Acetone off flavor in a 10 month old sour

I patiently waited 10 months, took a sample of a kriek I have going and its gross. Doh! Acetone wont age out so and I have no other sours going at the moment so thats super weaksauce.

Question, can i still harvest the yeast/bug cake? or is that not a good idea.

If not, my only source of growing bugs is a 2 year old bomber of Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere. not sure how good of shape they will be in.
I also have 2 Russian River sours but I believe they bottle with Wine/champagne yeast, so id rather not try to grow them.

Thoughts? advice? I was planning to get a flanders going or another Sour Blonde either with this yeast cake. Or with some wlp500 and whatever i can grow from the jolly pumpkin

hopbrad said:

I patiently waited 10 months, took a sample of a kriek I have going and its gross. Doh! Acetone wont age out so and I have no other sours going at the moment so thats super weaksauce.

Question, can i still harvest the yeast/bug cake? or is that not a good idea.

If not, my only source of growing bugs is a 2 year old bomber of Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere. not sure how good of shape they will be in.
I also have 2 Russian River sours but I believe they bottle with Wine/champagne yeast, so id rather not try to grow them.

Thoughts? advice? I was planning to get a flanders going or another Sour Blonde either with this yeast cake. Or with some wlp500 and whatever i can grow from the jolly pumpkin

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Even though RR add wine/champagne yeast to their sours, I believe many of the bugs are still there and people have had success souring with dregs from RR bottles.

Acetone-like flavor could be a result of high fermentation temperature, keeping beer on the yeast for too long or oxidation. If you never moved the beer off the primary (clean strain) yeast cake, I would be worried that bad taste may transfer to the next beer if you just repitch on top of the cake. If its due to high fermentation temperatures or oxidation, you may be fine if you repitch - with fresh "clean" saccharomyces yeast. Everyone strategy for sours is different, but I usually do partial (almost complete) fermentation with clean yeast, then take beer off the yeast and pitch onto bugs.

I bottled it up to see how it goes, just in case. i saved most of the slurry in a mason jar.
it could of been from any of the above. the glass carboy had a chip in it that i just noticed so the bung looked to have a small gap for 02 and fruit flies to get in. I let it sit in my ferm chamber, but I turn it off when nothing is fermenting so it swung down to 65F and up to 80F about 10 times over that time period. and it sat on the yeast cake the entire time. but ive brewed a flanders red with roesalare that sat on the yeast cake for over a year and it tasted fantastic. This blend was the WL belgian sour mix.

I'll give your way a go. Ferment clean with wlp500 or wlp644, rack to a 2ndary and pitch the dregs as i drink them.
maybe set aside a gallon of it and pitch some of the slurry i saved.