Tart of Darkness

Yakima 728
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blanco said:
Yeah we aren't exactly shooting for a direct ToD clone, just a funky sour stout. from what I understand Bug County and Bug Farm are both very sour so I fully expect it to be tart along with funky. We are pitching the whole vial (brewing this tomorrow) along with some Saf 05. We have generally tried to use a bit of sacch with our primary fermentations based on the advice of Mad Fermentationist.
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I was under the impression Bug County had sacch. in it? The mix countains Farmhouse Brett, which itself is a blend of Brett and a Saison sacch. strain.
 
Here is what is in Bug County this year:

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.

BugCounty is intended for all kinds of wild beers - especially lambic-style ales, Oud Brune/Flemish red ales. BugCounty will infect any beer.
Click to expand...
 
Just tasted after 3 months fermenting.. Already very sour to my surprise! Gonna let it ride for 9 total


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Jazman said:
You should be fine. The bugs in Roselaer are pretty alcohol tolerant. But, I suspect it will be incredibly sour since there is so much more sugar for the bugs to chew on. Make sure you give it 9-12 months minimum.

Let us know how it turns out!
Jaz
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input... I will come back to this thread once I bottle it. I plan to bottle it, and pitch another batch on top of the guts left over in the carboy a year from the first brew day on New Years day this coming year.

The Roselare actual almost blew up the fermentor at first.... I cant see inside of it at this point, but when I tilt it a little I can see whats going on, at first I had brett like bubbles after the first krausen dropped, then it just settled off to nothing, then I got bored one night and poured the dregs of a bottle of westbrook sour ( Brett, lacto, and Pedo) .... Gees it kicked up. Went bubbling away again for like 2 weeks with another krausen. Now its gotta what basically looks like someone ate a turd and vomited it up floating on top. Still bubbling here and there.

Really looking forward to this, it has inspired me to try my hand at a Brett Saison on this coming easter weekend.
 
jmcm_brew said:
Just tasted after 3 months fermenting.. Already very sour to my surprise! Gonna let it ride for 9 total


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Click to expand...


I have an attempt with Bug County that I brewed 12/31/12 that I need to bottle up sometime. Will toss one in a trade once bottled.
 
skeezerpleezer said:
I have an attempt with Bug County that I brewed 12/31/12 that I need to bottle up sometime. Will toss one in a trade once bottled.
Click to expand...


I've got one that I split my bottling between corn sugar and d90 using roeselare, your not far from me if you want to trade


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Just pitched some TOD dregs on Sunday and now this. I think its infected.;)

1397086957437.jpg
 
Right, I'm about to brew this, using the morebeer kit. From this thread, I'm going with mashing at 158F for 60 minutes, mashout, fly sparge, 60 minute boil then into a carboy with a smack pack of Roselaere for what will seem like ages... ;)

EDIT: So, the Morebeer kit is showing much lower efficiency on my system than usual - I think I've seen similar comments on Morebeer's kits giving low efficiency elsewhere. The kit says it is calculated for 75% mash efficiency - I usually hit 75% brewhouse efficiency and 82-84% mash efficiency using the mill at my LHBS (although this is only my second RIMS brew). I think I got 68% brewhouse efficiency for this kit.
 
Now that I've read Oldsock's book American Sour Beers I plan on adding .15 oz per gallon and leaving it in the entire time my ToD is souring - just like it's actually in a wine barrel... So a 6 gallon carboy will get about an oz of bourbon soaked oak cubes. I will probably go a bit higher and use 1.5 oz into 6 gallons for the next 12 months as the ToD gets funky/tart!
 
Thanks for all your inspiration.
I've made 2 of these kits.
One was done with S04. The other I pitched with 2 packets of Roselare.
Just last night I took the sour out and it tasted wonderful. It's 8 months old now. I put into a Rye whiskey barrel from Journeyman.
I'll try to post a few pictures.
 
Cadrian said:
Ive had my Tart of Darkness going for 6 months... at what point do i need the Bourbon Barrel chunks?
Click to expand...


See post 132 or reference the ToD instructions on more beer or post 20 of this thread. Either option works.


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On 11/10/13, I brewed my ToD according to the kit recipe. Mashed in at 158 for 60 min, finishing at 154. I ended up hitting an OG of 1.07. I fermented the resulting 5 gal. with Roeselare, plus dregs from ToD and Madrugada Obscura. At six months, I added 1 oz of bourbon soaked oak cubes and 4 lbs of dried sour cherries. It's been kept in darkness, at a temperature that has varied between 68 and 72 degrees.

Yesterday--at about 7.5 months into it--I checked the gravity. It's right at 1.016. I have no problem letting it ride if I can expect the gravity to continue to drop. Does this seem like a good place to be?
 
I have a ToD clone started about a month after you. It's been aging in a whiskey barrel the whole time and had roselaire, ToD dregs, and also some JP dregs. I'm sitting at 1.014, but mine has been kept slightly warmer since it warmed up outside. It was around 70 for most of the spring, but it's now at about 75.
 
