By Dregs... Which Dregs?

Ok question, I am planning on brewing a "Sour Saison / Aged Pale Ale" in about two weeks and plan on using ECY02 plus dregs from 3 different beers. Now my question is what dregs has everyone had good success with or would recommend highly? I have alot of local availability so unless its a seasonal shouldn't be too much of a problem.

I am absolutly going to use Gueze Boon for one of the three, but after that....?
Thoughts?

By far the best source I have found is:

Harvesting Sour Beer Bottle Dregs | The Mad Fermentationist - Homebrewing Blog

The author of the forum is also an active member on the site and has tons of great stuff on his forum. A great read for sure.

The dregs that I use the most are from Russian River and from Jolly Pumpkin.

Chromados

I had great success with both jolly pumpkin and russian river. Also great success with brett harvesting from boulevard's saison brett

+1 on the mad fermentationist and that post specifically. I reference it often.

RR and Jolly Pumpkin seem to be the most aggressive. I've had 1 gallon batches that I thought were about done then pitched the dregs of consecration and it took off again.

I have had very good success with Jolly Pumpkin dregs. I believe the Calabaza Blanca in particular is supposed to be very good. I personally have had good success with Bam Biere dregs.

I have had good success with RR, JP, and Odells. I think the key is to get a fresh sample and build up a starter and make sure that it has a smell/taste that you like. I also throw some oak into the mix and will feed the starter every few months. I have had success using year old dregs in primary and secondary. Currently, I have a RR pLambic fermenting and a saison du Jolly Pumpkin on tap.

Good luck and have fun.

I've always had great luck with Hannsens and Jolly Pumpkin.

I've also had good success pitching Bavik Petrus and Drie Fonteinen dregs

Ok, think I'll go with something from Hannese as I have a few of thier raspberry lambic on hand. And Petrus Aged Pale is a fave of mine and easily available so I think that should work.... Will post final decisio in abt two weeks

Thank you

chromados said:

By far the best source I have found is:

Harvesting Sour Beer Bottle Dregs | The Mad Fermentationist - Homebrewing Blog

The author of the forum is also an active member on the site and has tons of great stuff on his forum. A great read for sure.

The dregs that I use the most are from Russian River and from Jolly Pumpkin.

Chromados

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Just updated the list on the blog, hadn't touched ig in awhile, but I'd been working on an update for the book. Lots of more obscure beers and some updates after talking to brewers.

If anyone sees anything I'm missing (or if you want to dispute a listing), let me know.

Oldsock said:

Just updated the list on the blog, hadn't touched ig in awhile, but I'd been working on an update for the book. Lots of more obscure beers and some updates after talking to brewers.

If anyone sees anything I'm missing (or if you want to dispute a listing), let me know.

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Saw you added Surly Five. Have you tasted that one? I thought it one of the most unique all-brett beers I've tasted, not the least because of a level of sourness that I had previous only attributed to bacteria.

dwarven_stout said:

Saw you added Surly Five. Have you tasted that one? I thought it one of the most unique all-brett beers I've tasted, not the least because of a level of sourness that I had previous only attributed to bacteria.

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I did have a bottle a few months ago, but I don't remember it being that sour (although I agree more sour than most 100% Brett beers). With the oxygen available during the long barrel aging the Brett can make acetic acid. Of course it could be that the barrels ended up with a wild Lacto or Pedio flora?

Oldsock said:

I did have a bottle a few months ago, but I don't remember it being that sour (although I agree more sour than most 100% Brett beers). With the oxygen available during the long barrel aging the Brett can make acetic acid. Of course it could be that the barrels ended up with a wild Lacto or Pedio flora?

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Yeah, it certainly wasn't La Folie. I had it on draft and had a chat with one of the Surly brewers. Apparently they primary with one Brett, then gave it a heavy hit of oxygen and a fresh pitch of a different Brett when adding it to the barrels to get the sourness. I didn't get much more than a touch of acetic, though, despite the unique treatment.

dwarven_stout said:

Yeah, it certainly wasn't La Folie. I had it on draft and had a chat with one of the Surly brewers. Apparently they primary with one Brett, then gave it a heavy hit of oxygen and a fresh pitch of a different Brett when adding it to the barrels to get the sourness. I didn't get much more than a touch of acetic, though, despite the unique treatment.

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Interesting, it is claussenii and anomalus per their website (not sure on the order though).

Well Finally brewed this one. a 1.048OG 4 grain Saison. Repitched slurry containing ECY11, WY3056. Added ECY02 Flemish Ale, and Dregs from Orval, Geuze Book, Haasans experimental raspberry.

Will add oak after krausen drops. Will see what happens in abt 1yr