Sour dregs saving ?'s

BigTerp · Nov 17, 2015

Just recently tried a few different sours and I'm hooked. Am planning a brew in the next few weeks or so and had a few questions on saving some dregs. It seems that to get a little more complex sour pitching the dregs from a few different commercial examples is a good idea. Also seems like the time to do this would be after primary fermentation and after racking to a carboy, or whatever vessel, for bulk aging. Am I on the right track? I plan to use the Wyeast Lambic Blend or maybe even something from ECY for primary. I then plan to save the dregs from a few different bottles that I'm fond of for pitching later. Whats the best way to store the dregs? Together or separate? I plan to just toss the dregs as I drink each bottle into a sterile container. Then store in the fridge until I'm ready to pitch them just like regular ale yeast. No need to make any sort of starter with these if I'm just using them after primary for bulk aging, right?

Any other info. on this is welcome. Thanks for the help!!!

burninator · Nov 17, 2015

If I'm using a sour mix for primary, I just pitch dregs as I get them, whether that's on brew day, or it's sometime after.

BigTerp · Nov 17, 2015

Thanks.

I plan to use Wyeast Lambic Blend, or some other blend, for primary though. The sour dregs would be after primary once I have racked to a carboy for bulk aging. In that case, should I be saving up the dregs to pitch into the carboy all at once? Or just pitch them into the carboy as I drink them? Can I save all the dregs together in a sterile container and pitch them all at once?

Maybe I'm going about this wrong though and should be adding the dregs to primary in addition to my Wyeast Lambic blend?

m00ps · Nov 17, 2015

Ive done sours tossing in dregs one by one and by building a starter with dregs, and slowly adding more

IME, going the starter route will get you a nice sour character much quicker. The microbe diversity from all the dregs will also facilitate this. Ive found commercial blends, while they can get the job done, are not nearly as aggressive as a mixture of dregs

sweetcell · Nov 17, 2015

BigTerp said:
Also seems like the time to do this would be after primary fermentation and after racking to a carboy, or whatever vessel, for bulk aging. Am I on the right track? I plan to use the Wyeast Lambic Blend or maybe even something from ECY for primary. I then plan to save the dregs from a few different bottles that I'm fond of for pitching later. Whats the best way to store the dregs? Together or separate? I plan to just toss the dregs as I drink each bottle into a sterile container. Then store in the fridge until I'm ready to pitch them just like regular ale yeast.

yup, you're on the right track. or, at least you're on a right track... there are a lot of ways of doing this. your approach is generally similar to mine.

i store mine a little differently: instead of storing them cold in an empty container, i prefer to store my dregs in weak wort starter solution (~1.020) at room temp. this gives the bugs a little something to eat, wakes them up from their slumber, etc.

one potential issue with adding dregs to primary is that some breweries bottle with a wine yeast. most wine yeast don't play nice with active ale yeast ("killer yeast"). it's fine to add them after you've racked off the primary yeast cake.

personally, i would not continuously pitch dregs into secondary as they become available... i worry about repeated exposure to oxygen. i would pitch some upon racking to secondary, and make pitch once again after saved some up (if you think you need to... but better to make that initial pitch sufficient).

BeavStu · Dec 5, 2015

Does anyone know about D9 Fanatical Brews in Cornelius, NC? Can their sours be used for dregs? They are not on the Mad Fermentationist list but I think they are fairly new. I bought a bottle and am hoping to use the dreg. Any feedback would be great. Thanks.

burninator · Dec 5, 2015

BeavStu said:
Does anyone know about D9 Fanatical Brews in Cornelius, NC? Can their sours be used for dregs? They are not on the Mad Fermentationist list but I think they are fairly new. I bought a bottle and am hoping to use the dreg. Any feedback would be great. Thanks.

I'd reach out to the brewery. In my experience, those guys are happy to tell you just about anything you want to know about their beer.

