BryanThompson

Recipes 

It will be fine. The O2 exposure may cause a pellicle to form but it won't hurt anything.

thomasgorff

Recipes 

So no negative affect if I don't but added protection if I do?

moti_mo

Recipes 

My oud bruin started on roeselare as the primary blend is delicious at 7 months. It was delicious at 5 months. I'm just leaving it be for a while, b/c I have a number of other sour/wild beers going right now. I'm going to keg it around 10 months or so, but when I tasted it at 5, I was 100% happy.

Calder

Recipes 

Sounds like you can't keep; your hands off it!

bottlebomber

Recipes 

Do you mean that you used it for your primary fermentation? I didn't know you could do that... I would love to be able to make a sour that was nice at less than a year.

Calder

Recipes 

The Roeselare blend has a Belgian sacc strain. Should produce a 'Delicious' beer in several months. The poster didn't say whether it was sour.

moti_mo

Recipes 

Yes, I used only the roeselare blend for primary. After 4.5 months, it had a great sourness - not over-the-top, but really nice and for many people would have been plenty sour enough. I was tempted to keg it then (middle of March), but I'm going to give it over the summer to develop some more sour.

You can also re-pitch onto the yeast cake of this blend to get your next beer sour quicker. When I transferred mine in March, I brewed up a berliner weisse the same day. I pitched half of the berliner weisse onto the White Labs BW blend (WLP630) and the other half onto the yeast cake of my roeselare oud bruin yeast cake. I tasted both of them a month later. The half on the BW blend was not sour at all yet and tasted very average, but the half I put onto the roeselare yeast cake was very sour, and very good.

I'm brewing up another split batch again soon (maybe this weekend) and putting half onto the current yeast cake (I'll bottle the BW at that time). I'll be aging this one for a while, and adding some fruit, but I imagine it will get sour pretty quick.

FWIW, I started a thread similar to this one back in November after brewing that oud bruin. Some warned that the beer would be undrinkable or not sour at all until 1.5 - 2 years, but my experience has been similar to passedpawn, who commented that he got some good souring within a few months:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/roeselare-taste-time-table-278304/

moti_mo

Recipes 

Yeah, I need better will power! Only tasted it twice, but I always blow out the head space with CO2. Wanna make sure I don't get any acetic acid!

I'm trying to get 3 - 4 sours going at staggered stages, so I'll have a constant pipeline and won't be tempted to tinker too much.

moti_mo

Recipes 

BTW, to the OP - did you taste yesterday? Updates are required at this point!

BaldApe

Recipes 

I have two batches in process with the Roselaire blend now. One is about 13 months old, and the other is 5 months old. Both have the same grain bill and hops, but the first was started with an Abbey yeast, on the advice that I should start with a different yeast.

I can't detect much difference in sourness, which seems to develop early. Neither one is extremely sour, which suits me, but is less desirable for some. The older one is developing a nice funkiness from the Brett.

Both were started in palstic, and then transferred to glass after krausen was over.

I am very impressed with the results of this blend, and will brew the same recipe every few months so I don't run out as soon as it's completely ready. If I can afford it, I plan to devote about 6 cornies to this style, starting a new batch every 2 months or so.

I have not tried to reuse the yeast, but Wyeast specifically says not to reuse it, as the character of the blend is not stable. They could be making sure they sell more yeast, but for a beer that's going to occupy my fermenter and corny for so long, the expense seems worth it.