Consecration kit from MoreBeer

*old hops!

Old hops- as long as they smell good, and were stored well- should be ok. But only for bittering. Also, IBUs are LOW on this.
o2 permeability- I don't think O2 (emphasis on think) is necessary for the bugs, in fact O2 increases the chance and level of acetobacter which is not wanted. Think vinegar. Not the sourness you want

lawnboy881 said:

Now my question for those with the kit, what for do the currents come in? Fresh? Dried?

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Dried in a 2 lb. vacuum sealed bag. It's a big, sticky glob that you need to break up to get into the carboy. Getting them out when it's finished is going to be interesting. Before I pitch the Roeselare I'm going to be tempted to move it into one of my new Speidel fermenters with the nice wide lid.

Thanks Lawnboy!

FYI I did some asking and learned the cell count for Brett cultures per vial/pack from both White Labs (2.5 - 4.0 Billion) and Wyeast (75 Billion). No brainer here....

I've also been considering just direct pitching a mixed culture from the get go, or possibly splitting into two buckets/carboys/better bottles and pitching a mixed blend into one, and following the RR routine for another.

TD

Ingredients all on hand (except the yeast, on order). Cleaned out the local supermarket of all its Zante Currants! 10 boxes each 10 oz net weight. Might put me slightly over on the 0.5 pound per gallon mark...

I brewed my version of this today.

80% two row (Ok I subbed a smidge of Golden Promise into this cause I ran out of base 2 row)
1.5% Belgian Chocolate
1.5% Belgian debittered black malt
1.5% Belgian Special B
2.1% acid malt was needed for proper pH

Hopped to 13.7 IBUs
styrian goldings at 60 minutes
sterling at 30 and again at 1 minute
split 1 oz of 2008 vintage hops into thirds at each addition to make it interesting

split into 2 buckets for primary.
Ended up at 1.093 OG, boiled down a bit more than anticipated I think.
Added 2.5 lbs granulated sugar and 2 lbs of D-180 Candi Syrup the last 10 minutes.

pitched 1 smack pack of roeselare blend into one at start after oxygenation.
pitched a super thick sludge of WLP 530 yeast off the bottom of my conical re-suspended with water. 1 cup of yeast sludge. wow this stuff was thick. Felt like I was milking the silicone tubing like a cow udder.... Not sure how to calculate the pitch rate on this. just seems like I was getting pure yeast and not much trub looking crud.

Going to rack both buckets in 1-2 weeks into better bottle carboys. I'm adding the brettanoymyeces (1 pouch Brett B and on pouch Brett C ) into the WLP530 batch, and a pouch of Roeselare blend after another 4 weeks into that, to preserve the Russian River approach. Both will get "zante currants" at racking.

In the meantime, I'm thinking about boiling or steaming some oak chips to sanitize, and then let them soak up some cabernet wine, maybe even doing this in a CO2 purged vessel, and using the smallest amount of wine to soak the chips. want to avoid making wine vinegar. I am thinking this will be done around Halloween 2014 in anticipation of a Black Friday 2014 bottling, and letting the oak sit on the beer for about 2 weeks.

Plenty of time to fuss about it with a year left.....

TD

I got a notice that the AG and extract versions were back in stock this morning. Just sat down to order one now and they are out again. Sigh.

I just picked up the grains for this recipe and am thinking of using a different process then the way it's recommended by morebeer.

Since I'll only be using a bug blend in the primary, would it make sense to add syrup and dextrose at the same time as the currents? Wait for the saccharomyces to die off and let the brett and bugs have more of a flavor contribution as they work on the fruit and syrup.

Without syrup, dextrose, and currents the OG is only 1.061 in beersmith with 70% efficiency. If FG is 1.004 that is 7% ABV

After adding 2.5lbs of currents, 1lbs of dextrose, and 1 lbs of candi syrup OG is up to 1.094. If FG is 1.004 that is 12% ABV

A lower ABV would help pediococcus and Brett increase their numbers before the fruit is added. If pedio stops working due to alcohol and brett stops due to acidity, wine yeast could be added to finish the fermentation since only the simple sugars should remain from fruit and syrup.

