Consecration kit from MoreBeer

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If you have access to Russian River sours, you can use the dregs from the bottles to add to secondary to get similar results. You don't really need the chunk of barrel.

I was contemplating doing a Westy 12 clone with a pitch of RR dregs in secondary. Well... RR or possibly Orval since it's infinitely easier to source on the East coast... but I'd really like to do RR.
 
Just ordered this kit last night. I've heard great things about the "real" version and it's impossible to get in Pennsylvania, so brewing my own is the next best thing! Looking forward to it!

Yea you can pretty much get it whenever you want in Philly and the surrounding suburbs.
 
I was contemplating doing a Westy 12 clone with a pitch of RR dregs in secondary. Well... RR or possibly Orval since it's infinitely easier to source on the East coast... but I'd really like to do RR.

I've never had a westy, but it's not a sour beer. Consecration is. Unless I'm misunderstanding your intentions, RR dregs would ruin a Westy clone.
 
One thing that confuses me is the note on the site says: "You will need to purchase a yeast for primary (we recommend Abbey Ale), Brettanomyces for the souring/aging process," Then the body of the description mentions to buy roselare yeast. Wouldn't the barrel chunks have the bug on them? Why do we need to buy separate bugs if the barrel chunks already have the bugs on them?
 
I don't think the barrel chunks have anything viable in it. They might, but I wouldn't count on it. I think the barrel thing is more marketing than actually getting the RR bugs.
 
I don't think the barrel chunks have anything viable in it. They might, but I wouldn't count on it. I think the barrel thing is more marketing than actually getting the RR bugs.

I just added oak and got pretty close with my clone. Roeselare. I'll probably give it another try in the fall (I've got a ton of it that needs drinking... )

2011-11-06_at_14_04_11.jpg
 
passedpawn said:
I just added oak and got pretty close with my clone. Roeselare. I'll probably give it another try in the fall (I've got a ton of it that needs drinking... )

Congrats, also I'm both jealous and envious
 
I just added oak and got pretty close with my clone. Roeselare. I'll probably give it another try in the fall (I've got a ton of it that needs drinking... )

To clarify, I didn't mean that the beer doesn't benefit from the oak; there's just probably nothing special about using the oak in the kit versus any other oak at Morebeer except you can tell people you aged your clone on RR barrel wood.
 
I may be wrong. But I'm pretty sure the bacteria can survive I'm the oak, as long as you don't heat it up
 
I thought so too, especially since in the description it says to store the oak in a cool place. I was excited there for a second but if the oak doesn't have the bugs on it then there is no real reason to get the kit.
 
I agree. People have been using the oak from RR for years with success.

It's a race for the various bugs and fungii to consume the available sugars. I'm guessing that the smackpack from Wyeast has a lot more bugs than an old dried chunk of barrel from RR, so the contribution from that chunk would be minimal at best. That's a guess, but a good one I think.

I think you'd be better served by dropping a bit of Cabernet in there rather than the wood. When I told Vinnie I didn't get the vinous character from the zante currants, he said maybe the character came from the wood of the cab barrels. I think there might be a bit of wine left in there ;)
 
I may be wrong. But I'm pretty sure the bacteria can survive I'm the oak, as long as you don't heat it up

Bacteria can, as long as the conditions are right for it. The question is how much of the bacteria and brett from the beer is viable in it. Did the wood get sulfite treatment before being cut up? What conditions was the barrel exposed to after getting drained to getting cut up? It's plausible the oak picked up some less welcomed bacteria and yeast along the way, especially if it was left sitting out somewhere and cut up in less than sanitary conditions. These oak chunks may not have the same degree of care taken with the bags of barrel chips from RR handed out a few years back.
 
I just added oak and got pretty close with my clone. Roeselare. I'll probably give it another try in the fall (I've got a ton of it that needs drinking... )

2011-11-06_at_14_04_11.jpg

What....that's not very long for a sour to develop.
 
What....that's not very long for a sour to develop.

I fermented it for about 7 or 8 months, and probably half of that was on the oak and currants that I added. When I typed "just" I meant that instead of using a barrel (or part of one) I "just" added oak chips. BTW, I think it was getting noticeably sour in about 2 months. I put my notes on this beer here somewhere.

I made a second batch that fermented a bit longer.
 
