Culturing Dregs from Lindemans Gueuze Cuvée René

So I had a bottle, saved the dregs, pitched them into a 1.040 2 cups starter and I'm not seeing the usual action I do from the s. cervsae strains.

I expected something different with a lambic strain, and I do see some sediment on the bottom which I assume to be the yeast, and it does has a slightly funky smell, but its mostly worty smelling.

Anyone with experience culturing lambic dregs have any advice? I'm having a lot of trouble finding good advice on culturing lambic dregs. Any helpful links would also be much appreciated!

I'm pretty certain this beer is filtered or pasteurized. I've tried growing the dregs up from this beer twice and never had any luck with them

Bokonon said:

I'm pretty certain this beer is filtered or pasteurized. I've tried growing the dregs up from this beer twice and never had any luck with them

Click to expand...

That's what I was afraid of but I've also seen some sources (not at hand right now) that say that the Cuvée René from Lindeman's was not. I have heard that all of them were flash pasteurized though as well. I wish there was more info on this online!

According to oldsock's site, cuvee rene in not pasturized:

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2010/06/harvesting-sour-beer-bottle-dregs.html

Assuming the one he lists- "oude gueze" -is the regular one that's pretty easy to find. Searching around i couldn't find anything that lists them as two separate beers. The only reason i bring that up is because I know sometimes little subtleties in the names can designate an entirely different beer.

Cuvee Rene is most definitely NOT Pasturized. I have a very nice yeast sample from the dregs I just recently cultured. They went pretty nuts for a while, very active very quickly for me.

I wish I had seen this thread earlier today, I literally just barely put them into a vial from the bottle a few hours ago.

Although I've found with culturing lambics sometimes it's nearly two weeks and no activity but I'll see the beginnings of a pellicle.

I'd say toss in some yeast nutrient, aerate, and see if they'll wake up a bit more. How long has it been going?

Cheers,
Dave

i think i saw a couple of posts about this beer being good for culturing on BBB but recently i added dregs from 2 bottles to a cup of unhopped 1.030 wort and got nothing.

I'm not sure if it's pasteurized or not, but if there is viable yeast in there, it is probably pretty old and strained. You might have given them too much too quickly. I try to make my first wort at 1.020 and only use a couple of ounces. Give that a little time then build it up step by step, increasing wort gravity and volume gradually.

Great beer by the way. I bet you could get some good stuff from the bottle. Good luck.

while that sounds good and might be right, i have never had a problem with my method before. just sayin...

Definitely can culture Cuvée René dregs. I pitched the dregs into this wort (which was about 1.030-35ish) on March 18, and it had a pretty noticeable sacc-like fermentation after about 4 days, which subsided a few days ago, and now there are slightly larger bubbles starting to form what looks to become a pellicle of some sort:



It was aerated for about 15 minutes via stir plate, then roused once every couple days for the first week or so. Since then, it's just been sitting.

Now, I have to decide what to do with it....

I agree that what's in there is likely old and I would suspect that most of the viable yeast is brett rather than sacc. Especially if your bottle is fairly old. I harvested Orval dregs to get some brett B. I had a rough go at it because it took a couple of weeks and dropping the ph before the brett finally got itself moving.

So after a few days of pretty much nothing I added roughly 1/2 tsp of lemon juice to lower the PH. The next day it had a a downright bad smell like a barnyard or sweaty horse odor. I know that is how people describe the lambic flavors or some beers but this was almost downright nasty. I have never seen a pelicile form but I believe that one is forming currently from the looks of it as well.

Do you think I lowered the PH too much? Is the smell of the starter far from what I should expect if added to a beer?

DannPM said:

So after a few days of pretty much nothing I added roughly 1/2 tsp of lemon juice to lower the PH. The next day it had a a downright bad smell like a barnyard or sweaty horse odor. I know that is how people describe the lambic flavors or some beers but this was almost downright nasty. I have never seen a pelicile form but I believe that one is forming currently from the looks of it as well.

Do you think I lowered the PH too much? Is the smell of the starter far from what I should expect if added to a beer?

Click to expand...

Maybe but not necessarily. That sounds like brett though although it could also have pedio getting it soured.

ReverseApacheMaster said:

Maybe but not necessarily. That sounds like brett though although it could also have pedio getting it soured.

Click to expand...

The bad smell from a few days ago faded into a more pleasant one last night. Thinking of pitching this tonight.