I feel our process should be different than the one used at Russian River since most of us don't use individual organisms or cold crash and centrifuge to remove Saccharomyces. Our timeline would also be extended due to slower action of brett in an acidic environment and waiting for the saccromyces to die before adding the fruit. It would be more like making a fruit lambic where all the organisms meet the wort in the beginning of fermentation and then boosting the alcohol once souring has already occurred.

Thoughts from someone more experienced?

Yum! Racked my batch today onto the "currants". Added Brett Lambicus and Brux. to the WLP530 fermented batch. The Roeselare Blend batch smelled heavenly. I ended up splitting into two primary fermenters and pitched the roeselare blend into one from the get go. Can't wait, but I'll have to, to try these brews.. TD Oh and to the previous poster, this is my first ever sour. I've no clue what I'm doing, but its fun and I hope it turns out good!

Edit- the better bottles were pretty full. I'm hoping the fermentation doesn't get very aggressive or I'll run into problems...

Going to be brewing this soon. I wanted to ask if what I'm thinking about doing would be ok to do. I understand that with this brew you need to stop fermentation when it reaches 1.020 gravity and transfer into secondary afterwards. I brew all my beer at my friends house 5 hours away and usually visit once a month. Would it be ok to put the primary into a temp controlled chest freezer when it reaches that gravity and leave it for a few weeks till I make it back there to transfer it?

Mycues1982 said:

Going to be brewing this soon. I wanted to ask if what I'm thinking about doing would be ok to do. I understand that with this brew you need to stop fermentation when it reaches 1.020 gravity and transfer into secondary afterwards. I brew all my beer at my friends house 5 hours away and usually visit once a month. Would it be ok to put the primary into a temp controlled chest freezer when it reaches that gravity and leave it for a few weeks till I make it back there to transfer it?

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The idea is that you want to leave a controlled amount of sugars around for the bug/brett blend to go to town and sour/funk before there's nothing left and it has to slowing eat thru the longer chain sugars.

Will you still make a good beer with letting the primary finish? Most likely. Will it be as sour as if you saved some sugar for the bugs and brett to get started on? Nope.

cadillacandy said:

The idea is that you want to leave a controlled amount of sugars around for the bug/brett blend to go to town and sour/funk before there's nothing left and it has to slowing eat thru the longer chain sugars.

Will you still make a good beer with letting the primary finish? Most likely. Will it be as sour as if you saved some sugar for the bugs and brett to get started on? Nope.

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I'm going to have to disagree somewhat, firstly assuming his OG is 1.078-80 the saccharomyces will probably finish in the 1.014-17 (roughly 80% AA) range which is the recommended range per Vinny. Even if it finishes at 1.012, you'll have plenty of long chain sugars for the bugs to work on, not to mention Brett breaks down yeast esters from primary fermentation as well. Plus, youre adding some sugar to the beer when you add the currants to.

I wouldn't stress about it too much, let the primary finish then add your bugs. Or you could do what I did and add everything all at once, but I used Bugfarm 5 for my version so its not exactly a clone.

Worst case scenario, if the beer finished at say 1.008 after primary, just add some maltodextrin when adding the bugs. But even then I would just stay the course and let it ride.

I pitched wlp530 for half, racked after primary (no gravity check) onto currants and added wyeast Brett B and Brett L packs, one month after this, roeselare blend going in. Not sure when to add any oak, but might add when I do the roeselare blend. I am wondering how to contribute a wine flavoring that might be from previously used Cabernet barrels that RR uses. Maybe a few oz of Cabernet. That will probably just turn to vinegar though.... Maybe I wait and do that part near bottling.

Anyways, getting back on track, the second half I pitched roeselare blend for primary. I racked onto currants at the same time as the other half, and certainly primary seemed complete.

Both are now working on the currants, and there is visible fermentation happening.

Looking forward to compare the two to see which I prefer.

