Cuvee de Tomme clone group project

I took a sample off the Barrel last week, I'm still waiting for the pellical (sp) to fall. I have had the barrel at a constant 68ºF so I guess that is slowing things down a bit. good for me because I've been in a holding pattern for brewing the last couple months.

Flavor wise, I'm happy to say there is little to no acidic acid, but sadly also there is little to no lactic acid coming through. The funk though is right there but not over powering,and balancing for how dry the beer is for being around 9%ABV. I think blending this beer with a little bit of newer beer and sour cherry will brighten it up a bit and bring it a little closer to the Cuvee.

The brandy from the barrel did not come through, as was mentioned earlier in the thread. This barrel was more of a neutral barrel, but the oak and tannins are coming through, but don't over power the beer.

Over all I'd say its an interesting beer right now, but needs some more time. I will have a keg or two of it at NHC, so you guys can try it then and tell me what you think. And for those who make it up to camp Everest (my house) we can pop a bottle of the real deal and do a little side by side comparison.

jessup said:

brett B added all sour w/ zero funk/barnyard as of now. it may not be close to CdT, but since i've never tried it, at this point ignorance is bliss. that's such bologna to tell me you can't make a decent clone without the dregs! i know you've got some good experience brewing sours and whatnot but plz don't be so opinionated in your posts. to say you can't get >10% abv is just silly. my hydrometer doesn't lie with your experience i didn't imagine you would make such ridiculous statements.

this post is not meant to be nasty or confrontational in any way, shape or form (tone on www.world is impossible to judge) so plz don't take it that way. just responding to your post...

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A few things.

1: Brett on its own produces very little acids that will contribute towards a beer tasting sour. I have produced MANY beers that were fermented with 100% Brett or Brett in secondary and they are not sour. Some funky pineapple fruit aromas that might give a hint of tartness but we are talking apple level tart versus lemon level sour.
An example of this is Orval, which has a sacc primary ferment and then brett B secondary ferment. It is funky with no hint of sourness. Another delicious example of a quad with brett B in the secondary is Odell Saboteur (which uses Orval brett) which has some nice funk but again no sourness.
One thing to note on this is that White Labs Brett C culture has very low amounts of lactobacillus and pychia bacteria in it which will produce some very slight sourness but it quits pretty early. Perfect for making an Oud Bruin though.

2: The CdT dregs are crucial because it has some pretty unique lactic/acetic acid producing bacteria species that can survive in high alcohol environments and continue to produce lactic and acid where almost all species crap out and die. Brett will still survive and produce more alcohol but again we aren't talking more sourness, just more alcohol.
Some of the previous bugs I've worked with would have crapped out at 8-9% but these guys kept going at 12%+.
I haven't used any commercially available souring bugs that can kick ass and take names like my CdT culture can and I've used WLP655, wyeast lambic and roeselare.

Read Wild Brews where Jeff Sparrow talks about the alcohol tolerance of brett, lactobacillus, pediococous, acetobacter, etc. This is why almost all the sours from Belgium are less than 8% ABV.

I racked a 100% Brett B Brown (which wasnt sour at all) into my barrel after finishing off the CdT batch 2 and its about 4 months old now and amazingly intensely sour. Its a little acetic heavy and I'm going to try and figure out how to adjust the lactic sourness up a little bit more.

jessup said:

brett B added all sour w/ zero funk/barnyard as of now. it may not be close to CdT, but since i've never tried it, at this point ignorance is bliss. that's such bologna to tell me you can't make a decent clone without the dregs! i know you've got some good experience brewing sours and whatnot but plz don't be so opinionated in your posts. to say you can't get >10% abv is just silly. my hydrometer doesn't lie with your experience i didn't imagine you would make such ridiculous statements.

this post is not meant to be nasty or confrontational in any way, shape or form (tone on www.world is impossible to judge) so plz don't take it that way. just responding to your post...

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I just made a Brett B beer and it added TONS of barnyard and funk. Are you sure it was Brett B and not another strain of Brett that you used?

Bsquared said:

I took a sample off the Barrel last week, I'm still waiting for the pellical (sp) to fall. I have had the barrel at a constant 68ºF so I guess that is slowing things down a bit. good for me because I've been in a holding pattern for brewing the last couple months.

Flavor wise, I'm happy to say there is little to no acidic acid, but sadly also there is little to no lactic acid coming through. The funk though is right there but not over powering,and balancing for how dry the beer is for being around 9%ABV. I think blending this beer with a little bit of newer beer and sour cherry will brighten it up a bit and bring it a little closer to the Cuvee.

The brandy from the barrel did not come through, as was mentioned earlier in the thread. This barrel was more of a neutral barrel, but the oak and tannins are coming through, but don't over power the beer.

Over all I'd say its an interesting beer right now, but needs some more time. I will have a keg or two of it at NHC, so you guys can try it then and tell me what you think. And for those who make it up to camp Everest (my house) we can pop a bottle of the real deal and do a little side by side comparison.

