Consecration kit from MoreBeer

Guys - Brewing process is discussed in the first few pages of this thread. I used 159F for 60 minutes and added the sugar in the last 10 minutes of the boil.

Yeast pitching instructions are on the MoreBeer website... I copied and pasted them below for convenience...

Vinnie recommends fermenting down to around a 1.016-1.018 with Abbey Ale yeast. He recommends the temperature to be 72°F during the first few days of fermentation, and then lets it free rise to 76°F until the target gravity of 1.016 is reached.

After hitting this target gravity, he'll transfer to barrels to start the aging and souring process (a secondary fermenter will be necessary - a barrel would be preferred!) Currants and Brettanomyces are added at this point.

After approximately 7-8 weeks, you'll want to add your Lactobacillus and Pediococcus. To kill two birds with one stone, we recommend pitching Roeselare (WY3763) which contains both bacterium.

The souring process can take anywhere from four to twelve months. Once the desired sourness level is achieved, you'll want to add the Consecration barrel oak chunk(s) until desired oak character is achieved.

Vinnie uses Belgian bottles when bottling Consecration, and bottle conditions using wine yeast. He mentions that he'll never bottle if the gravity is over 1.008.

Anyone know if there's an official recommendation for which strain of Brett? Can't seem to find the answer anywhere. Brett Lambicus?

ja09 said:

Anyone know if there's an official recommendation for which strain of Brett? Can't seem to find the answer anywhere. Brett Lambicus?

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Its in this thread somewhere, and Vinnie is supposedly using a blend of three strains: Brett B, C and Lambicus I believe, and what's more is that he uses a ratio of something like 50:40:10 or something like that. This is all from the Saturday morning brain fog memory banks so I could be wrong, but pretty sure that is close. I just pitched the Roeselare Blend at the appropriate time. Months later, I added dregs from time to time as I had been able to acquire some sour beers with which to do so.

WLP650 Brett Bruxellensis for 60 days at 60 degrees. Then ramp to 68 and add Roeselare for 4-12 months. Add oak near the end to suit your taste. Now I plan on adding the oak earlier because I boiled the cubes to reduce the oak taste and soaked them in a high end Pinot Noir for the last 2 months. I'll probably add them 2 months into the 68F souring period.

FredTheNuke said:

WLP650 Brett Bruxellensis for 60 days at 60 degrees. Then ramp to 68 and add Roeselare for 4-12 months. Add oak near the end to suit your taste. Now I plan on adding the oak earlier because I boiled the cubes to reduce the oak taste and soaked them in a high end Pinot Noir for the last 2 months. I'll probably add them 2 months into the 68F souring period.

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Any particular reason you start the Brett out so low? White labs recommends 85*+ I was going to go for low 70s.

Thanks guys. 50/50 Brett B & C, or 50/50 B & L sounds interesting. Plus I can use the leftovers for some 1g experiments. I like it.

ruger988 said:

Any particular reason you start the Brett out so low? White labs recommends 85*+ I was going to go for low 70s.

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This thread post 76 by Jipper (from MoreBeer):

Secondary temperature is an excellent question. I currently have my barrel around 72*F and that has been working well for me. B. Lambicus is good up to 75*F, and I am unfortunately not certain what temperature Vinnie has his barrel room at. I'm guessing it would be lower than 72*F, but uncertain.

And more specifically Post 92 by passedpawn:

Vinnie does an initial fermentation with WL Abbey Ale Yeast. He then removes that yeast (cold crash), pitches brett and adds the fruit, and lets it sit at 60F for 2+ months. Then, more brett and bacteria are added and left for another 3-ish months in the cab barrels. Then, bottled with the wine yeast and another 2 months of aging before sale.

FredTheNuke said:

This thread post 76 by Jipper (from MoreBeer):

Secondary temperature is an excellent question. I currently have my barrel around 72*F and that has been working well for me. B. Lambicus is good up to 75*F, and I am unfortunately not certain what temperature Vinnie has his barrel room at. I'm guessing it would be lower than 72*F, but uncertain.

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Awesome, this is what I needed to know too. Sounds like the Jipper is using Lambicus. I just picked some up along with Brux, thinking of doing 50/50 and save the half vials for some smaller batches and bottles.

Are you guys making starters for the Abbey Ale, or going for a fruitier, slightly underpitched profile?

Brewed Consecration kit 6 months ago. When to add currants? Wood? Opinions?

Fermented with ECY 20 from the start. Still sitting in primary, better bottle.

Hawkfish said:

Brewed Consecration kit 6 months ago. When to add currants? Wood? Opinions?

Fermented with ECY 20 from the start. Still sitting in primary, better bottle.

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My understanding was to rack to secondary (onto currants) after it reaces 1.016 and pitch Brett somewhere around two weeks after brewing....