TD

Coff said:

I'm going to have to disagree somewhat, firstly assuming his OG is 1.078-80 the saccharomyces will probably finish in the 1.014-17 (roughly 80% AA) range which is the recommended range per Vinny. Even if it finishes at 1.012, you'll have plenty of long chain sugars for the bugs to work on, not to mention Brett breaks down yeast esters from primary fermentation as well. Plus, youre adding some sugar to the beer when you add the currants to.

I wouldn't stress about it too much, let the primary finish then add your bugs. Or you could do what I did and add everything all at once, but I used Bugfarm 5 for my version so its not exactly a clone.

Worst case scenario, if the beer finished at say 1.008 after primary, just add some maltodextrin when adding the bugs. But even then I would just stay the course and let it ride.

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Let me preface this by saying it's certainly not intended to be argumentative. I just wanted to clarify for my own info and to keep the thread filled with valuable, non-conflicting advice and comments.

I'm not quite sure what you're disagreeing with. My point was that by leaving more short chain sugars for the lactic acid producing bacteria (Lactobacillus and Pediococus) to consume you would end up with a more sour end product. The bugs and brett will certainly go to town on the longer chain sugars that the primary sacch strain leaves behind, but by cutting the primary short you're giving them that much more food to build up their colony and make the sour, sour lactic acid that we're all so fond of.

I also mentioned that allowing the primary to finish and then adding the bugs will still make good beer. I used the words "most likely" because there are too many variables to give absolutes with sour beer.

I am in progress with the wild brews book. I've never brewed any funky or sour beers (intentionally that is) until this one. I've seen posted and read here on various threads, about a few things.

It's seems from what I have read, that there are many complex things happening at the same time. I think it is likely to be true that for sour flavors from the bacteria, there must be some metabolic fuel they consume that will result in lactic acid production. Contrarily, for the brettanomyces yeast to produce its funky flavors, it relies on a variety of non-saccharide sources to produce its flavors, while it can also consume sugars. It seems that are many factors which I poorly understand that can be manipulated to generate the desired effect from the brettanomyces, such as pressure, as in a sealed fermentation with headspace pressure, availability of oxygen, availability of precursor esters from non- Brett cerevesie metabolism, and possibly availability of
Other flavor compounds such as phenols, amino acids, aldehydes, ketones, and such from the partially fermented wort constituents and yeast by products (if this is a secondary fermentation). Finally competition of the Brett yeast and conventional yeast and bacteria, their relative populations and different growth rates, plus toxic by products of alcohol and acids will probably have a competitive inhibitory effect upon the various organisms at some point that will alter the balance of the resulting flavor compounds and acids that are created. Being inexperienced with both tasting as well as brewing these styles, I'm not sure what's going to happen. I don't really even have a firm frame of reference on what the different levels of sour or funk even are. I guess this means that I won't know if I have hit or missed my target, but everyone has to start somewhere.

There is no doubt, that the commercial example of consecration is sour. The RR process is well explained in interviews with VC. I attempting to loosely follow that plan with one carboy(better bottle), and doing the mixed pitch into the second.

By the way, when should I apply the solid bungs?

TD

cadillacandy said:

Let me preface this by saying it's certainly not intended to be argumentative. I just wanted to clarify for my own info and to keep the thread filled with valuable, non-conflicting advice and comments.

I'm not quite sure what you're disagreeing with. My point was that by leaving more short chain sugars for the lactic acid producing bacteria (Lactobacillus and Pediococus) to consume you would end up with a more sour end product. The bugs and brett will certainly go to town on the longer chain sugars that the primary sacch strain leaves behind, but by cutting the primary short you're giving them that much more food to build up their colony and make the sour, sour lactic acid that we're all so fond of.

I also mentioned that allowing the primary to finish and then adding the bugs will still make good beer. I used the words "most likely" because there are too many variables to give absolutes with sour beer.

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Yea, sorry if I came across as argumentative, that wasnt my intention. My response wasn't great at pinpointing what I disagreed with, so it probably came across as rambling.

cadillacandy said:

Will you still make a good beer with letting the primary finish? Most likely. Will it be as sour as if you saved some sugar for the bugs and brett to get started on? Nope.