BeavStu · Dec 5, 2015

I wrote the brewery an email. I'll share with you all what I find out.

tgmartin000 · Dec 6, 2015

The best way to store the dregs is in the bottle. This might pain you, but wait to drink the beer until you have a batch ready for some dregs. No messing around with storing that way, plus a little extra age on a bottle is never a bad thing!

It's nice when you get a sour pipeline going. ...constant supply of dregs!

BeavStu · Dec 6, 2015

So D9 wrote back and said they do not pasteurize their beer but do to other processes their beer is not suitable to be used for cultures. Thought I'd share the feedback.

WI_Wino · Dec 6, 2015

I wonder what those other processes are. Did they specify at all?

ophillium · Dec 6, 2015

BigTerp said:
It seems that to get a little more complex sour pitching the dregs from a few different commercial examples is a good idea.

I plan to use the Wyeast Lambic Blend or maybe even something from ECY for primary. I then plan to save the dregs from a few different bottles that I'm fond of for pitching later.

In my opinion you'd be best going with one or another for two reasons. First, there's no need to spend money on a Wyeast pack if you're going to introduce another source of brett/lacto afterwards. The second is that you won't know which is the source of what you're tasting. On the one hand, replicating something that jumbled would be a challenge; on the other hand, you won't get the taste of the original (source) beer you're looking for, because its yeasties will be jumbled up with the rest.

BigTerp said:
Also seems like the time to do this would be after primary fermentation and after racking to a carboy, or whatever vessel, for bulk aging. Am I on the right track?

I build mine into a starter and then pitch it with the brewer's yeast. Brett is significantly slower than brewer's yeast, so there's no competition there. It also gives the brett time to get going in your batch.

BigTerp said:
Whats the best way to store the dregs? Together or separate? I plan to just toss the dregs as I drink each bottle into a sterile container. Then store in the fridge until I'm ready to pitch them just like regular ale yeast. No need to make any sort of starter with these if I'm just using them after primary for bulk aging, right?

If you can't wait to drink the beer, consider making a starter, then washing the yeast and storing it in your fridge.

Last but not least, I just started a project using some of my favourite dregs and posted about it here. Hopefully you can gain some insights there. Good luck

burninator · Dec 7, 2015

WI_Wino said:
I wonder what those other processes are. Did they specify at all?

Some breweries add wine yeast at bottling. I'm struggling to think of what else they could be doing to the beer to make the dregs unsuitable for use.

BeavStu · Dec 7, 2015

I wrote back asking if they would be willing to share more information about their process. I'll share what I hear.

505-Brewer · Dec 7, 2015

burninator said:
Some breweries add wine yeast at bottling. I'm struggling to think of what else they could be doing to the beer to make the dregs unsuitable for use.

Could be a killer strain perhaps. Maybe we'll hear back.

tgmartin000 · Dec 9, 2015

From everything I understand, the "killer yeast" thing is a myth.

Agate · Dec 9, 2015

^ not true - it's a very real phenomenon.

Edit - here's a reference:
http://www.danstaryeast.com/articles/killer-yeast-strains

tgmartin000 · Dec 10, 2015

Agate said:
^ not true - it's a very real phenomenon.

Edit - here's a reference:
http://www.danstaryeast.com/articles/killer-yeast-strains

That's interesting. I've heard that it's just not something that homebrewers need to worry about. It was briefly discussed on an episode of Brew Strong, but I couldn't tell which episode.

In this case, when we're dealing with a beer with bacteria, I'd think the issue is - will the killer strain affect the bacteria? The brett/bacteria could be killer positive, in which case they wouldn't be effected.

Agate · Dec 10, 2015

As far as I know, it does not affect different species, so the only concern would be if you're trying to isolate a sacch strain from dregs. The Brett and bacteria will be fine. I think some breweries do this intentionally, to protect their primary sacch strains from being banked.

What I'm curious about is whether EC-1118 would effect sacch cerevisiae. It's killer positive, but being sacch bayanus it would follow from the above article that it would not affect ale or lager yeast.