It's a race for the various bugs and fungii to consume the available sugars. I'm guessing that the smackpack from Wyeast has a lot more bugs than an old dried chunk of barrel from RR, so the contribution from that chunk would be minimal at best. That's a guess, but a good one I think.

I think you'd be better served by dropping a bit of Cabernet in there rather than the wood. When I told Vinnie I didn't get the vinous character from the zante currants, he said maybe the character came from the wood of the cab barrels. I think there might be a bit of wine left in there ;)

I agree with your statement regarding the wine taste of a barrel. The solera I have living in a cabernet sauvignon barrel tastes very vinous. I expect that to drop off with each subsequent batch I pull/fill. I have compared the same beer fermented in better bottles to the barrel and the barrel has a much rounder taste, which I attribute to not only the wine, but also the O2 transfer which a barrel provides.

As far as the RR chips, I think that people are making starters with the wood to build up the colony and see if it tastes ok before pitching into the beer. Otherwise, a smack pack would definitely take over the batch before the RR bugs had a chance to propagate.
 
passedpawn said:
I fermented it for about 7 or 8 months, and probably half of that was on the oak and currants that I added. When I typed "just" I meant that instead of using a barrel (or part of one) I "just" added oak chips. BTW, I think it was getting noticeably sour in about 2 months. I put my notes on this beer here somewhere.

I made a second batch that fermented a bit longer.

Sorry...I thought that was using the morebeer kit.
 
Here is the grain bill...
11 pounds rahr 2 row
8oz acidulated malt
4oz special b
4 oz carafa
Adjuncts..
1lb dark Belgian syrup
1lb corn sugar
Hops...
.5 oz styrian goldings. Bitter hop
1oz sterling flavor
1 oz sterling. Aroma

Whirlfloc..
Mash at 158-159
Og 1.073-77
Est Srm 11.5
Est Ibu 84-88...

Extract build
8lbs ultralight me
.5 dry malt ext
1lb dark candi
1lb corn sugar
Steeping grains
8oz acidulated malt
4oz special b
4oz carafa
Hops
Same as above
 
Here is the grain bill...
11 pounds rahr 2 row
8oz acidulated malt
4oz special b
4 oz carafa
Adjuncts..
1lb dark Belgian syrup
1lb corn sugar
Hops...
.5 oz styrian goldings. Bitter hop
1oz sterling flavor
1 oz sterling. Aroma

Whirlfloc..
Mash at 158-159
Og 1.073-77
Est Srm 11.5
Est Ibu 84-88...
I think you've got an error there, with the est IBUs. There's no way they could be that high with that small amount of low AA hops. Most sour brews are never over 25ish, but I think the hops in your recipe would be in the teens for IBUs which would be appropriate for this beer. The hop bill looks perfect, but the IBU calculation is wrong.
 
bigljd said:
I think you've got an error there, with the est IBUs. There's no way they could be that high with that small amount of low AA hops. Most sour brews are never over 25ish, but I think the hops in your recipe would be in the teens for IBUs which would be appropriate for this beer. The hop bill looks perfect, but the IBU calculation is wrong.

I just copy and pasted what the piece of paper from morebeer said. I don't agree with them either..but didn't want to change what they typed
 
As far as the RR chips, I think that people are making starters with the wood to build up the colony and see if it tastes ok before pitching into the beer. Otherwise, a smack pack would definitely take over the batch before the RR bugs had a chance to propagate.

Yeah I kind of figured that this is the primary reason for getting the chunks however I haven't seen anyone really post about this yet. Any suggestions on the best way to do this, sizing, and timing? I'm guessing a 1L starter cooled and then just drop the chunks in? I'm guessing no aeration so as not to get any aceto character?

Then when to pitch?
 
From what I'm reading on the directions in the kit. It's saying after primary with the abby, rack onto the currents and pitch the sour blend...wait for the desired sourness..then re rack and pitch the chips...from what I'm seeing its just oak flavor and the ability to saying I aged this on rr barrel chips..not so much the bugs in the wood
 
I just copy and pasted what the piece of paper from morebeer said. I don't agree with them either..but didn't want to change what they typed

Gotcha - I kinda thought that might be the case, I just didn't want anyone using the recipe to read that and say "Wow, I better bump up my hops to 88 IBUs" and end up with a non-sour Bretty dark IPA. :mug:

Maybe if Jipper is reading this he can look into having them fix that.
 