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I'm nitpicking, but it was the use of the word "Nope" here that gave me reason to disagree. Like you mentioned above, there are too many variables at hand to give absolutes with mixed fermentation beers.

What I was trying to get at is even with 80% AA (the upper range of WLP530) on a 1.075+ OG beer there will be plenty left for the bugs to work on without trying to stop fermentation. IMO, and thats all it is since I am no expert, is that the poster shouldn't worry about stopping fermentation since the primary strain will only go so far in this wort and will likely finish within the range that Vinny "suggests" (1.016).

Coff said:

Yea, sorry if I came across as argumentative, that wasnt my intention. My response wasn't great at pinpointing what I disagreed with, so it probably came across as rambling.



I'm nitpicking, but it was the use of the word "Nope" here that gave me reason to disagree. Like you mentioned above, there are too many variables at hand to give absolutes with mixed fermentation beers.

What I was trying to get at is even with 80% AA (the upper range of WLP530) on a 1.075+ OG beer there will be plenty left for the bugs to work on without trying to stop fermentation. IMO, and thats all it is since I am no expert, is that the poster shouldn't worry about stopping fermentation since the primary strain will only go so far in this wort and will almost certainly finish in the range that Vinny "suggests" (1.016).

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Thanks for the reply and clarification. You didn't come across as argumentative at all. It's just so hard to determine how people mean things on these here interwebz that I just wanted to make sure I wasn't being rude or anything.

I agree with not worrying about it too much - like you mentioned, you can always add maltodextrine to give the bugs something to continue to chew on.

My primary with WLP530 got down to 1.014 from a starting gravity of 1.073. I meant to stop my primary and it just got away from me. My first pull was at 1.010 and was after a little under a year of sitting. I haven't checked where it ended up now, but I brewed it 6/2012 and have kind of been doing a mini solera thing with it. Pulling off a couple of bottles and then adding some wort back in.

cadillacandy said:

My point was that by leaving more short chain sugars for the lactic acid producing bacteria (Lactobacillus and Pediococus) to consume you would end up with a more sour end product. The bugs and brett will certainly go to town on the longer chain sugars that the primary sacch strain leaves behind, but by cutting the primary short you're giving them that much more food to build up their colony and make the sour, sour lactic acid that we're all so fond of.

I also mentioned that allowing the primary to finish and then adding the bugs will still make good beer. I used the words "most likely" because there are too many variables to give absolutes with sour beer.

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cadillacandy said:

My primary with WLP530 got down to 1.014 from a starting gravity of 1.073. I meant to stop my primary and it just got away from me. My first pull was at 1.010 and was after a little under a year of sitting. I haven't checked where it ended up now, but I brewed it 6/2012 and have kind of been doing a mini solera thing with it. Pulling off a couple of bottles and then adding some wort back in.

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Just how do you stop the yeast from finishing up it's fermentation? You either have to pasteurize or use a fine filter. Cold crashing, or just racking to secondary will carry over plenty of yeast to finish off the simple sugars before any Lacto, Pedio, or Brett has a chance to work on anything. Trying to stop the beer at 1.020 is a pointless exercise. The only practical way to do it is to design the beer to have an FG of 1.020.

With alcohol, and anaerobic conditions, the Lacto, Pedio, and Brett will take weeks to build up their populations to where they might start contributing flavors to the beer. Not sure you will get much, if anything out of the lacto in a 1.080 beer if pitched after the yeast. You will be relying on the Pedio to produce the lactic acid.

Calder said:

Just how do you stop the yeast from finishing up it's fermentation? You either have to pasteurize or use a fine filter. Cold crashing, or just racking to secondary will carry over plenty of yeast to finish off the simple sugars before any Lacto, Pedio, or Brett has a chance to work on anything. Trying to stop the beer at 1.020 is a pointless exercise. The only practical way to do it is to design the beer to have an FG of 1.020.

With alcohol, and anaerobic conditions, the Lacto, Pedio, and Brett will take weeks to build up their populations to where they might start contributing flavors to the beer. Not sure you will get much, if anything out of the lacto in a 1.080 beer if pitched after the yeast. You will be relying on the Pedio to produce the lactic acid.