Then about two months later pitch your bugs, let sour to taste, add oak, oak to taste, then bottle.

Little behind the curve on the currants for sure @ 6 months.

ja09 said:

Are you guys making starters for the Abbey Ale, or going for a fruitier, slightly underpitched profile?

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Always pitch an appropriate amount of yeast. Underpitching doesn't do your beer any favors.

urbanmyth said:

Always pitch an appropriate amount of yeast. Underpitching doesn't do your beer any favors.

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While generally valid, in some cases it's not.

Underpitching is the only way to obtain a desired ester character in certain beers.... but in these cases "appropriate" is actually an underpitch.

Scored a bottle of consecration for a side by side when mine is finished. Do you all think that Vinnie brews this to full ABV from the start, or adds more fermentables over time. Seems like the high ABV will impair the bacteria from souring.


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butterpants said:

While generally valid, in some cases it's not.

Underpitching is the only way to obtain a desired ester character in certain beers.... but in these cases "appropriate" is actually an underpitch.

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This seems to be the general consensus, but this is my first time intentionally underpitching so I have no idea. Really.. I just wanted to make myself feel better for being too lazy to make a starter

I did leave out the lb of dextrose and lb candi sugar to soften the underpitch, plus used pure o2. Just added those tonight as fermentation was winding down, along with 6oz maltodextrin since everyone's saying this recipe isn't getting sour enough. Also my first time trying that... Guess we'll see in a year.

I am at the stage of adding the Roeselare (after 8 weeks of 60F with Brett). I have three 5.5 gallon batches. I'm going to add just Roeselare to one, ECY01 BugFarm to the second, and Roeselare along with 8oz of MaltoDextrin to the 3rd one. Should be a good comparison run in a year!!! Then i'll know what to do for 2 years from then...

I like that plan!
I ended up adding some dregs from a variety of sours and funky beers to mine: almanac, cascade, prairie, the Bruery, and probably a few others. I think I brewed this in either October or November 2013. Can't wait to try some.
Be sure to let us know what your impressions of the three are.

TD


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Also I noted that a few folks who's clone lacked the tartness of the RR original did not maintain temperature control during souring - many were room temp up into the 80's. The Russian River barrel room is mid 60's at most. Roeselare is designed for cold barrel storage (see Wild Brews for more Rodenbach information). Maybe this is why theirs were not sour enough?

There are also many hints that RR's Cab barrels might have had some residual wine left in them. So I'm going to split a bottle of good cab between 3 five gallon batches.

Also I don't see where adding the oak cubes along with the Roeselare and wine would be an issue. I boiled my cubes for 10 minutes (to reduce the oakiness) and then have had them soaking in Cab wine for 6 months now. I need to experiment with this - if the ratio is 0.5 oz of fresh un-boiled oak cubes per gallon to oak a beer within a few weeks how many oz of fresh un-boiled oak cubes could be left in a beer for 1 year without over-oaking it....

Just thought of a partial answer for my oak cube question. The 2 oz of used oak cubes from the morebeer kit were from RR barrels. But only one side to a depth of 1/4" was exposed to the original wine. All other sides of the cube are FRESH oak - therefore full strength..... The cubes I made are used on all six sides to a depth of 1/4" from the wine.... Heck - my clone may not have enough oak character even after the cubes being in it for 6 months.... We shall see.

I used stave segments, submerged in Cabernet through multiple heat and cool cycles 5 I think, then dumped the cab, and added some fresh cab to soak into the staves for a week or two. I forget the oz amount I used, but I think it was 2 per 5 gallons. Had them in a pint mason jar and dumped it all in, I used a nice but not overly expensive cab. 20-30 range. Did the same with my sour KBS clone, only using Irish whisky.

As far as temp during the long secondary aging process, my basement is set to 72. It gets cooler down to about 70 in the back where the beer is resting. I can't maintain 60 temps without a large expense or occupying my only temp controlled fermentation space (for now). I'm sure it's getting plenty sour. Can always add lactic acid if I want more pucker, and maybe I might (or not) after a side by side taste with a bottle of the real stuff. I'd love to try and measure the FG of the real consecration, but no way am I wasting any to decarb it. I'll have to fudge it with a refractometer I think using a correction equation.

TD


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Take a few hours and read this entire thread - a lot of tidbits in it such as the pH of the real Consecration (3.4). That is the best way to measure tartness and "completion" for a sour. How long are you going to oak for?

I've read the whole thing before. Thanks for the pH. I took some note, then did up my recipe for beersmith, then lost the notes.

TD


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I brewed this last week (the 7th) made a starter for the Brett today that I'll let work untl next Friday. Going to move it over to secondary (7.5g Big mouth bubbler) on top of the currants and pitch the Brett starter then.

