Sour Pipeline strategy

Hi!

Here we are at the beginning of spring, and I am just getting my feet wet in trying and "learning" sours.

I would like to sprinkle a few sours into my pipeline of mainly session strength "sacc" beers. (I do have a RIS planned soon).

My question is based upon my preference for seasonal appropriate beers, can I just as easily do, say, a berliner weiss to be ready this summer, then brew a rodenbach or aud bruin (etc) on top of the yeast cake? Are the cakes left over from sours always or rarely appropriate to use in different recipes or even general styles?

Does anyone do this kind of thing, with purpose driven pipeline that could offer some suggestions into the timing, aging and "ready to drink" scenarios? I would like to hear about them. Thanks!

In my minimal experience with sours, i've read numerous things about repitching on top of yeast cakes. It can be done very well IMO. I'm actually pitching onto a year old cake this week. From my understanding the next generation of pitches sours much sooner than the one before it. Also you'll want to re-pitch sacc before the bugs, becuase the sacc will have essentially expired from the sour cake by then.

I currently have an oud bruin planned this week that'll get started with WY3522, then siphoned onto the lambic cake that was just recently racked. My plan is then to leave the oud bruin only for a few short months then re-rack to a 2ndary, leaving the cake free again for something else.

No clue how many times a sour cake can be re-used by i'm shooting for 3, then will start using the 2ndary cake from the oud bruin/anything else that gets bugs.

Depends on the yeast. I've done roselare to 10 generations. By the time you hit 7, you're mostly going to be tasting brett. very harsh. I find generations 2-4 to be the best, actually. 1 is good, but takes a long time to produce desired flavors. I currently have a blend of roselare and a slurry of Crooked Stave that I grew from a bottle and it tastes delicious as of yesterday.

A berliner weisse will not have all of the bacteria you want for a flemish red or oud bruin. A berliner is typically lacto, sacch and occasionally brett. An oud bruin has all of the above, plus some pediococcus, and some acetobacter though you dont really want much acetobacter character imo.

You could pitch on top of the cake of the berliner but you would want to add other bacteria and some brett, thought it may not sour as much as youd like because the sacch will likely out compete the lacto. You could make a flanders red, and pitch an oud bruin on top... But I wouldnt want to pitch a lambic style beer on top of a flanders cake.

nofootbreak said:

A berliner weisse will not have all of the bacteria you want for a flemish red or oud bruin. A berliner is typically lacto, sacch and occasionally brett. An oud bruin has all of the above, plus some pediococcus, and some acetobacter though you dont really want much acetobacter character imo.

You could pitch on top of the cake of the berliner but you would want to add other bacteria and some brett, thought it may not sour as much as youd like because the sacch will likely out compete the lacto. You could make a flanders red, and pitch an oud bruin on top... But I wouldnt want to pitch a lambic style beer on top of a flanders cake.

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This. If you want a berliner then make one. If you want another style of sour after that, I'd start from scratch bug wise.

You can brew simple sours with just sacch and the free lacto residing on your grain and have beer in the same time frame you're used to. I've made Berliners, a Gose and fruited sour browns this way. There's no point repitching, since the lacto is free and you can use the same yeasts you'd use for clean ales. The alcohol produced by the sacch will seriously reduce the ongoing viability of the lacto anyway.

Great thing about BW is that depending on your method, it can go grain to glass in a week or two. After that, start on a series of 'Flanders', which most people will rack off the trub when the sacc slows down or at least within a few weeks, months. That first Flanders will give you enough to pitch several more and pretty soon you'll run out of carboys. I think I've got 8 long term sours going now, another year or so and I'll be drinking like a king!

Hmm.. great points all. I just used the berliner/lacto example as something that is a lighter beer and finishes quick to be ready for summer, then pitching a bigger beer onto that for a bigger, more complex beer ready for winter, etc.

TNGabe said:

Great thing about BW is that depending on your method, it can go grain to glass in a week or two. After that, start on a series of 'Flanders', which most people will rack off the trub when the sacc slows down or at least within a few weeks, months. That first Flanders will give you enough to pitch several more and pretty soon you'll run out of carboys. I think I've got 8 long term sours going now, another year or so and I'll be drinking like a king!

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Can you run down your process a bit more?

Is it as easy as making a flanders, racking off that creation, then washing the trub into, say, a few mason jars, then every new beer you make gets a sacc primary and then a "flanders trub secondary"?

woknblues said:

Can you run down your process a bit more?

Is it as easy as making a flanders, racking off that creation, then washing the trub into, say, a few mason jars, then every new beer you make gets a sacc primary and then a "flanders trub secondary"?

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I don't rinse it. Just collect and repitch. No extra sacc. Problem is guessing at the pitching rate. I tend to err on the high side. I'm no expert and I'd be wary of anyone who claims to be.

I make a fresh sour every 4 months.

At the year anniversary I bottle some and move some onto fruit. I then take some of that cake and add to new beer + fresh sacc yeast + dregs from 1 bottle of sour.

You don't need all the cake. If you use all the cake repeatedly you are going to build up a huge amount of trub. You don't need to wash the cake. I use a decent size, probably about a quarter of the cake, but I would bet you could get away with a teaspoon of the cake; you can make a sour from just pitching the dregs of 1 bottle, but it takes a while to build up populations of the bugs.

I add sacc just to make sure it gets going (it may not be needed). I add bottle dregs just for good measure, to help fill in if any of the bugs from the original batch have died off.

Good luck.

A Berliner is an interesting beer to make, and quick, but there is not much you can do with the cake. The yeast and lacto are essentially used one time.