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I didn't actually attempt to stop anything, but my plan was to cold crash to drop as much as I could out of suspension, then add a cake from a previous sour beer (second generation of Wyeast Roeselare). The intention was that I'd have a strong enough of a colony to get to work before the sacch was able to produce enough to continue it's job.

To be honest, I think I'm combining a couple different points from a couple different brewers and maybe not thinking it out the way I should be.

Based on what I've heard in interviews from Vinnie they pitch the sacch first in this beer, then centrifuge the yeast out when it hits 1.016 or so, then pitch brett for a couple of weeks, then add bacteria.

Flat Tail Brewing was on the Sunday Session not too long ago and they're big on using lacto and brett, with sacch thrown in sometimes, but don't typically use pedio - the intention is to turn sour beers around more quickly. A couple of things that I took away from that interview - pitch your bugs and brett when there is lots of good, short chain sugars for them to go to town on if you want beer to sour more quickly.

So my thought was that by stopping - or rather drastically cutting the sacch population by cold crashing and racking off the majority of the yeast, then pitching your bug/brett blend, you'd be giving them a chance to get to work and eat up some of the short chain stuff before the sacch had a chance to get back up to strength to finish.

So I guess the variables in my thought process are -

1- How long does it take for lacto and pedio to build up enough to start producing noticeable levels of lactic acid?

2 - How does the amount of alcohol effect the speed at which the bacteria reproduce? As far as I'm aware, lacto and pedio don't need oxygen to produce lactic acid. Correct me on the oxygen thing if I'm wrong. I just did some brief research on Google.

So I guess the question would be why Russian River stops their fermentation at 1.016? I guess maybe by leaving some short chain sugar around, centrifuging and pitching an active quantity of brett they're getting more funkiness in a shorter period of time? Or maybe it helps to build up the brett so it can help to absorb the diacetyl from the pedio more efficiently?

Sorry for the long reply... lots and lots to think about.

I really don't think there is any stopping of fermentation, I think it just ferments out to 1.016.

Longtime lurker, first time poster. In regard to WLP530, I haven't seen it attenuate beyond 1.018 the two times I used it. I think that is fine if you intend to continue to ferment with Brett and then Lacto/Pedio in the Russian River method.

Nobody has mentioned it, but has anyone used ECY Bug Country for a Consecration batch? I scored a bottle from the last release without a real plan for it... anyone?

I don't know that you want to "stop" fermentation so much as just move it to secondary and pitch the bugs before primary fermentation has completed. I recently listened to the Jamil Show podcast from the Brewing Network on brewing Flemish Reds and he talked about fermenting the primary down to the low to mid 20s and then pitching the bugs. Makes sense to me.

hllywd said:

Nobody has mentioned it, but has anyone used ECY Bug Country for a Consecration batch? I scored a bottle from the last release without a real plan for it... anyone?

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That's exactly what I used, mine is 14 months old, just added the oak and it's tasting mighty fine even still.

It's a great blend for this beer IMO. Plus, you don't have to worry about "stopping fermentation"

Didn't worry about stopping it on the first batch. Never heard of the idea until very recently. My primary went off like a rocket, and I racked on to what amounted to an overnight starter of the currants, a quart of starter wort, and the Roselare. Tastes good on the oak and I need to get it kegged, or bottled ASAP. I personally think the process of brewing this kit is way overthought...

How did you use the Bug Country? From what I've read about it, I was thinking of using it from the start with no other yeast.

I used bug county on my clone.
I'm doing it differently. Bug county from the start without the sugar, candi sugar, or currents added. The sugars and the currents will be added in about a year when sacc has died off.
I made it about a week ago so I have no idea what the results will be like. I also added a nice amount of orange zest to the boil.

hllywd said:

Didn't worry about stopping it on the first batch. Never heard of the idea until very recently. My primary went off like a rocket, and I racked on to what amounted to an overnight starter of the currants, a quart of starter wort, and the Roselare. Tastes good on the oak and I need to get it kegged, or bottled ASAP. I personally think the process of brewing this kit is way overthought... How did you use the Bug Country? From what I've read about it, I was thinking of using it from the start with no other yeast.