Hey All,

The recipe sheets were incorrect. The hop schedule should leave you between 15-19 IBU, so I would stick to the hops and hop schedule provided and am very sorry for the typo on the recipe sheets! If anybody has any questions regarding the grain/extract/hops included please let me know and I will gladly answer those for you. Again, very sorry for the incorrect information (IBU, SRM, and Estimated ABV were incorrect on the original recipe sheets that were sent out)

Cheers!
 
Jipper On a different note I order a shallow grave porter all grain kit as well and the sheet I got was for extract..is there anyway you could message me the mash temp and hop schedule
 
Hey Leolee,

Sorry for not getting you the correct recipe sheet for that kit, but good choice on the Shallow Grave! The hop schedule will remain the same as the extract version, and I would recommend mashing at 153-155*F. If you had the ability, I would recommend mashing at 147-149*F for 20 minutes, and raising the temp to 153-155*F until starch conversion is complete (30-40 minutes longer). I brewed a 15.5 gallon batch of this when we had first released it, and ended up oaking 5 gallons just for fun with 1oz of French oak cubes, medium toast. Both the oaked and non-oaked beers came out very well, but splitting that batch was a fun experiment!

Let me know if anyone has any other questions regarding our kits and I'll gladly help with those - cheers!
 
For those pitching from dregs of Consecration bottles-

wouldn't you just be pitching mainly the wine yeast? Vinnie bottle conditions with Rockpile wine yeast. So not only are you having bugs eat away... you'd be fermenting your beer with wine yeast. Right?
 
For those pitching from dregs of Consecration bottles-

wouldn't you just be pitching mainly the wine yeast? Vinnie bottle conditions with Rockpile wine yeast. So not only are you having bugs eat away... you'd be fermenting your beer with wine yeast. Right?

Same question here for those that grow up pitches from dregs for sour beers. Even if there was no bottling yeast put in there, wouldn't the ratio of bugs (and therefore flavor / effect) be different after growing these up?
 
Same question here for those that grow up pitches from dregs for sour beers. Even if there was no bottling yeast put in there, wouldn't the ratio of bugs (and therefore flavor / effect) be different after growing these up?

Yes but they would still be there and add a little depth to the beer.
 
For those pitching from dregs of Consecration bottles-

wouldn't you just be pitching mainly the wine yeast? Vinnie bottle conditions with Rockpile wine yeast. So not only are you having bugs eat away... you'd be fermenting your beer with wine yeast. Right?

Well the brett and bacteria should still be floating around. Wine yeast generally only consume simple sugars so they will leave the malt sugars for the ale yeast and the more complex stuff for brett and the bacteria.
 
That's correct - you'd be pitching the wine yeast at the same time you're pitching the bugs/brett. If you were to grow up dregs from other sour beers that strictly used a brettanomyces for conditioning I think you'd come across some very similar flavors to the original beer, but there are so many variables that come into play, it's hard to say you'd get an exact replica. If you were to use the dregs from one bottle just to condition your bottles (rather than fermenting with the dregs) you'd have a similar effect that the dregs had on the original beer, but again, it's just one of many variables involved in the beer.

Trying to replicate somebody's pale ale recipe is somewhat simple (provided you have temperature controlled fermentation, make the same size yeast starter for the same amount of time, etc). Replicating somebody's sour beer recipe is an entirely different task. Our Consecration kit was provided to us from Vinnie himself, with some rather specific details on his processes. Even with all of these details it is hard to make Consecration - I mean if anybody out there is using a Cabernet barrel during the aging/souring stages, then you have a much better shot, but still...making Consecration exactly like Vinnie is somewhat of a longshot. This recipe and kit will make some EXTREMELY good sour beer however (I recently tasted mine which has been sitting in a barrel for roughly 6 weeks now and it's coming along rather nicely). If anybody has any questions just let me know - great question tmains regarding the wine yeast when pitching dregs. In the end, Vinnie is using the same yeast that everyone here has access to, so pitching dregs may not be the best option for this particular kit, but I haven't tried it so can't say exactly what the outcome would be. Anybody that is trying this method please feel free to chime in; I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering how it's going!

Cheers everyone!
 
Matt,

Excited to be brewing this weekend!

My recipe sheet has the right IBU (15-18). What are the correct OG, SRM and ABV targets?

Also, I don't see any guidance for temperature for secondary fermentation - any guidance there? How warm is too warm?

Thanks!
 
