First sour

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Rys06Tbss

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After having a dozen or so brews under my belt and having my method figured out, I decided to make a brew that would be aged for a while. I decided to make a Flanders Red, which seems to be the most popular type of sour. Anyhow onto my question

flanders.jpg


I put this in the fermentor yesterday at 7PM. After using my wort chiller, I transfered to my fermentor and noticed all this protein floating. Is this normal? After consulting my LHBS I decided to go with 3522. Im going to pitch the brett c in about a week. So thats about it. I guess Im just a bit concern with all the crap in there since the last time ive seen that much trub was when I was just dumping the boil pot into the fermentor. I did strain all the hops out with a paint strainer as I was filling the fermentor. Thanks in advance
 
After having a dozen or so brews under my belt and having my method figured out, I decided to make a brew that would be aged for a while. I decided to make a Flanders Red, which seems to be the most popular type of sour. Anyhow onto my question

flanders.jpg


I put this in the fermentor yesterday at 7PM. After using my wort chiller, I transfered to my fermentor and noticed all this protein floating. Is this normal? After consulting my LHBS I decided to go with 3522. Im going to pitch the brett c in about a week. So thats about it. I guess Im just a bit concern with all the crap in there since the last time ive seen that much trub was when I was just dumping the boil pot into the fermentor. I did strain all the hops out with a paint strainer as I was filling the fermentor. Thanks in advance

From what I can tell of the picture and your description, the floating protein doesn't look any different from any other style of beer to me.

On the plan for your Flanders: how do you intend to sour it? The Ardennes strain + Brett C will give it some fruity funk, but won't replicate a sour Flanders Red profile without some souring bacteria. You may want to consider adding Roeselare (Wyeast 3763) or the dregs of a commercial Flanders/Oud Bruin (like Monks or Petrus Pale/Brown).
 
:smack: Well it was my understanding that the Brett C would have performed the task :smack: I guess Im an idiot then. How many bottle dregs do you think I would need?
 
:smack: Well it was my understanding that the Brett C would have performed the task :smack: I guess Im an idiot then. How many bottle dregs do you think I would need?

It depends on how viable the dregs are, but you could probably get away with as little as one bottle depending on how long you plan to age the beer. Of course, in the name of research, you may want to add several bottles worth :eek:...
 
Did you use corn? The only time I've ever had a protein blob like that was from racking kettle trub over was with a lot of corn in the recipe. I think I usually do 20% corn in my sour reds.

Jolly Pumpkin is a good beer to add dregs from, too. Their Flanders style La Roja is tasty.
 
This fermentation is uber violent. That's some mighty happy yeast. This carboy looks like its swollen.
 
How much head space is required after the bugs are pitched? I have a 5 gallon glass fermenter but since this batch is at 5.5 gallons I might have to do something different. Or could I just pitch the bugs in the primary with the brett
 
you don't need any headspace, there won't be another krausen, just far & few bubbles & maybe a pellicle if there is enough air inside. I prefer getting the bugs in asap, otherwise it takes too long to get sour enough. If it will be staying in this vessel for the long haul id add them with the brett, if you plan on transferring soon, i'd wait til then
 
It started at 1.070. Its at 1.050 after 3 days. I was going to wait and pitch the Brett on Sunday. Unless you think I should just do it now. I can pitch dregs on at any given moment right?
 
I picked up a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin La Roja and a bottle of Lindeman's Cuvee Rene. Should I make a start or just pitch the dregs in? Sorry for all the stupid questions, I just want to make sure this is going to be right since ill be investing at least a year in this beer
 
I picked up a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin La Roja and a bottle of Lindeman's Cuvee Rene. Should I make a start or just pitch the dregs in? Sorry for all the stupid questions, I just want to make sure this is going to be right since ill be investing at least a year in this beer

No need for a starter, just pitch the dregs. Some take the more is better approach. I've only used dregs in a few beers, but I'd just use the JP in this batch. I added some JP to a batch last week, from a 2010 bottle even, and it's active already.
 
This batch is fresh. 4-9-13 ill just use JP then. I've never had it before and have read its awesome. I'll be cracking it open tonight.
 
This batch is fresh. 4-9-13 ill just use JP then. I've never had it before and have read its awesome. I'll be cracking it open tonight.

I hope you like it. It's one of my favorite beers. I like to pour two glasses right away so I can avoid stirring up the sediment as much as possible and drink as much of the beer as I can, while leaving the good stuff behind to pitch.
 
I picked up a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin La Roja and a bottle of Lindeman's Cuvee Rene.

I recently made a sour mostly from these dregs (plus matilda) that turned out fantastic. I made a starter, but thats because it's all I fermented with. good luck!
 
Hope this turns out for ya Rys!!