Brewed the recipe posted earlier in this thread today. Everything went well, and efficiency was 94.6% which I was surprised with. Usually my darker beers suffer on efficiency. I picked up a bottle of TOD earlier this year, and have read that others have thrown the dregs in their batch. I was wondering when this was done? I used WY3736 Roselare Belgian Blend. After three hours is can see fermentation activity. PS: this is my first sour, so I'am kind of like a doting parent.


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I did mine after a couple month or so. haven't tasted since and its probably 6 months old
 
MollyHatchet said:
I picked up a bottle of TOD earlier this year, and have read that others have thrown the dregs in their batch. I was wondering when this was done?
Click to expand...
I would add the dregs right away so they can get a head start along with the Roesalare bugs. Adding them later, once the beer is a less hospitable enviro, will only make it harder on them.

Love the name of your batch :mug:
 
I just checked my 3 five gallon batches pitched with Roeselare on 5/18 from an OG of 1.058. They are in a large fermentation chamber set at 69 average (cooling on at 70 off at 68). The 2 on the top shelf (right at the 5000btu window a/c discharge) have a decent pellicle and a NICE pellicle. I checked both silicone stoppers to ensure a tight seal for minimal Oxygen intrusion. The one on the middle shelf has a slight amount of floating film but that's it. I added 1.5oz of bourbon soaked American medium plus oak cubes on 6/22 to each glass carboy. The suspense is killing me! I wonder what the taste difference will be between minimal pellicle, medium pellicle and heavy pellicle.
 
To add to the fun just scored 2 bottled of ToD from Half Time Beverages. I will be saving one for a side by side when mine is "done" and drinking the other. The dregs will go into one of my three ToD carboys with that one marked to see if it makes a difference. Now to figure out which one to put them in (heavy pellicle, medium pellicle or light pellicle).
 
I brewed this up on 9/2/13. I mashed at 158* for 75 minutes and had poor efficiency because I forgot to sparge, and ended with 5.5 gallons of only 1.048 wort. It fermented at 66* for 3 weeks, then I moved it to an interior closet in my apartment. It has been in the closet which has been relatively stable between 72*-75* since 9/22/13. It never developed much of a pellicle and has been in the same carboy since brewday with nothing added since then.

I took a sample for the first time on 3/30/14 and got a gravity reading of 1.011 with the temperature correction. It was definitely funky, with some leather and tobacco (?) flavors and aromas, but not as sour as I expected.

I checked again on 6/26/14 and had a gravity of 1.011 again. Same profile to the beer as previous sample.

Will it get more sour with time? Or, is it just about done souring since it was a little low on the OG?
 
Tomcat0304 said:
Will it get more sour with time? Or, is it just about done souring since it was a little low on the OG?
Click to expand...

might not. did you add anything other than the Roesalare? the bugs in there aren't particularly aggressive. using Roesalare for a second batch tends to sour quickly because the population of souring bugs is a lot higher.

you could try adding a some malto-dextrine, flour, boiled oat slurry, etc to feed the bugs. add some dregs from other sours first, if you can.
 
I'll have to see what sours I can find with viable bugs in them. On hand, I have a Duchesse, a Rodenbach Grand Cru, a Cuvée de Jacobinus, and New Belgium La Folie; but the little bit of research I have done says they don't have viable bugs.

For additional food for the bugs, I have 4 oz of Maltodextrin on hand, and your other recommendations, but I'm not sure how, or how much to add any, of it.


Magical creature
Eats sugars, poops alcohol
So I may drink beer
 
Hopefully I didnt just screw up my beer, but I through in the bourbon chunks I steamed now at 6 months it was 2oz of them. Afterwards I realized they were chunks not cubes, I always read chunks will give huge tannins if left on the beer for over 2 weeks.
 
Chunks are another story entirely.... I would think chunks that have no bark have less surface area that a comparable weight of cubes and WAY less than a comparable weight of chips.

I contemplate this as I sip a 2013 bottle of the authentic ToD.... Wow - the lactic sour kick is high on this compared to Rodenbach Grand Cru and way higher than Jolly Pumpkin La Roja. Right up there with Oude Tart (my favorite) just in stout form!!!
 
Slice a cube into multiple pieces. Each time you cut it, there is more surface area exposed with the same amount of wood.

Edit: I assume the poster above is referring to chips when he says chunks.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I know what oak chunks are. May be hard to measure out 2oz of them though.

I was referring to Cadrian saying he used chunks, and assumed he meant chips, which are usually what is sold in brewing supply stores, along with cubes. I have never seen chunks in a brewing supply store. I guess you confirmed he meant chunks instead chips. If so, I will not disagree, smoking chunks have less surface area than cubes.
 
measuring 2 oz is easy with oak chunks. I do it all the time for my Cook Shack smoker (2 to 4 oz of wood chunks per boston butt or 3-4 racks of ribs and sometimes 2-3 4lb chickens).
 

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