Flanders red question

I have never done a Flanders red or any sour for that matter what I want to know is I am going to brew Jamils Flanders recipe and pitch the Roselare blend into jt. Is there a reason why I should secondary it or just leave it in the primary the whole time until bottling.

You will want to secondary after the primary yeast has dropped from suspension. You do not want it setting on autolyzed yeast for a year or two while the sour flavors develop.

So about how long is that going to take is it a couple of weeks or months whats a ball park figure. I'm trying to plan some ahead.

calebawilson said:

So about how long is that going to take is it a couple of weeks or months whats a ball park figure. I'm trying to plan some ahead.

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When primary fermentation is complete. Also, I'd recommend you pitch the roeselare directly with the primary yeast. If you ferment it like Jamil suggests the beer won't come out very tart at all.

I plan on only pitching Roselares so once the gravity stabilizes I am going to transfer to secondary and let it stay for a year. Sound good? Can I use the yeast cake for new wort?

you can certainly reuse it but logic dictates that everything in there grows at different rates so what you wind up with isn't going to be what you started with (it could be better, but i don't know, i've never used roselare).

as for how long to leave it on, historically, flanders reds are not left on the cake like lambics... that being said, my flanders has been on the yeast cake for a while now (3 months?) - i should probably rack it to the barrel soon...

I left a flanders on the yeast for 7 months no problem. Very, very sour too. Roeselare.

What temps are you guys fermenting at

Room. 75ish. I have a fermentation chamber but don't use that for the sours.

That's cool I will be doing mine about the same temp in the closet. Thanks for you guys help. Any other tips I should know about sours?

Can't find my source on this ATM, but IIRC flemish beers are traditionally racked off the yeast whereas lambic are left on it. However, I brewed a beer with Roselare ~6 months ago and have left it in primary. You won't have any ill effects from autolysis because the brett can metabolize dead sacch without causing bad flavors.

Everything I've read has indicated that each reuse of a Roselare yeast cake will result in a more sour beer than the previous.

How many uses do you think you can get from the yeast cake before it would produce to sour of a beer?

calebawilson said:

How many uses do you think you can get from the yeast cake before it would produce to sour of a beer?

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I would suspect that if you used a fresh sacc yeast each time and only used a small amount of the cake, you could keep the sourness under control.

calebawilson said:

How many uses do you think you can get from the yeast cake before it would produce to sour of a beer?

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I'm re-pitching my roeselare for the 3rd time this morning (this time into a oud bruin).

The second batch of flanders I did came out very similar to the first - which is to say, great! So I'd say you can definately get away with 2.

I was hoping just the opposite was true - that each successive batch would get less sour, since I thought the yeast would overtake the bacteria. Dunno.

passedpawn said:

I'm re-pitching my roeselare for the 3rd time this morning (this time into a oud bruin).

The second batch of flanders I did came out very similar to the first - which is to say, great! So I'd say you can definately get away with 2.

I was hoping just the opposite was true - that each successive batch would get less sour, since I thought the yeast would overtake the bacteria. Dunno.

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Bacteria reproduces at a faster rate than yeast so you'll end up with successively more sour batches.

.....in ideal growth media. The dextrines left in wort is not idea. The bacteria lives off the brettanomyces ability to liberate glucose molecules from the complex carbohydrates. I think the reason the bacteria continue to grow in each successive batch is just that each batch has a higher proportion of bacteria compared to the original blend. So instead of 1mil/ml there is like 1.5 in the second and 2mil/ml in the third. With out a correction of additional yeast the blend gets out of balance and becomes bacteria dominant. That's my understanding of the bacterial interaction with brett in these fermentations at least.

Also I did not add any additional sac only the blend.

I pitched S-05 this morning in my 1.080 (!!!) flanders brown. Will pitch the roeselare in a few days. Probably need to dilute it a bit also, after the krausen subsides. I was shooting for 1.070.

smokinghole said:

.The bacteria lives off the brettanomyces ability to liberate glucose molecules from the complex carbohydrates. I

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any source for this??

The reason I ask is that brett alone will not super-attenuate, however in conjunction with the pedio/lacto/etc is will, so I'd be hesitant to say that the brett is the reason the bacteria continue to grow

I think the bacteria also come to dominate because as they lower the pH it become more and more inhospitable to the sacch

ryane said:

I think the bacteria also come to dominate because as they lower the pH it become more and more inhospitable to the sacch

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Conversely, doesn't the beer become more inhospitable for the bacteria as the alcohol level increases?

