Pitching bottle dregs

Do you have to make a starter or could you, say, add the dregs of two bottles of Orval to a 5-gallon batch of beer that you're pitching US 05 into?

BoomerSoonerBrewer said:

Do you have to make a starter or could you, say, add the dregs of two bottles of Orval to a 5-gallon batch of beer that you're pitching US 05 into?

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Make a starter and be sure to step it up to a recommended pitch rate for the beer style. See here for details.

ThickHead said:

Make a starter and be sure to step it up to a recommended pitch rate for the beer style.

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I see, well then I reckon the dregs will have to wait. I thought I might be able to get away with pitching them along side the yeast I've got.

BoomerSoonerBrewer said:

I see, well then I reckon the dregs will have to wait. I thought I might be able to get away with pitching them along side the yeast I've got.

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I am not completely certain, but Orval might use a completely different yeast strain for bottle conditioning than they do for fermentation of their beer. This is not an uncommon practice with Belgian beers, particularly Trappist beers.

Honestly, I have no idea what you would hope to accomplish by just chucking in yeast from the dregs of a bottle and mixing that with some other yeast you have on hand.

ThickHead said:

I am not completely certain, but Orval might use a completely different yeast strain for bottle conditioning than they do for fermentation of their beer. This is not an uncommon practice with Belgian beers, particularly Trappist beers.

Honestly, I have no idea what you would hope to accomplish by just chucking in yeast from the dregs of a bottle and mixing that with some other yeast you have on hand.

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Meh I don't honestly know either. It just seemed like something that might enhance my brew.

Brett is added to Orval before bottling - apparently one or two bottles is enough for some brett funkiness to appear after a few months. Even more so after a year. Check out the Drnk Owl Mango recipe in the Sour beer recipe section for info on this. I say go for it - it could add excellent complexity that develops over time (much like orval does.) I have recently added some to a one gallon batch I am doing. If it turns out well I'll do a bigger batch.

Just add the dregs of a couple of bottles to your batch.

You don't want make a starter, you want to stress the brett yeast to develop it's characteristic flavors.

It will take a long time to develop, months before it becomes noticeable, and will continue developing for up to 18 months.

Calder said:

Just add the dregs of a couple of bottles to your batch.

You don't want make a starter, you want to stress the brett yeast to develop it's characteristic flavors.

It will take a long time to develop, months before it becomes noticeable, and will continue developing for up to 18 months.

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^this.

Normally, when harvesting, you'd want to make a small, low grav starter and slowly step it up to brewing size. But here you're looking for the bugs in Orval to augment your brewing yeast, I assume. Calder has it right, add the dregs from a couple bottles, and plan to let the wild yeast in them work for a long time to contribute their characteristic flavors.

It works well, but I've always done it in secondary for my mango. It needs to sit at least six months and at least that in the bottle