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I pitched half a vial in as the primary strain, it sat on the cake for 2 months then I racked to secondary. The blend is meant to be pitched at the start of fermentation, plenty of Sacch in it.

Keep it warm, AL's Saison strains like 70f+. Can be a slow start to ferm if it's too cool.

Coff said:

I pitched half a vial in as the primary strain, it sat on the cake for 2 months then I racked to secondary. The blend is meant to be pitched at the start of fermentation, plenty of Sacch in it.

Keep it warm, AL's Saison strains like 70f+. Can be a slow start to ferm if it's too cool.

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Off topic, but worth noting that there is no saison strain in bugcounty this year---no primary sacch strain at all actually, but there's plenty of brettanomyces to take care of primary fermentation, and two sacch strains that will play a smaller role. Here's something from the ECY facebook page:

A few facts - there is no bulk yeast strain and no Acetobacter in the mix.

There will be a total of 20 organisms in the culture: Brettanomyces yeast make up the bulk of the blend (15 strains/species) including bruxellensis, lambicus, clausenii, anomala, custersianus, nanus, naardenensis. Bretts from the old ECY blends #1 and # 9 are back including not one but two stains from Drie Font. Also the brett from ECY03 was included of course.

A wild yeast isolated from gueuze was added called Pichia membranefacians. Although very little impact is expected from this oxidative yeast (no acetic acid was detected), it is likely to assist in pellicle formation.

Two Saccharomyces yeast are included. One a sherry yeast, the second a close relative of S. cerevisae called S. paradoxus. Paradoxus has been linked to wine additions for its aromatic properties, pectinase activity, and the ability to partially convert malic to lactic acid.

Finally, two lactobacilli are added with a healthy dose of slime-producing Pediococcus. Slime produced will dissapear and be consumed by Bretts adding more complexitiy.

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metic said:

Off topic, but worth noting that there is no saison strain in bugcounty this year---no primary sacch strain at all actually, but there's plenty of brettanomyces to take care of primary fermentation, and two sacch strains that will play a smaller role. Here's something from the ECY facebook page:

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The sacc will reproduce quicker than the brett and will take care of most of the fermentation. This ia what you want. You need the Brett to take a back-seat to the sacc. the Brett works on the esters formed by the sacc to produce many of it's flavors. Without the sacc yeast, the beer would be very different.

Brewed 9/23/2012, kegged it today. Mine was on the oak (not by design) for 2 months and I'm really happy with it, a tannic hint, but certainly not overdone. It's not fully carbonated or even completely chilled yet, but I had to try! It started @ 1.073 and tested .996 today for a nice 10% ABV.



I have two bottles of the real thing left from back in June. I'm going to give this a few days in the keg for a nice rest then do the side by side tasting... It's close, we'll see how close!

metic said:

Off topic, but worth noting that there is no saison strain in bugcounty this year---no primary sacch strain at all actually, but there's plenty of brettanomyces to take care of primary fermentation, and two sacch strains that will play a smaller role. Here's something from the ECY facebook page:

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Good info, I used Bugcounty from 2012 back when I brewed this in Oct 2012. That blend had the Saison strains I was referring to as far as I know.

I used BugCounty in my version but it's only a month old.

I stupidly placed about a quart leftover wort from primary bucket which didn't fit in the secondary better bottles, into an Erlenmeyer flask. My only stopper is a foam one, which will let in plenty of Oxygen... DOH! I might check the gravity. It's been about two months now.

Getting ready to pitch my roeselare blend into the half done in the RR way. The other half I had pitched the roeselare from day one. I think I am going to put some oak in both halves and check the gravity.

Any guidelines about when to set the solid bung in place of the airlock??