If your recipe sheet has the correct IBU than all of the other information should be correct as well. The SRM should be around 30, OG between 1.073-1.078 (I think sheet says 1.073-1.077?) and ABV will be around 9% (this is prior to the brettanomyces - afterwards it will be around 10% which is what actual consecration is).

Secondary temperature is an excellent question. I currently have my barrel around 72*F and that has been working well for me. B. Lambicus is good up to 75*F, and I am unfortunately not certain what temperature Vinnie has his barrel room at. I'm guessing it would be lower than 72*F, but uncertain.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Cheers!
 
If your recipe sheet has the correct IBU than all of the other information should be correct as well. The SRM should be around 30, OG between 1.073-1.078 (I think sheet says 1.073-1.077?) and ABV will be around 9% (this is prior to the brettanomyces - afterwards it will be around 10% which is what actual consecration is).

Secondary temperature is an excellent question. I currently have my barrel around 72*F and that has been working well for me. B. Lambicus is good up to 75*F, and I am unfortunately not certain what temperature Vinnie has his barrel room at. I'm guessing it would be lower than 72*F, but uncertain.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Cheers!

Thanks Matt - that's helpful. Once more question for you and anyone else who wants to chime in. I thought I've seen that Vinnie uses a Brett mix along the lines of: 50% Brett Brux., 10% Brett Claus., 10% Brett Lambicus, and his RR Funky mix of Brett, Pedio, Lacto.

I'll pitch Brett only first. I don't know of any Brett only mixes, just pure Brett strains. Should I go with Brett L.? I'm making a 10 gal batch, and considering splitting secondary into two with one Brett L and one Brett B, just to see what comes out. And of course pitch something like Roeselare 7-8 weeks later. Thoughts?
 
Hey Nesto,

Another great question. I am using Brett L on mine, and will be pitching Roeselare next Monday after NHC. I unfortunately don't know exactly what blend he uses if he does use one - he just told us "Brett" when he emailed the recipe over. "We add 1 million cells of Brett per ml beer to the beer. I assume you'll figure this to be say one vile per X gallons of beer...We do not purge the barrel with Co2, but, it might not hurt. We leave a minimum of 5 gallons of head space and usually more like 8 gallons. There is a lot of residual sugar and sugar from the currants that the Brett will ferment out."

1 Gallon = 3,785mL, but I don't know how many cells are in on vial of White Labs/packet of Wyeast (White Labs has 35mL in their Brett, Wyeast has 100mL in their Brett)

He also mentions adding more Brett when he adds his bugs after the original addition.

I think the split of Brett B and Brett L is a good idea, not only to see the differences, but to blend later. You could find a good blend (50/50, 30/70, etc), or find that you like them individually.

Cheers!
 
Hey Nesto,

Another great question. I am using Brett L on mine, and will be pitching Roeselare next Monday after NHC. I unfortunately don't know exactly what blend he uses if he does use one - he just told us "Brett" when he emailed the recipe over. "We add 1 million cells of Brett per ml beer to the beer. I assume you'll figure this to be say one vile per X gallons of beer...We do not purge the barrel with Co2, but, it might not hurt. We leave a minimum of 5 gallons of head space and usually more like 8 gallons. There is a lot of residual sugar and sugar from the currants that the Brett will ferment out."

1 Gallon = 3,785mL, but I don't know how many cells are in on vial of White Labs/packet of Wyeast (White Labs has 35mL in their Brett, Wyeast has 100mL in their Brett)

He also mentions adding more Brett when he adds his bugs after the original addition.

I think the split of Brett B and Brett L is a good idea, not only to see the differences, but to blend later. You could find a good blend (50/50, 30/70, etc), or find that you like them individually.

Cheers!

Ok - good to know. We'll have to work on our yeast supplier friends to give us a Brett blend ;-)

And thanks for the idea, hadn't really though of blending, but that will be a fun experiment too.
 
I just plugged this into BeerSmith and while the OG, color, and ABV is correct, the IBUs (28 Tinsenth; 33 Rager) seem way off - almost double. Below is a pic of what I have which I believe I've entered correctly given the recipe sheet. Any ideas?

Recipe sheet (hops):
0.5 oz Styrian Goldings @ 90 min. (I received 4% AA)
1 oz Sterling @ 30 min. (I received 7.3%)
1 oz Sterling @ 1 min. (I received 7.3%)

Consecration.jpg
 
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