WLP665 in Primary?

Anyone know if this blend is designed to be pitched in primary and then left on the lees (like Roselare) or if one would get better results pitching a clean yeast first and then using 665 to sour? My other thought was to pitch a vial of 665 alone with one vial of clean yeast to ensure that I get enough Sacc to ferment the beer down before the microbes take hold.

While the blend doesn't seem to have enough Sacc, since it contains Brett strains, my thought is that Brett would take over for Sacc and act as the dominant or a codominant yeast in the fermentation. Is this just crazy or should I RDWHAHB?

Planned beer is a Flanders Red (OG 1.052, mash temp 154) - any input on the recipe would be great as well.

Recipe:

4# Belgian Pils
2# Munich
2# Vienna
1# Wheat
8 oz Special B
8 oz 60L

0.75 oz EKG at 60 min (13 IBU).

Thanks!

I started an Oud Bruin with WLP665 and US-05 pitched in primary at the same time. I wish I could tell you more about how things are going but I only brewed this one towards the end of October so it is still very young.

Yeah, after thinking about it more I decided to pitch with US-05. Can't hurt, and better safe than sorry.

I leave Roeselare on the trub/lees for qutie some time (18 months) with no problems.

The Brettanomyces will use any old/dead yeast for nutrients as time passes, so if you're worried about autolysis, it's not an issue.

I emailed White Labs about 665 when I got mine. They recommend pitching just the 665 and leaving it in primary for at least a month before transferring it to the maturation vessel.

Judging from the tube I got (not much more than a tusting of sediment), and that their Sour Mix #1 is only ~7 billion cells total, I'd strongly suggest pitching some extra brewer's yeast. You want a strong healthy primary fermentation for a sour beer just like any other. Wyeast blends have a lot more cells, and I'll still pitch extra Sacch even with them.

Flemish red and our bruins tend to have a cleaner funk character from aging off of the primary yeast cake. You'll have a great beer either way, just depends on the character you want in the finished beer.

Edit: corrected number of cells in Sour Mix #1

Thanks for the input everyone - based on that I'll go ahead and pitch 665 with US-05 for the primary, leave it there for ~2 months, and then rack for long-term (10-12 month) aging. I'll be sure to post back periodically, esp with and racking I do onto fruit/wood for split batches before packaging and how it turns out.

Quick update - I pitched the WLP665 with US-05 in primary, and after a fairly vigorous early ferment (kraeusen stayed up for around 3 weeks), it's fallen and a nice funky pellicle has formed. The smell coming off the pellicle seems pretty normal for a sour - some good Brett funk and a nice lactic sourness with no vinegar/acetic hints. It's been on the lees for ~6 weeks now, so I'll rack it over to secondary in another 2-3 weeks for long-term aging (aiming for 10 months total before packaging).

Any thoughts on what to pitch onto these yeast dregs? I'd like to get more than one use out of the blend.

Wingy said:

Any thoughts on what to pitch onto these yeast dregs? I'd like to get more than one use out of the blend.

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Flanders Red?

AmandaK said:

Flanders Red?

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What's in the fermenter currently... I could always make a second one and blend if necessary.

Wingy said:

What's in the fermenter currently... I could always make a second one and blend if necessary.

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Okay then, American Golden Sour!

A stout! Tart of Darkness anyone? I'll probably rebrew a Flanders red and pitch on the cake of my current Flanders once it starts to taste done.

Thanks for the suggestions - unfortunately school has been getting a bit crazy these past few weeks so I didn't have time to brew up anything to pitch onto the yeast before racking. As a bonus, I have funky pellicle pictures (please tell me this is normalish and not just a raging mold infection).



Beer has a good sour aroma to it, but no real sourness in the taste yet (a bit of funk, but still fairly clean). Now that it's in secondary I'll let it ride for another 10 months or so and keep you guys posted.

One last question - gravity was 1.014 at sampling and I'd like to get it down to less than 1.010 or thereabouts. The bacteria/brett should keep dropping the gravity by munching on the sugars, yes? I mashed at 154 to make sure they had some good long chains. Thanks for the input!

Looks like mold to me. A healthy pellicle is always in the white-tan spectrum. Might be good to move it to a fermentor that is easier to seal, (e.g., carboy or better bottle).

Oldsock said:

Looks like mold to me. A healthy pellicle is always in the white-tan spectrum. Might be good to move it to a fermentor that is easier to seal, (e.g., carboy or better bottle).

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Crap. I racked it over to a glass carboy (much less headspace) 4 days ago - what should I do if the mold returns? And I know it's hard to say for sure without having actually seen it, but does it look like the mold was forming it's own pellice, or more so that the mold formed on the top of an extant pellicle? If I squint I can see a nice yellow-tan surface under the green and white stuff...

Thanks!

So hard to tell. Mold needs oxygen, any chance you have a kegging system and could flush the headspace with CO2? Make sure the airlock stays filled, and the stopper is snug. If it still returns it is probably something else. How did it taste/smell?

Oldsock said:

So hard to tell. Mold needs oxygen, any chance you have a kegging system and could flush the headspace with CO2? Make sure the airlock stays filled, and the stopper is snug. If it still returns it is probably something else. How did it taste/smell?

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I'll try to flush the headspace with C02 - taste was fine (nothing too funky/sour, but it hadn't been aging that long) and smell was similar to Brett C/some sort of bug with prominent lactic acid and not too much acetic. There's some stringy tan bits floating around, but I'm not too worried about those... could be Pedio, yeast, or some other fun stuff. Hopefully I'll have a new pellicle in a few weeks and I'll post a picture then.

Racking over to a glass carboy has solved the mold problem! For the first few weeks after racking, there was a pellicle/kraeusen(ish) thing that formed on top of the beer (it was tan-colored and about 0.5cm thick), but that has dropped and is being replaced by a slightly opaque/whitish (the flash in the photo makes it look much whiter than it is) film on the surface.

Any ideas on what the film is? I'm not worried that it's anything bad, just hoping to build up my "field guide to sour beer pellicle" knowledge.

I realize the OP is from November, but for what it is worth I started 2 beers in early December with WLP655.

#1 is an Oud Bruin. I only pitched WLP655. After 2 weeks transferred to secondary
#2 is a WIt. I used WYeast Belgian Wit for primary. After 2 weeks transferred to secondary and then pitched WLP655.

Tasted both a few days ago and #1 is very sour. #2 tastes most notably like a wit with a little funkiness to it.

Both currently have very thin pellicles, hardly noticable. They have looked this way the entire time. They are being stored in a closet at roughly 72 degrees.