Agate · Dec 10, 2015

...except a quick 5 minute search I just did seems to indicate that ec-1118 was wrongly indicated as bayanus, and actually is cerevisiae. So much for that thought!

BeavStu · Dec 10, 2015

So I have not had a response back from D9 regarding what their processes may be. Disappointing to say the least. But I thought of a question regarding sour dregs.

Out of curiosity from a single dreg turning it into a starter how many steps would it take to be able to pitch that single dreg individually? For example, I saved a dreg from The Bruery 'Tart of Darkness' , I made a starter out of it to try and conserve it till I have the materials to brew a sour. Theoretically if I wanted to try only pitching that one dreg and nothing else, how far should I build it up. Not necessarily going to do this, but I am interested in the answer. Thanks.

tgmartin000 · Dec 11, 2015

BeavStu said:
So I have not had a response back from D9 regarding what their processes may be. Disappointing to say the least. But I thought of a question regarding sour dregs.

Out of curiosity from a single dreg turning it into a starter how many steps would it take to be able to pitch that single dreg individually? For example, I saved a dreg from The Bruery 'Tart of Darkness' , I made a starter out of it to try and conserve it till I have the materials to brew a sour. Theoretically if I wanted to try only pitching that one dreg and nothing else, how far should I build it up. Not necessarily going to do this, but I am interested in the answer. Thanks.

At least 3, if not more.

m00ps · Dec 11, 2015

I would start the starter in the bottle. And only do like 200ml at first, bump up to having the bottle half full, then go into a large flask. But yeah it will take a lot of steps and depending on how healthy the sacch (if there is any) is, each step could take abnormally long

bovineblitz · Dec 14, 2015

burninator said:
Some breweries add wine yeast at bottling. I'm struggling to think of what else they could be doing to the beer to make the dregs unsuitable for use.

As long as the other cultures are active, I'm fine with wine yeast in my sours. They wouldn't bottle condition with a killer strain.

bovineblitz · Dec 14, 2015

BeavStu said:
So I have not had a response back from D9 regarding what their processes may be. Disappointing to say the least. But I thought of a question regarding sour dregs.

Out of curiosity from a single dreg turning it into a starter how many steps would it take to be able to pitch that single dreg individually? For example, I saved a dreg from The Bruery 'Tart of Darkness' , I made a starter out of it to try and conserve it till I have the materials to brew a sour. Theoretically if I wanted to try only pitching that one dreg and nothing else, how far should I build it up. Not necessarily going to do this, but I am interested in the answer. Thanks.

There's a lot of evidence that's come out lately that pitch count for brett isn't very important, a small amount can do a big job. The same is likely true for bacteria, since they have no competition for the resources they can consume in a sour.

Anecdotally, i've pitched bottle dregs from 2 bottles into a clean saison that finished at 1.004, and I had a pellicle in 3 days. That's some serious bacteria colonization.

tl;dr - I don't bother with stepping up dregs, just throw them in with whatever else you've got.

sweetcell · Dec 15, 2015

bovineblitz said:
They wouldn't bottle condition with a killer strain.

several breweries bottle condition with a wine yeast - for example, Russian River uses Rockpile wine yeast in almost all of their sours.

my understanding is that as long as the brewer's sacch isn't active, i.e. in secondary, it's ok to use a killer strain. problems arise if the sacch is fermenting, because then it will take in the killer protein from the wine yeast and die, which leads to autolysis.

bovineblitz said:
tl;dr - I don't bother with stepping up dregs, just throw them in with whatever else you've got.

agreed. the only reason i sometime make a "starter" of sour dregs is if i'm collecting them over time. for example, if i know that i'll be making a sour beer in a month, i'll throw my dregs into a jar of thin wort to preserve them.

burninator · Dec 15, 2015

bovineblitz said:
As long as the other cultures are active, I'm fine with wine yeast in my sours. They wouldn't bottle condition with a killer strain.