Really, I'm still trying to figure it out. I think Wild Brews mentions how b-glucosidase is produced by the brettanomyces which allows for monosaccharide cleavage. Pediococcus I think also produces b-glucosidase. I think the enzymes produced are species specific so some may produce glucosidase and some may not. If it doesn't pediococcus will certainly produce some other hydrolyzing enzyme that can contribute to the super attenuation properties of this brett/pedio relationship. I have read the papers from Leuven about lambics but I didn't run across any attempting to explain how and why brett combined with pedio will super attenuate.

So you're right that the bacteria probably don't grow just because of the brett. Instead I think it'd be better to say that the bacteria grow in conjunction with the brett in a somewhat symbiotic relationship.

I have two flanders reds going. One I did about 10 months ago with Roselare. I had it on the yeast cake for 7 months before transfering to secondary onto 1 oz. of French oak cubes that I boiled for 30 minutes. My thinking was, I wanted a bit more Brett in the finished product and that is the reason why Lambic brewers allow the beer to sit on the dead yeast for the entire fermentation. That one is starting to get nice and sour and is really coming along. Check it out HERE

When I transfered that batch, I brewed a new batch to put on top of the yeast cake as I heard that Roselare blend gets more sour the more times you re-pitch it. That one HERE is 3 months old, still on the yeast cake, and certainly progressing faster then my first batch!

Did you brew this? How's it going?

I brewed a Flanders red about a month ago it is still on the yeast I did not add and not sac just the blend thinking I may put another batch on the yeast cake in the next week or two and transfer it to a secondary to age on some oak cubes.

So you just used to Roselare blend? Did you get active fermentation out of just that?

Oh yeah it has sac yeast in the blend it did a regular 4 day ferment with a krausen and everything.

That's good to know. I'd heard mixed reviews about using that blend without another Sac strain.

What have you heard I'll give my feed back once it has aged. My thought is why add more sac yeast if the blend already has it.

The blend alone works just fine.

Just the blend. It gave me a great red.

I had heard on a few different forums that it took a long time for fermentation to start with just the smack pack and that using another sacc strain along with it was maybe not necessary, but advised. Good to know! Cheers! I've put so many different bugs in my first Flanders there is some major diversity going on in there. I'm just about the brew another batch of Flanders Red with the ECY Flanders Blend! Pretty excited for that!

I have a roselaire troubleshooting question. I pitched a roselaire smachpack onto a gallon of leftover stout that I'd made, a really roasty stout. I'll probably never do it again as I don't think the flavors are too complementary but I Was wondering: It's probably been 5 months or so and I don't have a whole heck of a lot of sour on here. There's a little bit of tart or something and a weird smell, but that's it.

Any ideas what may have happened?

Also, the stout had a very high hop-rate so I was wondering if it was possible that my hops killed my lacto?

I'm mostly asking because I'm looking to do a proper flanders and want to use the yeast cake that I have but I'm wondering, 1: is autolysis a danger after this long (it seems most people are saying no, and 2: should I be afraid that the yeast or lacto has crapped out?

Should I just make a new starter, pump up the temps, and see what it tastes like?

Wernerherzog said:

I have a roselaire troubleshooting question. I pitched a roselaire smachpack onto a gallon of leftover stout that I'd made, a really roasty stout. I'll probably never do it again as I don't think the flavors are too complementary but I Was wondering: It's probably been 5 months or so and I don't have a whole heck of a lot of sour on here. There's a little bit of tart or something and a weird smell, but that's it.

Any ideas what may have happened?

Also, the stout had a very high hop-rate so I was wondering if it was possible that my hops killed my lacto?

I'm mostly asking because I'm looking to do a proper flanders and want to use the yeast cake that I have but I'm wondering, 1: is autolysis a danger after this long (it seems most people are saying no, and 2: should I be afraid that the yeast or lacto has crapped out?

Should I just make a new starter, pump up the temps, and see what it tastes like?

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I've read that hops are bad for the bugs. So that might very well be your problem. My first sour, made from just a smackpack (no starter) of roeselare got very, very sour. If it is undrinkable as-is, try introducing some oxygen by opening it as swirling a little. I watched a 5-month old berliner weisse form a pellicle overnight after doing this.

