn't understand cleaning and sanitizing (there are some professional breweries that do both normal and sour beers with the same equipment) or he couldn't sell one more BB.
You seem to have narrowed your thinking of this style and can't see past the perceived elephant in the room.

Yes, I read all the responses here, and brought those up at the LHBS. We had extended conversations about it, and he and I went over the pros and cons of the many different ways to achieve a sour beer (or a sour-flavored beer, although if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck....). He did not give me the recipe; I came up with that on my own, but he and I discussed it, and he felt it was a sound way to achieve what I wanted. Part of my decision to use this method was my reluctance to risk contaminating my equipment. Another part of it was the ease with which this method could get the tartness I wanted, compared with the other methods. That was an important consideration. I enjoy the labor of this hobby, but I also like to keep things simple.

Whether I've narrowed my thinking of the style (or even of this recipe/procedure) is not the issue, IMO. The issue is being pleased with the result. The journey is merely the means to the end, and I weighed my options on it and chose the one I felt worked best for me. And I am pleased with the result.

[bpgreen]

Your beer, your brew, your decisions.

I'm all for it. Whatever makes you happy and gets you the beer you want.

In case that comes off the wrong way, it's not sarcasm.

[FedoraDave]

Not at all, Brian. I've always understood that this was the Borg's philosophy, so I took it as you intended it.