Feeding maltodextrin to sour bugs

Hi all, I've got two five gallon carboys of Flanders Red aging in my basement. Both are approaching the 12 month mark. I recently tasted both for the first time. As expected, the first batch (generation 1 Roeselare) is sour but not strongly sour. The second batch (pitched onto the cake from the first batch) is definitely more sour. I've also added dregs over the course of the last 12 months.

I'm a fan of strongly sour beers and while I know I should wait at least another six months, I was thinking of adding some maltodextrin for the bugs to feed on to hopefully add some more sour/funk. My questions are:

1) How much should I add to each five gallon batch? 8 oz? 16 oz?
2) Do I just boil the maltodextrin in some quantity of water, cool, then add to the carboys?

Thanks!

I would add ~8 oz and up it, if necessary, based upon your tastes, from there.

Yes, boil in about 1 cup, cool, and add.

Could you elaborate what dregs is and what effect does maltodextrin have on the brew?

Dregs are the yeast and bacteria from a bottle of beer, (usually a commercial sour) such as Cantillon, Russian River, Jolly Pumpkin, etc. You save the last couple ounces, swirl and pitch into a starter or carboy.

maltodextrin is not fermentable by brewers yeast, but brett and bacteria can consume it.

avidhomebrewer said:

I would add ~8 oz and up it, if necessary, based upon your tastes, from there.
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I would suggest using about half of that, I used to suggest using 8oz of malto, but Ive done this several times now and those beers always come out a bit to acidic for me. I would add 4oz or so and see where that gets you, if its still not sour enough you can always add more

Thanks all. I'll start with 4 oz and see what that gets me. Any idea how long it will take for the bugs to consume? In other words, when should I pull another sample to see what happened?

So I could pitch the dregs or maltodextrin whenever I feel lkike it in the next year or so while my lambic sits in the carboy?

JustinB said:

Thanks all. I'll start with 4 oz and see what that gets me. Any idea how long it will take for the bugs to consume? In other words, when should I pull another sample to see what happened?

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I have limited experience, but I'd say at least three months before you consider checking it again (might be longer, though).

Would you recommend throwing the maltodextrin into the boil or waiting and pitching it months later?

In the early stages of fermentation, there's plenty of sugars, which is why it's more useful later once the maltose has been been consumed.

Waylit said:

In the early stages of fermentation, there's plenty of sugars, which is why it's more useful later once the maltose has been been consumed.

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If yeast can't eat maltose why would it matter? I think this would save a step and keep the bugs ever-busy until the all maltose was gone. Plus anytime you're going in, you risk introducing oxygen for acetobater, right?

Sacc eats maltose but not maltodextrin.

Right, that is my mistake. Otherwise all the maltose from my malt would be useless.

That should have read:

If yeast can't eat maltodextrin why would it matter? I think this would save a step and keep the bugs ever-busy until the all maltodextrin was gone. Plus anytime you're going in, you risk introducing oxygen for acetobater, right?

ChiefHophead said:

Right, that is my mistake. Otherwise all the maltose from my malt would be useless.

That should have read:

If yeast can't eat maltodextrin why would it matter? I think this would save a step and keep the bugs ever-busy until the all maltodextrin was gone. Plus anytime you're going in, you risk introducing oxygen for acetobater, right?

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I am interested to know the answer to this question as well...Personally I believe in your logic and don't understand why adding it at a later time is more beneficial than adding it during the boil..

Delaney said:

I am interested to know the answer to this question as well...Personally I believe in your logic and don't understand why adding it at a later time is more beneficial than adding it during the boil..

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Adding maltodextrin at a later time is used in my brewery to make a sour beer more "interesting" after a sample's taste/aroma isn't to my liking.

I also add it in the boil for my extract lambics, but that's because I know I'll need it.

Cool Beans. So adding Maltodextrin late in fermentation works. No longer do I need to worry about whether or not I mashed high enough for those non-fermentables to be present!

FredTheNuke said:

Cool Beans. So adding Maltodextrin late in fermentation works. No longer do I need to worry about whether or not I mashed high enough for those non-fermentables to be present!

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I wouldn't rely on maltodextrin by solely. Best practice would still be to try to extract it from grain. The maltodextrine thing should be used as a fall back and fail-safe IMO.