Co-pitch Roeselare, WL Sour Blend, YB Melange for solara?

Are there any benefits (or negatives) to co-pitching multiple commercial sour blends? I'm starting a 15 gallon sanke keg solara with the eventual goal of being able to pull/replace 5 gallons every 6 months. I also plan to pitch dregs from 6 different breweries. Can you have too much bio-diversity?

The only thing I can think of is that you lose out on specific flavor profiles that each blend is designed to bring out. I wouldn't say it's a bad thing unless you were really looking for a specific set of flavors from 1 blend since now it's an amalgamation. I'm rocking two yeast bay blends in a sour stout and another sour saison with yeast bay's brett blend and Wyeast Roeselare. Go crazy! It will be very interesting to see how it morphs over the different batches so keep us posted.

I've had many commercial sour/wild beers so I know what I enjoy, but I've never made or tasted homebrewed sour beer so I don't know what to expect from each microbe source...

I've decided to put aside the sanke keg and take a 6-12 month detour from the solara idea. Instead I'm going to brew a 12 gallon batch, ferment it with a clean sacc yeast (WLP029 perhaps) and then split it into 12 carlo rossi jugs to age for 6-12 months with the following microbe sources:

YB - Melange
Wyeast - Roeselare
Wyeast - Lambic Blend
WL - Sour Blend
WL - Flanders Blend
Dregs from the following breweries:
Firestone
Jolly Pumpkin
Crooked Stave
Almanac
Lindeman's
The Bruery
??? - Need 1 more source

I will then use the yeast cake from the batches I enjoy the most to kick start the solara.

Thoughts?

I think that's a great idea. Relatively expensive, but a great experiment.

Interested to hear how the Almanac dregs beer comes out. I had a flight of 5 or 6 of their sours earlier this year and they were all diacetyl bombs. Not good.

Interesting, I've yet to have any buttery almanac beers. Not the most complex, but a few have been really good

I agree with Miles. I've had their Farmer's Reserve series and Dogpatch Sour and don't remember tasting any diacetyl.

I found a Mikkeller sour so I'm adding that to the list. I would still like to get my hands on dregs from both Cantillion and 3 Fonteinen before brewing.

I'm undecided on grain bill and gravity. I'm looking at the recipes in American Sour Beers and Wild Brews, and taking into account that Michael Tonsmeire says the grain bill isn't so important... How does the following look?

45% Pilsner
45% Malted Wheat
10% Rolled Oats

Mash at 156
1.052 OG
8 IBU

Ferment with WLP029 or WLP570 then pitch the various microbes in secondary.

sevilwa said:

I'm going to brew a 12 gallon batch, ferment it with a clean sacc yeast (WLP029 perhaps) and then split it into 12 carlo rossi jugs to age for 6-12 months with the following microbe sources:

YB - Melange
Wyeast - Roeselare
Wyeast - Lambic Blend
WL - Sour Blend
WL - Flanders Blend
Dregs from the following breweries:
Firestone
Jolly Pumpkin
Crooked Stave
Almanac
Lindeman's
The Bruery
??? - Need 1 more source

Click to expand...

Most sours take longer than 6 months. If you start with sacc, it will slow the process down. The commercial blends you have already have sacc in them; in small amounts to allow the bugs to have some small amount of time before alcohol starts to be created. I would not start with sacc.

For the bottle dregs, make sure they are good to use before you start (example, many, but not all, Lindeman's sours are pasteurized). I'd pitch the dregs first, and then after 3 or 4 days pitch the sacc yeast. make sure you have good sanitation.

Even allowing a small window for the bugs to work, it will still take much longer than 6 months to find out what the 'mix' does.

WLP029 may work fine, but I would use an ester producing strain (Belgian). The Brett supposedly works on the esters to produce Brett type flavors.

Need another source of bugs. I have some Boon Gueuze dregs I'm 'cultivating'. I pitched the dregs of a couple of bottles in half gallon of wort at Christmas. Took a sample and fed it a little more wort a couple of weeks ago (4 months), and it was surprisingly tasty and sour. I pitched some sacc (Belgian strain) after 4 days. I'm looking forward to using them in my next Sour in a couple of months.

Any updates on this project? Its been a while but I am planning something similar and would like to know ho it has turned out so far.

I'd like to bump this up as well.

While I'm interested in how this project is coming along, I'm really interested in the OP's original question. I'm starting another solera soon and was thinking about pitching multiple commercial mixed yeast cultures. Like the OP asked: can you have too much bio diversity?

Thanks,
Mike

Apologies for never updating this thread… Life got ahead of me.

I brewed the following on 4/25/15:

15 lbs - 50% - wheat malt
15 lbs - 50% - pilsner

Water profile was built from RO to (these additions were added to the boil):
80 ppm sulfate
40 ppm chloride
55 ppm calcium

Mashed at 160 for an hour.
10 minutes into the mash I pulled a gallon and immediately brought it to a boil to emulate a turbid mash. This was combined with the primary wort when boiling began.

1 hour boil
0.5 oz of Northern Brewer at 60 minutes
~4.5 IBU

17.5 gallons transferred to 3 6.5 gallon carboys.
1.056 OG

Fermented with WLP029 at 59 for a week.
1.014 FG (75% attenuation)

Cold crashed and transferred to 16 1 gallon glass jugs where the following microbes were pitched:
1 – Yeast Bay Melange
2 – WLP655 Sour Blend
3 – WLP665 Flemish Ale
4 – Wyeast Roeselare
5 – Wyeast Lambic
6 – Firestone
7 – Jolly Pumpkin
8 – Mikkeller
9 – The Bruery
10 – Crooked Stave
11 – Russian River
12 – Lost Abby
13 – Libertine Pub
14 – Lindeman’s + Cantillion
15 – Random Mix 1 – Oval, Monk’s Café, Evil Twin
16 – Random Mix 2 – Almanac, Goose Island, Ritterguts Gose

6 – 13 had a minimum of 2 beers/dregs from the respective breweries. 14 – 16 were grouped together due to only 1 dreg per brewery.

~6 months later on 10/18/15 I took samples from each fermenter to taste, measure gravity, and combine into a “mother” culture for the solara.

Gravities ranged from 1.009 – 1.011.

Aroma and flavor was underwhelming across the board. They ranged from a slightly funky kolsch to a mild gose. I was disappointed to say the least. I’ll check them again at some point in 2016.

The mother culture on the other hand has made this entire venture worthwhile. I stepped it up and have used it for multiple 5 gallon brews since Oct. of last year. All have been bracingly sour and immensely funky after only a few months – co-pitched with sacc, solo pitched, and with IBUs from 0-10. Interesting to note, this culture makes all beers ropy/sick within the first 1-2 weeks.

If someone was to repeat this experiment I would suggest they take Calder’s advice and pitch the dregs first or at least pitch them with the sacc. Maybe also drop the IBUs to 0.

I've got a carboy that started with Roeselare blend for the first couple batches, then I started dumping in everything. I've since added a bit of each yeast, brett, and bacteria I've ever used, including: ECY blends (Flemish ale, Bugfarm, Bug County, Dirty Dozen), various bretts, saison, and other yeasts, funktown, lacto cultured from grain, countless bottle dregs, and even a kombucha scoby. This carboy produces the most interesting and drinkable sour beers I've ever made. I have a 15.5 sanke keg I use for my solera project, but it's only got Bug County for now. In a few years I may inoculate it with my kitchen sink blend. The more the merrier I always say!