Disappointed with Roselare

I've brewed four sour beers that all turned out well. Two were fast sour browns w/lacto and brett, the other two were sour pale ales w/Supplication and Jolly Pumpkin dregs and were delicious.

Now that I'm done moving, I started another sour beer project. A three gallon sour pale ale using Roselare. I also pitched some Spontanale and Monk's Cafe dregs. I racked the beer to secondary after a month or so in primary. No pellicle but the beer is super "sick" (i.e. protein strands from pedio) and it had the consistency of syrup. Pretty neat stuff.

I drank some anyways even though it was like mucus. It tasted fine but it was a far cry from the previous sour pales I've made. Not much sourness at all, no real brett flavor, just really bland. In contrast my previous sour pales using RR and JP dregs were super funky and delicious after a month, and only got better.

Is it common knowledge that Roselare is fairly lackluster? I put another five gallons of wort onto the cake and plan on repitching the cake one more time. I know these beers take a year to be ready but the RR and JP bugs seem to be way more aggressive.

From my experience JP dregs work SUPER fast, not sure about the RR dregs since they don't sell it around here. My guess is that it is just a young beer at this point since you said it's only been in primary for a month. Give it some time and see where it goes these beers can take quite a while to develop certain flavors. I have heard that reusing the Roselare yeast cake will result in a beer with more acidity each time it is reused.

I have a Roselare Flanders Red that has been in secondary for 15 months. It did not begin to show signs of sourness/acidity until about 11 months in. A first gen pitch of Roselare is very slow working in the sourness and funk department.

Even Wyeast acknowledges that it may take up to 18 months for full acidity to develop. http://www.wyeastlab.com/rw_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=194

Lame...now if only I could get my hands on another bottle of Supplication. Impossible here, sadly.

Also I'm almost positive Monks Cafe is pasteurized. I'd use different dregs next time. Everyone raves about the JP dregs being super quick though so I'm a little surprised you have no sourness yet. It'll come, just be patient. Pedio tends to go through sick phases so you're probably in the middle of one.

jonthebrewer said:

Also I'm almost positive Monks Cafe is pasteurized.

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I have grown up the dregs of Monks Cafe successfully. I made a complete sour out of it; both sacc and souring bugs came thru.

Good to know about the Monks Cafe. I read a few posts stating otherwise but you're right it's listed in the mad fermentationists bottle list of viable dregs. My bad.

Roeselare isn't lackluster - it just takes tttttiiiiimmmmmmmeeeee to get amazing!

AmandaK said:

Roeselare isn't lackluster - it just takes tttttiiiiimmmmmmmeeeee to get amazing!

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Well I want my beer now! Maybe I shouldn't brew sours then...ehh, it'll be a year from now soon enough.

I like my sour pales super super funky though, I care more about that than the acidity. I hope that some brett character develops in the coming months.

rexbanner said:

I like my sour pales super super funky though, I care more about that than the acidity. I hope that some brett character develops in the coming months.

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If that's the case, you should try out WY3728 - Lambic Blend. That'll get ya some funk... in 18 months.

AmandaK said:

If that's the case, you should try out WY3728 - Lambic Blend. That'll get ya some funk... in 18 months.

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I'm sorry but 3278 is terrible even with time.. Id suggest getting your hands on East Coast Yeast it you want something really funky

bellmtbbq said:

I'm sorry but 3278 is terrible even with time.. Id suggest getting your hands on East Coast Yeast it you want something really funky

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Well you must not be doing it right, then!

I pitch WY3278 with a couple bottle dregs and have won nearly every sour category (and a few comps) I've entered with my lambics. Quite a simple way of doing things, actually. Much easier than finding ECY in my area.

AmandaK said:

Well you must not be doing it right, then!

I pitch WY3278 with a couple bottle dregs and have won nearly every sour category (and a few comps) I've entered with my lambics. Quite a simple way of doing things, actually. Much easier than finding ECY in my area.

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I'm totally with you about the dregs.. Im just warning you, put 3278 in a beer alone in any kind of fermenter for any amount of time, and at best it's going to be alright. I've tried many different lambics just with 3278 alone from other brewers and they were all mediocre with the same mild house flavor that was weak. I'm sure your lambic was great Im just telling you my experience with it

bellmtbbq said:

I'm totally with you about the dregs.. Im just warning you, put 3278 in a beer alone in any kind of fermenter for any amount of time, and at best it's going to be alright. I've tried many different lambics just with 3278 alone from other brewers and they were all mediocre with the same mild house flavor that was weak. I'm sure your lambic was great Im just telling you my experience with it

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Oh, I know. I was just messing with ya!

I'm on my second gen of roeselare and its definitely developing a lot faster this time. The first pitch took more than a month to pellicule over, the repitch only took a week. It has a bigger lacto and cherry pie thing happening after 3 months than the first had after a year. Both beers had a primary fermentation and roeselare added to the secondary. Maybe its just a pitching rate thing, maybe the balance of the blend is completely different this time around.

gbx said:

I'm on my second gen of roeselare and its definitely developing a lot faster this time. The first pitch took more than a month to pellicule over, the repitch only took a week. It has a bigger lacto and cherry pie thing happening after 3 months than the first had after a year. Both beers had a primary fermentation and roeselare added to the secondary. Maybe its just a pitching rate thing, maybe the balance of the blend is completely different this time around.

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Good. I've got my second gen going right now. I am just wondering...why don't they make a blend that will actually make a good sour the first time?

My Flanders was racked on to Roselare. Took a good 7-8 months to really see any action. It's about 14 months now and has a nice twang to it but nothing crazy.

My sour black was Roselare in the primary. It's almost a year now and it's pretty insanely sour. This also has JP dregs so that might have kicked it up too.

I have a Temptation clone that is secondary with Roselare and I've added RR Supplication dregs. At about 10 months it tasted like nothing. Haven't tasted it in a couple months so not sure where it stands.

So from my limited experience, Roselare as the primary kicks in fast and hard. In the secondary takes a lot of time. RR dregs seem to be slow going but even on their bottles of Temptation they say "barrel aged 9-12 months" so I'll assume that's primary -> barrel (bugs added) -> 9-12 later and it tastes like something. JP dregs start eating right away.

rexbanner said:

Good. I've got my second gen going right now. I am just wondering...why don't they make a blend that will actually make a good sour the first time?

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I was at a club meeting yesterday and a few of us had roeselare soured beers and were discussing why its better the second time around - its intended to be used for primary fermentation so the blend of yeasts is balanced heavily towards the belgian sacch strain with the lacto, pedio, bret at low levels. When you repitch after a year, the primary belgian strain is long dead and the blend is balanced towards the secondary strains resulting in faster souring. It also doesn't seem to get the gross stringies the second time either (pedio?) and the pellicle is different.