No, they likely wouldn't, but wine yeast can have other effects. For instance I reached out to Boulevard a while back about using Love Child dregs in my sours. Their concern was that the wine yeast is so viable that it would dominate a starter and take over in primary. Using these dregs in secondary, without making a starter first, would work fine, though.

Brewers may often find it easier to just recommend against using their dregs, rather than going into such an explanation.

bovineblitz · Dec 15, 2015

burninator said:
No, they likely wouldn't, but wine yeast can have other effects. For instance I reached out to Boulevard a while back about using Love Child dregs in my sours. Their concern was that the wine yeast is so viable that it would dominate a starter and take over in primary. Using these dregs in secondary, without making a starter first, would work fine, though.

Brewers may often find it easier to just recommend against using their dregs, rather than going into such an explanation.

That may be true, but what's wrong with a wine yeast dominating the primary fermentation in a sour? They're often described as wine-like, and the mixed-fermentation character rarely leaves much of the flavor of original sacch strain anyways.

If I'm doing just dregs I typically pitch a saison or random ale strain along with it, but I wouldn't mind at all if wine yeast did a lot of the work.

ophillium · Dec 16, 2015

bovineblitz said:
there's a lot of evidence that's come out lately that pitch count for brett isn't very important, a small amount can do a big job. The same is likely true for bacteria, since they have no competition for the resources they can consume in a sour.

Anecdotally, i've pitched bottle dregs from 2 bottles into a clean saison that finished at 1.004, and i had a pellicle in 3 days. That's some serious bacteria colonization.

Tl;dr - i don't bother with stepping up dregs, just throw them in with whatever else you've got.

^ +1

sweetcell · Dec 16, 2015

bovineblitz said:
There's a lot of evidence that's come out lately that pitch count for brett isn't very important, a small amount can do a big job.

"The results also demonstrate that exceedingly small amounts of Brett cells are needed to quickly cause changes in a beer. The low end of the pitch rates tested represents approximately 1/5 of a White Labs vial pitched into a 5 gallon batch."

http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Brettanomyces_secondary_fermentation_experiment

fuzzy2133 · Dec 16, 2015

bovineblitz said:
That may be true, but what's wrong with a wine yeast dominating the primary fermentation in a sour?

Good question I am new to sours too however I have heard a few people mention they think Brett gives them more character using a Belgian or siason strain to get the pepper, clove and bananna flavors for Brett to feed on.

Most wine yeast produce a clean fermentation so in theory the Brett would give you less character.

tgmartin000 · Dec 17, 2015

bovineblitz said:
There's a lot of evidence that's come out lately that pitch count for brett isn't very important, a small amount can do a big job. The same is likely true for bacteria, since they have no competition for the resources they can consume in a sour.

Anecdotally, i've pitched bottle dregs from 2 bottles into a clean saison that finished at 1.004, and I had a pellicle in 3 days. That's some serious bacteria colonization.

tl;dr - I don't bother with stepping up dregs, just throw them in with whatever else you've got.

I am not convinced this holds for bacteria. At least for lacto, I read and listened to a presentation from Wyeast saying that they got the best berlinner weisse by pitching about 5x as much lacto as they would yeast, if I recall.

bovineblitz · Dec 17, 2015

tgmartin000 said:
I am not convinced this holds for bacteria. At least for lacto, I read and listened to a presentation from Wyeast saying that they got the best berlinner weisse by pitching about 5x as much lacto as they would yeast, if I recall.

Was that about pre-souring or mixed fermentation?

tgmartin000 · Dec 18, 2015

bovineblitz said:
Was that about pre-souring or mixed fermentation?

Pre-souring, I believe.

Here it is:
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hClp9huB1M[/ame]

Takeaways for a berlinner, is pitch 10 million cells/mL, then pitch yeast 5-7 days later.

bovineblitz · Dec 21, 2015

tgmartin000 said:
Pre-souring, I believe.

Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hC...ing lacto produce a bomb of lactic acid ASAP.

Sour dregs saving ?'s

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