TD

Mine is on the right. It's similar, but not the same. At 16 months the Roselare hasn't produced near the tartness of the 013113 batch of the real brew. Alcohol is on, color is on... maybe a fuzz light, oak is right, the aroma is close, but mine even lacks the tartness there. After 20 minutes in the glass mine still has a bit of foam while the Consecration has almost none. The flavor is really good, but in my opinion the Roselare falls short to make a true copy of this beer. I hope the ECY packs a little more punch.

Thanks for the feedback!

Did you use the kit, or go it on your own?
Did you follow the RR method (WLP530 then add Brett! then add roeselare in stepwise fashion allowing weeks between each?)

Not sure if you are able to report you gravity and/pH of either the real version and your version to see how those compare?

Color looks spot on.

I can't get the real stuff where I live. I split my batch into two and pitched the roeselare right off the bat into half. I'm only about two months into it so far, so I have a long way to go.

When did you add you oak, and can you comment on the oak flavor? How long did you let it sit on the oak before bottling?
Did you attempt to add and wine yeast or anything to simulate the wine barrel flavors?

I'm feeling like a kid waiting for Santa on this beer. Haven't felt like that in a long long time. So sorry for all the questions...

Thanks for sharing

TD

hllywd said:

Mine is on the right. It's similar, but not the same. At 16 months the Roselare hasn't produced near the tartness of the 013113 batch of the real brew. Alcohol is on, color is on... maybe a fuzz light, oak is right, the aroma is close, but mine even lacks the tartness there. After 20 minutes in the glass mine still has a bit of foam while the Consecration has almost none. The flavor is really good, but in my opinion the Roselare falls short to make a true copy of this beer. I hope the ECY packs a little more punch.

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Thanks, you made me feel better. Turns out me and my brew buddy cut it a little short on souring time - we were just too impatient - but we had exactly the same notes: tastes great, good oak, nice barnyard flavors. But the tartness is lacking. You must be right: Roselare just doesn't have the right punch of bacteria to do as much souring as this beer needs.

Mine is from the kit. The current pH with my not recently calibrated meter with almost dead batteries is 3.71 for mine, and 3.4 for the real thing. I used Wyeast Abbey Ale II and it went off like a rocket at about 68*F. I over shot the recommended 1.016 a bit, and racked into an overnight starter I made of the currants, a quart of starter wort, and the Roselare inside the first week. The beer was stored at room temperature to maybe 80*F last summer in an unconditioned room. I racked the beer onto the oak back in November planning to bottle a couple weeks after we got back from vacation. I had flushed the carboy with CO2, but a new pelicle had formed, and the oak actually sank by the time I kegged it last week, so 2 months on the oak is fine. Since I didn't bottle I didn't add any yeast. I think the fruit provides plenty of wine-like character as the real beer has. Started @ 1.073, finished @ .996 for 10% ABV .

Wonder if you could pour a glass and titrate the pH to match the real deal using lactic acid. Might use an eye dropper and your stir plate to get the number of drops per bottle right , possibly sacrificing one bottle. Then you could apply to the rest of your bottles adding to glass before pouring beer so as to avoid stirring and decarbonating what you're going to be drinking. This might help add the sour bite you want. Just an idea.

TD

After the comparison I actually woke up with that idea this morning. I have the lactic acid so I'm going to give that a try tonight.

Cool! Let us know how it turns out and compares!

TD

I think that there's some discussion deeper in the thread about whether or not to add lactic acid to a batch that's insufficiently sour. A recent BYO recipe (maybe it was Supplication) shows an addition of lactic acid for the extract version, but I've heard that Vinnie recommends against it. I think I'd be inclined to try a little in a sample to see if you like it or not. Another possibility would be to let your consecration continue to ride it out and try to brew up some kind of very sour beer to blend with it. I saw a post on Old Sock/Mad Fermentationist's blog where he said that RR uses a high acid beer that they brew to do that. Has anybody here done that?

I have had my batch of Consecration going in primary for a couple of weeks now. I added Abbey II, Brett L, Lacto and Pedio directly in primary rather than the stages that the recipe suggested. I'm getting ready to rack it onto currants in secondary pretty soon. When I do that, I'll probably brew an oud bruin and pour it into primary onto the old yeast cake so I don't have to let all that goodness go to waste.