Sour starter

Hey Guys,

I'm trying to put together a little bit of information about how to make a starter for sour/wild brews. I keep reading information that seems informative, but many seem to disagree on certain aspects.

Starters are very straightforward for regular yeasts, but seem very different for wilds/sours. Anyways, to keep this as short as possible, I'm going to bullet what I plan to do with a few questions.

By the way, I know that there are a few guys that don't typically make starters for sours (OldSock), so I'd like to bring this up whether or not I should even consider this. The reason I'm planning on making a starter rather than just pitching dregs is that I plan to make a few different batches for different purposes.

1 batch is a 10-gallon soured english ale. This is just a generic sour that I plan on using for blending with other "clean" ales. There are few other batches I want to have in tandem, but likely won't have enough dregs for batches of this size and I'd like to make sure the environment is optimal (Of course I could just buy a few more bottles for dregs).

Here are the points/questions I'm interested in:

- Apple Juice vs. DME
- No oxygen exposure. This means using an airlock and no stir-plate. Correct?
----- Possibly put a C02 blanket over the wort?
----- I will likely use an Erlenmyer flask which will have much smaller surface area for the pellicle (If anything shows up). Is there anything to consider here?
- Maybe 2 weeks (Rather than 24-48 hours)?
- I was planning to have a separate starter for the clean ale yeast and pitch both concurrently

Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks guys!

I noticed something from SmokingHole in this thread about wanting to underpitch:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/sour-beer-starter-prepping-first-lambic-345895/index2.html

This is of course an argument towards NOT creating a starter. However, would using the dregs from one bottle in a 10 gallon batch take WAY too long?

I usually make starters with my dregs using DME or leftover wort & don't oxygenate. I tend to start small, like a cup, then step up over the course of a week or 2. I don't use a clean yeast along with it, just the dreg starter. They're generally quite sour in 6-8 weeks, but still take some time to get the desired complexity.

dcp27 said:

I usually make starters with my dregs using DME or leftover wort & don't oxygenate. I tend to start small, like a cup, then step up over the course of a week or 2. I don't use a clean yeast along with it, just the dreg starter. They're generally quite sour in 6-8 weeks, but still take some time to get the desired complexity.

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When do you determine that you need to ramp up during that week or two? In other words, what are the indicators that it's time to ramp up? I'm assuming things look and act differently than a traditional yeast starter.

i generally step it up the first time once a krausen has risen, then usually a few days apart after that. IME theres been enuf brett and/or sacch to act relatively normally