Benny Blanco

Recipes 

Quick question:

Is a starter required for pitching bugs? I have a pack of wyeast rosalare blend I was going to pitch tonight and I haven't read anything about making a starter for them. I'm assuming no, just want to be sure. I'm making my first flemish red

Sixbillionethans

Recipes 

You'll see a bunch of suggestions throughout this forum on starter vs. no starter for plambics and flanders beers. There was the "Roselare - 2 ways" thread which discussed this a little bit, too.

I'm not sure there's a consensus.

But I DO think people would agree that, ultimately, you want your primary FG to be relatively high to allow plenty of food for the bacteria and wild yeasts to consume. The madfermentationist blog entry on sour beer production goes into some practical detail as well.

High FG is not a wild-beer specific concept...you can accomplish that thru mash, recipe, or yeast cell count modifications.

A yeast starter, however, will likely only benefit the saccaromyces, which are one of the several organisms in the Roselare blend.

Benny Blanco

Recipes 

Thanks, but I just smacked it and threw it in. I didn't start from a high FG since I heard about the 2 methods of either fermenting it with clean ale yeast then pitching the blend or just using the blend alone from the start.

I split the difference and fermented with an ale yeast for 3 days at high krausen then racked and pitched the blend. My FG was down from 1.055 to 1.025. I don't really care if it makes a difference or not racking early or when the yeast was done. I'm just hoping for a decent beer to enjoy next spring.