That is awesome…sacrifice for the sours!
To extend this thread on a slight tangent, I heard that Brett will eat autolyzed yeast, if necessary, so what effect will storage of the harvested Roeselaere blend have on shifting the balance of the blend away from the original pitch/harvest yeast:bugs ratio?
Or is that geeking it to a microbiology level that a homebrewer should just ignore. With so much time invested in these sours, I am thinking I should at least ask!
Sorry for the hijack/diversion, Jim, but with the name of the topic, I thought it made more senses just go with this one further…
the balance for sure changes over time when ageing. I don’t have nearly enough experience yet to say how. I know that in general bacteria reproduce a heck of a lot faster than yeast and wild yeasts tend to have a lot less cold tolerance than sach strains.
I think it’s important to learn to let go of a little control (or illusion thereof) when dealing with sour beers. Even more than with ‘clean’ beers it’s microbiota that are in charge. One of the things about mixed fermentations that I love is the mystery of not knowing what will come out of each project and not even knowing how each project will present in a week, month, or year. I’m just starting to get enough of a sour pipeline built up to start thinking about blending and it’s a whole new world of taste imagination to practice.
The sacc, brett, lacto, pedio balance will be significantly different from the initial pitch because they reproduce and die at different rates. Some people report good or even subjectively better results with the second generation pitch. I haven’t tried a second generation pitch and don’t plan on trying it. I’m happy with the first pitch results.
I “store” my mixed cultures at room temp in growlers. I decant the clearest beer and feed replace with fresh wort every 6-8 weeks. The starter wort is 1.030ish and has a big dollup of maltodextrin along with DME.
If you want to keep your Roselare going, just make a starter and pour in some from the keg/bottle (before chilling).
I expect that over time the sacch strains die off and leave brett and bacteria. If you’re using an older culture, you can either pitch fresh sacch/brett, or just let it go. You don’t really need a sacch strain.
I’ve also seen lacto viability drop off as the culture matures, so I’ve taken to pre-souring with a separate lacto culture for Flanders-style and quick sours (Gose), just to move things along. In traditional lambic, pedio does most/all of the souring anyway.
I kept my lambic culture going in a bucket by racking off and back on in the same day. The 2nd batch was exponentially more awesome than the 1st. I had to clean it when I moved, else it would still be going.
Good tangent. Can a bug pro answer his question about bugs eating the sac yeast? If they do, what is the point of racking off the trub to secondary? Especially if secondarying for a long period of time?
I’ve certainly heard that brett and other bacteria will eat autolized yeast. Depending on how complete they are about it wracking becomes an issue of controlling levels of what ever flavour compounds are created by that process. more dead yeast = more ??? flavors.
I’m not a bug pro, but brett will eat dead sacc. The last Flanders I made where I left everything in the primary for six months did have a little autolysis flavor, but it was a good umami flavor like marmite and it wasn’t overpowering. I suppose the flavor could intensify over longer periods of time and perhaps become unpleasant depending on your taste. I had a Belgian sour from Alvinne a few months ago that had a much heavier autolysis flavor than my beer and I still thought it tasted good.
Hmmm I think ill rack off to another speidel when I drop my fruit. Thanks
That’s the safest move for your first wild beer and it’s what most home brewers do. I’m leaving it on the cake for 9 months next time to see if it increases umami-ness.
Great word
There’s a burger chain called Umami Burger. I need to go there. It has to be good.
I really want to use the stinky cheese aged hops for the next sour. Has anyone here used them? I fully intended to use them last time, but a little voice inside my head said “no, not this time”.
I think the aged hops are supposed to come through and out the other side of stinky cheese before you use them. shouldn’t smell like much.
I’ve got my first Flanders Red that is about a month old. At two weeks, I split the 10 gallons - 1/2 in a carboy with Roselare and half in a 5 gallon oak barrel with WLP665. Tossed in dregs from Boulevard Love Child in the Carboy and Rodenbach Grand Cru in the barrel.
My question is, what do you think of topping off the barrel for the angel’s share with additional charges of similar sour dregs from various bottles? Is there too much of a good thing? Do the waters get a bit too muddy if you add multiple top offs? And how often is it recommended to top it off? When I have used this barrel before I purged the dead space with a blast of CO2 after pulling a sample to try to get the extra O2 out, but I never added extra wort.
Thanks,
Mac
I am in pretty much the same position with my second year batch made in May 2014 and ready to be blended with some of my first year batch later this year (10 gallons in June 2013 split between glass carboy and 5 gallon bourbon barrel). I blended portions of the first batch at about a 1:5 ratio for bottling for comps and kegging in a 3 gallon cornie. Then I filled the barrel with the rest of the carboy - I didn’t add new dregs to the barrel, but you can, if you think it isn’t enough. As the barrel ages, it likely will not need dregs, because the bugs will be in the wood. Some guys do a lactic sour mash to prep the wort from a souring perspective, because the lacto loses some punch to the Brett and pedio over time, but I haven’t found the need (I used a new couple vials of Roeselaere for the 5 gallon batch this past May). I didn’t pitch any extra Sacc, either, because the fresh vials had enough Sacc for the primary IMO. One other thought is fruit - I have some tart cherry wine base that I intend to add into the mix on the next blend, just for grins. Have fun and remember, it’s a hobby.
I use aged hops in my lambic base, but I make sure they’re WAY past the point of ‘stinky cheese’ and just smell like dried hay. They have very little odor. This is what the commercial brewers are using. I assume ‘stinky’ hops will make your beer taste… ‘stinky’. If they stink, they probably still have too much alpha for lambic.
The aged hops do add flavor to the wort which isn’t detectable in the final beer. Chad Y says brett can metabolize hop oils during aging, so they probably have some impact on the final product.
The primary reason for using aged hops is lactobacillus inhibition, so their only place is in lambic style wort. You want acidity from lacto in your Flanders-style sours, so stick with very low quantities of fresh hops (<10 IBU).
Aged hops aren’t required for lambic. I use them because its traditional and I get great results with my process (“If it ain’t broke…”). I’m also running low and will eventually run out, so in a few years I’ll be able to tell if there is a real difference. Stay tuned…
Sourced my fruit today. Its a two hour drive each way to save about $200 in shipping, but on the 8th I’m making a road trip to Oregon Fruit. 42 lbs of 18° plato dark sweet cherry puree and 42 lbs of 12° plato peach puree. 84 lbs for under $90. Also gives me an excuse to finally stop by Belmont Station 
Man, that is a great price for a great product. I’m paying just a little more/lb. Ok, a lot more.
EDIT - FWIW, online and at LHBS, good purees like this are in the $5 -6/lb range. Totally worth the drive. What a steal.
That is a ridiculously good price on fruit. Well worth the four hours of driving. It’s not like the drive is even a terrible one.
Ya great price, great product. Aseptic and ready for brewing. I’ll use about 10-15 pounds in each brew and the wife will make preserves with the rest.
The stuff I want is cheap, but not ALL of their fruit purees are…