Wait a month and a half or so, then start the same process with Roeselare (doing a 7 day starter as well) and pitch it in the same vessel.

Anything sound wrong with that plan before I commit to it?

A starter is not recommended for Roeselare - it messes up the proportions of critters in the mix.

FredTheNuke said:

A starter is not recommended for Roeselare - it messes up the proportions of critters in the mix.

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Glad I asked!!! My first go at a sour of any sort.

FredTheNuke said:

Also I noted that a few folks who's clone lacked the tartness of the RR original did not maintain temperature control during souring - many were room temp up into the 80's. The Russian River barrel room is mid 60's at most. Roeselare is designed for cold barrel storage (see Wild Brews for more Rodenbach information). Maybe this is why theirs were not sour

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Does anyone else's beersmith read over 30 ibus when punching this recipe in? Mine did and I didn't see any errors, so I cut the 30 min addition in half to get around 18 ibu.

If the recipe really is 30+ ibu, that could be another reason it's not souring enough.

28.9 IBUs per Beersmith scaled to my rig. Yes - that is high which will stunt the growth of the bacteria that doesn't like hops... A few have had successfully tart batches of this clone, though.

Interesting, and unfortunate, because I'm going to be adding the Roeselaire right when it starts getting really hot in my house and I don't have space in a fridge for it. Here's hoping that the temp+ibu doesn't overwhelm it.

It's worth noting that Roeselare is rated between 65-85F and that Russian River isn't using Roeselare blend in their Consecration...

Somewhere on here the guy from the site said that they provide the hops necessary for many different brewing set ups and you should adjust your hop additions to have your IBUs match Consecration, or 15-20 I believe.

Yeah I only used about half the hops in mine because it was going to be like 35 IBU's which will definitely hinder the lacto.

I believe the lacto is not that important in this type of beer. Pedio does the bulk of acidifying / pH reducing.

I think I had some vintage 2007 or 2008 hops in the freezer. The foil had lost its seal. Always thought why in the heck I was saving them, but glad I did. Wished I had let them get nice and cheesy instead of storing in the freezer. Maybe I should do that now: buy some s goldings and let them age.

Can't wait to take a sample of this for gravity and pH soon.


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Well you don't want to use them when they are cheesy... you need to 'beyond' the cheese ;-)

FredTheNuke said:

I believe the lacto is not that important in this type of beer. Pedio does the bulk of acidifying / pH reducing.

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According to Wyeast there is lacto in there. I wouldn't dismiss the lactic acid produced by whatever strain of lactobacillus is in there. Some can be very aggressive. If you hop this thing to 35IBU's I will agree it will mostly come from the pediococcus because the lactobacillus would be stunted.

http://www.wyeastlab.com/rw_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=194

Getting ready to pitch my Brett in the next day or two... There was some discussion about ~60 being better than the typical higher temps Brett prefers for this beer but I can't maintain 60 for a year. My two options are to put it in my keezer (which I keep around 50) or keep it at room temp (68-72 all year) I'm guessing the room temp is the better option but thought it was worth asking the experienced crowd here!!

yeah I would just stick it somewhere at room temp (and did)

mors said:

According to Wyeast there is lacto in there. I wouldn't dismiss the lactic acid produced by whatever strain of lactobacillus is in there. Some can be very aggressive. If you hop this thing to 35IBU's I will agree it will mostly come from the pediococcus because the lactobacillus would be stunted.

http://www.wyeastlab.com/rw_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=194

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Lacto stunts as low as 8 IBU. Most all Russian River beers are 10-15 IBUs. Wish I had that Info before I brewed my 28 IBU Consecration clone...

FredTheNuke said:

Lacto stunts as low as 8 IBU. Most all Russian River beers are 10-15 IBUs. Wish I had that Info before I brewed my 28 IBU Consecration clone...

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No kidding, how close is yours to being done so I know what to expect? I'm only a couple weeks in at this point so starting over wouldn't be too big of a deal minus the $$ factor.

Some lacto can handle a good 25-30 IBU's.. but it's pushing it... and we have no idea what lacto is in there... lol

Based on many of Oldsock's recipes in American Sour Beers we should be good at 30 or less IBUs. It may take 18-24 months to sour, though. I plan on maintaining my temperature at 67-69F. Russian River maintains 60-62F. The Bruery is 70-72F.

Vikings said:

Somewhere on here the guy from the site said that they provide the hops necessary for many different brewing set ups and you should adjust your hop additions to have your IBUs match Consecration, or 15-20 I believe.

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Right, then why doesn't it say that in the freaking instructions? The whole point of a kit is to have a set of ingredients and instructions that are already figured out so I don't have to figure it out. At the very least it should tell me when I need to do adjustments. Now, because of this stupid oversight, there's a good chance I basically wasted ~$70 and months of waiting.