I've got a flanders going on former roeselare yeast cake. Very nice and sour. I'm all for 2 generations. I'll let you know about 3 when I get there!

Wernerherzog -
What was the FG of the Stout? The hops could limit the lacto, but probably there just isn't much of a food source. And most of the souring in Flanders comes from pedio which is usually active after 6 months. So if you want more sourness you should add some malto-dextrin to provide the bacteria with food.

Autolysis is not a problem since Brett uses dead Sacc yeast as a carbon source.
You can definitely use the yeast cake. The only issue is that most or all of the Sacc yeast is dead so it can be helpful to add some more. I suggest using a flavorful yeast that puts off nice esters - like a big fruity Belgian yeast. This will add much more complexity to your beer as it ages. You can use a starter, but it is really not needed in my experience

Passedpawn - Do not introduce oxygen - neither of the lactic acid producing bacteria (lacto or pedio) need oxygen to survive. Oxygen will promote acetic acid from enterobacteria.

I think a lot of people have a mis-conception about pellicles - a sour beer does not need a pellicle to be active. A pellicle is a response from Brett to the presence of oxygen. And a sour beer is not done when the pellicle drops. It is never "done" and should be bottled when the gravity is stable or it should be chemically stabilized when it tastes good.

Almighty said:

Passedpawn - Do not introduce oxygen - neither of the lactic acid producing bacteria (lacto or pedio) need oxygen to survive. Oxygen will promote acetic acid from enterobacteria.

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Unless you have really bad sanitation its my understanding that there is no enterobacteria present in these cultures. So adding oxygen will not promote acetic from them or acetobacter but the acetic comes from the brett. So unless you do a special order for enterobacteria or spit/crap/dump dirt/pour some live vinegar into your fermentor there should be no bacteria present besides Lactobacillus and Pediococcus.

Correct they are not present in the cultures and oxygen will promote acetic acid from Brett.
But from what I understand it is pretty difficult to prevent enterobacteria from getting into your beer, so the best way to defend is to limit the amount of oxygen during the aging process.

I opened my first flanders at least 10 times while aging, and I did get some acetic acid. But I think it is appropriate for the style. Sure, too much and it's vinegar.

I wish I could get you guys to try mine and tell me what you think. Let me know when you're in town.

I’m no expert but my understanding of the situation is this…
I'm pretty sure enterobacteria is only a factor during the initial phase of Lambic fermentation and quickly dies off during fermentation as the ph drops and alcohol increases. If I remember correctly some really nasty stuff like E.Coli and Salmonella are enterobacteria, things I sure hope aren’t hanging around during later stages of fermentation. I would assume it’s not part of any commercially available cultures.
Having said that, Acetobacter (Different from enterobacteria) on the other hand does like oxygen and in its presence turns the delicious ethanol into not so delicious acetic acid (vinegar), so limiting the amount of oxygen during aging is recommended.
Almighty – I concur with your observations regarding pellicles. My flanders red is at around 6 months now and only has the slightest bit of one forming, which I attribute to me leaving it alone and keeping the airlock topped up.

McCheese-
You are right I did mean to put acetobacter instead of enterobacteria in my last post.
Here is actually a pretty cool paper that goes into detail about these bacteria/yeast and how they are controlled for food and drink production.
Fermented frutis and vegetables. A global perspective. Table of contents.

It's not difficult to prevent acetobacter ingress, breweries do it all the time. In fact I have yet to grow any acetobacter isolated out of any beer samples I've tested at school (with the exception of truly mixed/spontaneous fermentations). In fact I would wager that Rodenbach's mixed culture doesn't even have acetobacter. I would bet that their acetic comes from the LONG secondary and microoxygenation afforded by the wood barrels. If they had acetobacter they'd be screwed by the end of the first year or two of secondary fermenation and end up with a foudre of red malt vinegar.

I've made vinegar at my parents house and it is not a super slow process. So acetobacter, to my knowledge, is not a part of commercial flanders. I also doubt they include acetobacter in lambic cultures.

That is pretty interesting.
So you think the acetic acid for Flanders Reds mostly comes from the Brett and it uses the low amount of oxygen that diffuses over time? Or too much head space when brewed by homebrewers?