I am thinking about making my first sour as well and heard to really get a quick sour is to pitch your sacc (regular fermentation yeast), and your souring bugs lacto, pedio and brett at the start of fermentation to give everything the best chance to do their thing. And by quick I mean like 6 months or so.

Not trying to hijack your thread, but wondering if you may have heard something similar.
 
That jolly pumpkin was great. I'm going to buy some more to put away. As for fast souring, I havnt read up on that. I want to be drinking this by aug next year so well see how it goes.
 
I am thinking about making my first sour as well and heard to really get a quick sour is to pitch your sacc (regular fermentation yeast), and your souring bugs lacto, pedio and brett at the start of fermentation to give everything the best chance to do their thing. And by quick I mean like 6 months or so.

yup, the sooner you add the bugs the sooner the sour. bacteria are inhibited by alcohol (lacto moreso), so getting them in asap gives them a better breeding ground. if you use one of the blends (roeselare, etc), there's no point in adding sacc as its already in the mix. my preferred method is making starters from dregs and using that as the only pitch. i get very quick sours this way (2-3 months), albeit they don't always get to the level of complexity as a long term sour, but blending helps with that.
 
SOOOO.... Should I pitch more then one dreg. Or do you think that will be good enough. This beer is going to get really expensive if I have to continue to buy 14 dollar beers to pitch dregs into.
 
SOOOO.... Should I pitch more then one dreg. Or do you think that will be good enough. This beer is going to get really expensive if I have to continue to buy 14 dollar beers to pitch dregs into.

I bet the one fresh La Roja will do it. I pitched a 3 yr old JP bottle's dregs last week and the beer is active already.
 
SOOOO.... Should I pitch more then one dreg. Or do you think that will be good enough. This beer is going to get really expensive if I have to continue to buy 14 dollar beers to pitch dregs into.

one bottle should be fine. you could also put a couple of cups of wort into the bottle, wait a week or two then pitch the whole thing. this beer might be in the fermentor for 8 months to a yr (or more) so a bit whatever weird looking things you see along the way are just part of the process.
 
I bought some French oak spirals at the brew store yesterday. I was talking to the owner about this beer which he is fairly excited to try and he suggested that I rack to a secondary at about a month, my next question is when I should i add the oak, does the flavor dissipate over time and should I brew another flanders with the yeast cake in my primary or just wash it jar it and wait. I wasn't planning on blending but I guessing could. The second batch will be more sour right?
 
I bought some French oak spirals at the brew store yesterday. I was talking to the owner about this beer which he is fairly excited to try and he suggested that I rack to a secondary at about a month, my next question is when I should i add the oak, does the flavor dissipate over time and should I brew another flanders with the yeast cake in my primary or just wash it jar it and wait. I wasn't planning on blending but I guessing could. The second batch will be more sour right?

i leave my sours on the yeast the whole time as is traditionally done with sours in belgium. if you are going to move it a month is kind of quick in my view, the bugs would love to stay in there doing their buggy thing for a while. oak can be added at any time, if you were fermenting in a barrel it would be on oak right away. as far as the second batch being more sour that is what i hear but i have not been able to detect a big difference but that is only my experience.
 
So at what time would I need to add the oak. I'm guessing at anytime or should I just wait
 
I have some a nice little haze starting to form on the surface. This is starting to get exciting. It's also down to 1.010
 
I've got some larger pellicle bubbles forming on the surface now. Kinda wish I would have used Brett L instead or something a bit funkier.its slightly bretty right now. It currently has 2 la Roja dregs and a oro de calabaza dreg. I added the oak over a week ago, I feel it's over Oaked now though. It seems like that's all I taste. Hopefully it'll fade over the next few months.
 
So this beer is almost 5 months now. It's very sour. I'm really digging the flavor. The oak came out good. Should I let it ride out or is there any reason I couldn't keg it now?
 
have you taken a gravity sample? that should help you decide when to bottle. it it's higher than 1.004, i'd wait.
 
Rys06Tbss said:
So this beer is almost 5 months now. It's very sour. I'm really digging the flavor. The oak came out good. Should I let it ride out or is there any reason I couldn't keg it now?

If it tastes the way you like it and you're kegging I don't see a problem
 
Rys06Tbss said:
Well it's at 1.010 so I guess I'm waiting a bit longer

When you rack into your keg, its gonna ferment a little more again. Most commercially available strains of Brett kick back into activity when transferred. This coming from both gave fletcher and chad Yakobson.
 
I was looking to transfer to an empty keg. I currently only have 2 and both are full once again. I decided to transfer my cider instead of this. I might transfer this to a 5 gallon fermentor and make a third sour. I made a 10 gallon batch two Saturdays ago and decided to sour half of it.
 
Still havnt kegging yet. Flavors are a slight sour cherry flavor. It is starting to take on a bit of an apple flavor which bothers me a bit. The pellicle is very light now. Think it's safe to keg then bottle?
 
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