Roselare Cake Reusage

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antiteam

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I just bottled my Flanders Red that had been sitting on the bugs for 15 months. Now I have the Roselare yeast cake that I want to rack a new wort on to.

1) According to Wild Brews, each time you repitch Roselare the result is more sour than the last. Does anyone have experience and comments on this? I want something really sour, so I'm pretty excited about that.

2) This yeast cake is 15 months old. Should I have concerns about viability of anything in the mix (sacc, lacto, pedio, brett)?

Thanks!
 
I used a 9 month old lambic blend yeast cake. The flanders I pitched on it soured in like 2 months!! I would add a packet of us 05 or something like that because the yeast is probably, dead or dormiant. I am now on the 3 pitch of the yeast cake. I did more of a wheat wine. I am excited to try it, just 6 more months :(
 
FYI, Flanders Reds are supposed to be racked off the cake for the duration of aging. Only lambics sit on the cake.
 
tasq said:
FYI, Flanders Reds are supposed to be racked off the cake for the duration of aging. Only lambics sit on the cake.
Click to expand...

True that.

And I'm trying to figure out what dormiant is, from the poster above the guy I just quoted. Is that some chemical reaction from yeast and plastic? :cross:
 
I just did something similar for my 2nd Flanders Red. My Flanders sat on the yeast cake for 15 months also. And I read that even though it is not traditional to sit on the yeast cake it will actually make a more complex beer. And this makes sense to me because the Brett will have a greater carbon source (dead sacc).

As for repitching, the reason I have read for a greater sourness is because the lacto producing bacteria (pedio & lacto) are at a greater percentage because they can keep their viability much better than the Sacc.

When I repitched on to the yeast cake. I did not have any activity for a few days so I decided to pitch some dry yeast. So it might be a good idea to pitch some Sacc yeast when reusing the yeast cake.

Here is a link to my write-up on my 2nd Flanders Red
http://jeffreycrane.blogspot.com/2011/07/sour-beer-2011-flanders-red.html
 
Almighty said:
I just did something similar for my 2nd Flanders Red. My Flanders sat on the yeast cake for 15 months also. And I read that even though it is not traditional to sit on the yeast cake it will actually make a more complex beer. And this makes sense to me because the Brett will have a greater carbon source (dead sacc).

As for repitching, the reason I have read for a greater sourness is because the lacto producing bacteria (pedio & lacto) are at a greater percentage because they can keep their viability much better than the Sacc.

When I repitched on to the yeast cake. I did not have any activity for a few days so I decided to pitch some dry yeast. So it might be a good idea to pitch some Sacc yeast when reusing the yeast cake.

Here is a link to my write-up on my 2nd Flanders Red
http://jeffreycrane.blogspot.com/2011/07/sour-beer-2011-flanders-red.html
Click to expand...

did you reuse the entire yeast cake, pellicle and all?
 
Re-use the cake and pitch fresh yeast. The yeast will help kick off primary fermentation and the bacteria/brett will be waiting in the wings to take over as activity slows.

No problems with leaving on the cake, from what I've read it will just make for a more "funky" beer, as the Dead yeast get consumed.
 
Used it all. And ardyexfor is correct that by leaving it on the cake you will produce a more Brett forward beer.

You can rack to secondary and will still get plenty of yeast and bacteria still in solution to finish the job.
 
I've repitched my roeselares twice. About 3 months apart. Each time it took about 2 days to see active fermentation. I've also been pitching some bottle dregs too. I rack the original beers to secondary for aging with oak cubes. My first Flanders red is about 6 months old but had a really great flavor. I definitely pick up more Brett character in the subsequent beers. But I'm happy with where my yeast cake is going and the process.
 
I tried to rack on the 15mo old Roselare blend cake I mentioned the first post and saw no activity for three days. I ended up buying a new smack pack of the blend and pitching that.
 
antiteam said:
I tried to rack on the 15mo old Roselare blend cake I mentioned the first post and saw no activity for three days. I ended up buying a new smack pack of the blend and pitching that.
Click to expand...
a 15 month old cake would have no viable sacc in it - only the brett, lacto and pedio would still be alive in there. so you did the right thing of pitching another pack in there. you could have pitched just a regular yeast since the sacc was the only thing needed.
 
Great point! It just occurred to me that by reusing that yeast cake which had a greater portion of bugs, then dropping in even more bugs with the repitch of the blend, I probably had a lot of brett, pedio, and lacto in that batch. No problem, since it turned out awesome - really sour! However, I just brewed the same recipe again and pitched a WL Belgian Sour Mix (not exactly the same, I know) with no yeast cake this time and I wonder if this batch is destined to turn out significantly less sour than the last due to the inherently different ratio of bugs.
 
If I were to pitch just the Roselare yeast and rack the beer off it 6 months later and add fresh wort to the yeast cake...
1) would the racked off beer still continue to sour?
2) would the new beer sour faster and even catchup to the first?
 
dobberson24 said:
If I were to pitch just the Roselare yeast and rack the beer off it 6 months later and add fresh wort to the yeast cake...
1) would the racked off beer still continue to sour?
2) would the new beer sour faster and even catchup to the first?
Click to expand...

1: yes, the bugs are still in. There is still Brett in suspension

2: I find that the second does sour faster. Higher levels of bacteria
 
I have a Flemish Red going now in the primary with Wyeast Roeselare 3763 and I'm probably going to rerack it from the plastic bucket into a glass carboy in a week when it finishes primary fermentation. I've never tried reusing yeast cakes but I want to. Is it okay to reuse a Roeselare yeast cake after two weeks in the primary or should I wait longer to rerack into the glass carboy so I can reuse the cake?
 
jrfehon said:
I have a Flemish Red going now in the primary with Wyeast Roeselare 3763 and I'm probably going to rerack it from the plastic bucket into a glass carboy in a week when it finishes primary fermentation. I've never tried reusing yeast cakes but I want to. Is it okay to reuse a Roeselare yeast cake after two weeks in the primary or should I wait longer to rerack into the glass carboy so I can reuse the cake?
Click to expand...

I think if you re-use the cake after only a couple of weeks it is going to be mostly sacc. The bugs will be there, but the sacc will dominate. Reusing the cake will result in a rapid ferment and a slow souring of the next beer.

Reusing the cake after 6 months will have lots of bugs and only a little sacc. This will result in a quicker souring.

If you want to use this cake, I recommend pouring half of it into the glass carboy with the beer and only use half of it for the next beer. That way, you leave food for the Brett, and will have a good cake to use in 6 months.
 
Thanks for that info. I was thinking after primary the cake would be too young to reuse but I've also read that a cake of an 18 month sour is too old. Is that true? So six months or so is a good time to reuse the cake?
 
jrfehon said:
Thanks for that info. I was thinking after primary the cake would be too young to reuse but I've also read that a cake of an 18 month sour is too old. Is that true? So six months or so is a good time to reuse the cake?
Click to expand...

I used a 15 month old cake and had an issue with enough sacc being still viable for initial fermentation. However, the sourness on that beer was awesome, because all the souring bugs were still viable and present in large quantities. All I did was add another packet of Roselare blend (you could instead just do a packet of US-05 - the goal here is to reintroduce viable saccharomyces) and everything took off as it should.
 

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