First flanders red...a couple questions

Just finished reading Wild Brews...it got me so stoked that I went to the store and bought about 10 different kinds of lambic, gueze, etc. My only problem with the book is it really didnt go through the process for the homebrewer (it gave hints, but no steps really).

So yesterday I started fermenting my flanders red. I will be racking it to secondary when it reaches about 1.020 then adding my roeslare blend to it. I plan on letting it age a year or two before I drink it. Here are the questions I have.

I want to add cherries at some point. When should I be adding them? Like 6 months before I bottle, or a few weeks after racking it into secondary? Can I leave them in there for a few years if I put them in up front? Or do I need to rack off of them?

What if I want to add some oak also? Same questions as the cherries.

Last question, Im assuming that after I rack from primary to secondary, then add the roeslare blend, that I just leave it there? Or do I need to rack to a tertiary to get it off the yeast?

Personally, I like to ferment my sour with a neutral yeast prior to adding any souring yeasts. I typically use s-04 to do 90% of the fermentation, then I'll add my sour strands. I add mine at different times since I use 4 different yeasts in each beer, but since you have a blend, you'll be fine adding it after primary is mostly done.

There's also no need to move the beer into a secondary. With brett beers, the brett will feed off the autolyzed yeast.

I usually add oak when I add the sour yeasts. I let it sit in the beer for the entire time I ferment. Oak tends to mellow and hit a peak at a certain point. With a few years in the fermenter, it's not going to matter.

Cherries is somewhat up to you. I add my fruits in the last 6-8 months of fermentation so they retain a little bit of their flavors. Adding them earlier will give the beer a more sour flavor. With the roeselare strain, it will add it's own cherry like flavor also.

Im fermenting with 1056 right now and will add the roeslare at 1020. Didnt realize I didnt have to move to secondary....kind of wished I would have started in my smaller carboy now! No way I can tie up a 6.5 for 2 years (I only have 2 6.5's and 2 5g).

Good to know about the oak. I guess it makes sense since its normally fermented in barrels anyways. It never even dawned on me.

Do you pitch new yeast when you add fruit? Im just wondering that lets say I add fruit after 1.5 years, will there be any yeast/bacteria left without pitching more? If I need to pitch more, what would be best to pitch...regular yeast or some more bugs?

I appreciate the help!

I've just started a Flanders Red, from yeast cultured from one - not sure what I'm going to get, the stepped up started tasted slightly sour, so I think there is more there than just the primary yeast.

I'm not planing to add any fruit. It's just another complication, chance to ruin a good beer, and I don't think Flanders has fruit. The yeast and other bugs give off a lot of fruit flavors themselves. However, I suspect there will still be yeast/bugs alive to ferment the fruit whenever you add the fruit.

When you rack to the 5 gal, you coud stir up some of the sediment so you get some of the yeast going across while getting rid of the trub. The yeast is generally the top layer of the sediment.

I just got Wild Brews too, and I agree with you, great book, but not too much detail for the homebrewer.

It has a lot of detail, it just isn't a, "here's your recipe" book. If you read the intro he says his goal was specifically not to hand out recipes. Brew Like A Monk is written with the same objective...

BTW -- you probably don't want to step up a starter of dregs or a sour culture because the bacteria grow faster than yeast and you risk getting a beer more sour than you otherwise might like.

Suthrncomfrt1884 said:

Personally, I like to ferment my sour with a neutral yeast prior to adding any souring yeasts. I typically use s-04 to do 90% of the fermentation, then I'll add my sour strands. I add mine at different times since I use 4 different yeasts in each beer, but since you have a blend, you'll be fine adding it after primary is mostly done.

There's also no need to move the beer into a secondary. With brett beers, the brett will feed off the autolyzed yeast.

I usually add oak when I add the sour yeasts. I let it sit in the beer for the entire time I ferment. Oak tends to mellow and hit a peak at a certain point. With a few years in the fermenter, it's not going to matter.

Cherries is somewhat up to you. I add my fruits in the last 6-8 months of fermentation so they retain a little bit of their flavors. Adding them earlier will give the beer a more sour flavor. With the roeselare strain, it will add it's own cherry like flavor also.

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I had a thoughtful response all planned out, but I'll just give this post a +1.

No need to pitch new yeast with the fruit, the bugs and yeast hanging around will take care of it. :fro:

For a lambic you don't have to rack to secondary but for a Flanders it is recommended. Having too much of the lees left behind can lend a champagne flavor that is inapropriate for a Flanders beer. Ultimately you can do what you want but if brewing to style I would rack to a secondary for this particular beer.

Regarding the oak, I add mine at the point of adding the bugs, too. If you're so inclined, you can fashion a dowel through a stopper to give the bugs *just* enough oxygen to sour up. Provided you're in a carboy (and not a bucket), though.

Something like this:

Calder said:

and I don't think Flanders has fruit.

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Rodenbach Alexander does.

Well I ended up at 1am this morning racking it to secondary to get it off the break and hops after trying to figure out what to do last night. Hopefully that will take care of most of the bad stuff, and just leave good stuff for the bugs to eat. It had already dropped 30 points, so I will be probably adding the bugs tonight.

I know Wild Brews wasnt written to give a recipe per say (though there are some in the back), it was just disappointing that there was no steps included on how to replicate what the original brewers did on a homebrew scale. It more was a "history" of wild brews and somewhat the science of them, not so much here is how to make such and such style. Still a good read though, and makes me want to go to Belgium to try the local versions!

The only reason Im adding cherries is because of how I was introduced into the sour beer world. My first sour beer was New Glarus Enigma. Its one of the best beers Ive ever tasted. Its aged in oak barrels with cherries. From what I can tell, its a flanders style beer, so thats what Im going with. At least when adding fruit I dont have to worry about an infection

Thanks for everyones responses! Very helpful.

Props to Enigma! As i'm still relatively new to the sour scene, i can only pass along what i've done for my Flanders Red based on advice from the resident sour experts.

I, also, went the route of fermenting out with a sacc yeast, THEN pitching WY's Roeselare blend. I'm told this doesn't produce the über sour profile as if you were to initially pitch the bugs & yeast. I like my reds sour, but also the sacc yeast worked too well and dropped my FG lower than i wanted as a starting point for the bugs. Therefore, i added lactose just after transfer to a secondary carboy for the bugs to work on.

For what THAT'S all worth.

Prefermenting with beer yeast as mentioned is really designed for someone that doesn't want to mess with blending after the fact like Rodenbach does.

Bobby_M said:

Prefermenting with beer yeast as mentioned is really designed for someone that doesn't want to mess with blending after the fact like Rodenbach does.

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+1. I still blend my lambics, but that's because I usually have two or three going at a time. I don't want to invest that much space to doing other types of sours, though.