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Hey my homebrew club is making the "wild brews" version and then we are racking it to a chardonnay barrel. I believe the bulk of it is going to be brewed up this weekend, although we may end up splitting the batch between a couple of brew sessions just due to the volume and availability of systems. I'd sure love to sample yours if you're going to be around at NHC. I am planning on attending but still haven't made arrangements yet...

Sure thing Weirdboy, I'm hoping to have a couple kegs ready for NHC club night. If you can't make it for the whole conference, you should at least try and hit up pro-brewer night and or club night, they are both a lot of fun and you can but tickets for just those events, I think last year they where $40 a piece.

are you guys planing on doing the primary fermentation in the barrel, or will it be for the secondary only?

Also, I agree with saq about the dregs of the Cdt having some supper bug in it that can handle the high % of EtOH. I was using WL sour blend, but it did not sour this beer.I talked to Tomme at lost abbey before I started and he was trying to steer me to using the dregs from a bottle, but I was more familliar with the WL blend so I stuck with it.

I'm not too sure about adding the dregs now, and I really want to avoid having this beer turn more to the acidic acid side. So I might pull some out after I make a batch to re-fill the barrel and play with that, by adding some dregs.

We are doing primary fermentation in regular fermenters, then adding them to the barrel for secondary.

"You're very well read
It's well known.

But something is happening here
And you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones ?"

i guess the wildcard is the barrel. that and the dregs from other beers, my own and others i threw in there. i've flipped through wild brews a few hundred times but i still recognize experience > reading material. these silly sours are so unpredictable...just because brett B was the only bug pitched doesn't mean there were others introduced due to dedicated sour hoses w/ mixd BS or the 100,000 other variables. it was barrel aged for 5 weeks and is just now reaching the 9month period where it will probably really step up it's complexity in the champagne bottles. today i'm going to do my first barrel primary with a WY blend which should be interesting. we read about one isolated laboratory incident and consider it gospel but the only thing to expect is the unexpected. consistent results in sour brewing are a longshot! brew on

SAQ: on page 164 (sparrow 2005): usually after 3-4 months lactic acid fermentation occurs. Pediococcus perform this phase of fermentation. The lambic tastes very sour during this phase, which lasts as little as 3-4 and usually no more than 6-7 months.

So one year ago, this definitely was not ready. Fast-forward to this weekend, i bottled 5 gallons in 375ml Crown-able belgian bottles and put 2.5 gallons into a keg. The day I bottled it I cracked my 2009 Cuvee, and had some side by side. I thought they where fairly similar, and now that the keg is getting up to the proper C02 level I have to say I am impressed.

I added 11 gallons back into the keg and will probably brew another 10 gallons for topping off the barrel through out the year, Im interested to see how it will be next year...and the next year...

Great thread about CdT. The WHALES will be using one of our 60 gallon Lairds Applejack barrels to produce a batch of Sour Belgian Dark Strong with Cherries. Lots of great info in here regarding souring, which is my primary concern. I plan on brewing 80 gallons, resulting in ~70-75 gallons of product... enough to top off a barrel over the year it will be on oak. AINT GONNA BE CHEAP!!!! HAHAH!




Just racked out a 18mo framboise outta there... saved a gallon of nice sour dregs

Oh lord no it sure ain't cheep! But it sure is fun. I'm entering this in to the SD fair comp this weekend, curious to see how it does. This will be the force carbonated version. The bottle conditioned ones are going to take a while.

I have 4.5 gallons of the New World Westy recipe that I added Jolly Pumpkin dregs to. Cherries are now in season and I was planning on adding about 4 pounds of fresh cherries to the fermenter. I added the dregs in March with 1 oz of Hungarian Oak cubes.

Does 4 pounds of fresh cherries sound like a good amount?

Should I throw in some raisins?

I'm not really going for a clone here, just a good beer :O)

Scrib

Vv

long arse brew day today! The Whales brewed what looks like about 85 gallons of Belgian Dark Strong Ale, plus we collected another 14 gallons of 2nd runnings and boiled that down to roughly 10 gallons for a one day grand total of 95 gallons of brew!! We're looking at 9-9.6% ABV after the cherries and the bugs get to the brew

Go HD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCTKHCYY0IQ&hd=1

oh yeahhh!!!

After 3 years a project trade finally happened. Bsquared was in Tucson this weekend and brought a bottle of his Cuvee (sans cherries) and swapped one of my last bottles of Cuvee Amore. Build off those dregs Bsquared! They are the best bugs I've used.

So my club made a somewhat similar beer to this...the base recipe is pretty much the same, although we pitched a starter made from Consecration dregs, as well as another starter made with..I want to say white labs sour blend but I honestly forgot because it was a long time ago...then we racked it into a carbernet barrel and have been doing a solera on it.


It recently won a gold medal for Belgian Specialty, and was a strong candidate for BOS in a local SoCal competition a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't ready to drink the last time I saw you saq (which was maybe 4-5 months after we brewed it), but we should try to arrange a swap nowadays as it has vastly improved.

Bsquared I am drinking that bottle of this beer you dropped off for me.

Its a lot lighter in color than mine and a bit more mild in flavor. I think I recall you saying no cherries and I don't really pick up on any but it has a great sour character. Not too assertive, but not flabby either. I get a good level of barrel character and maybe a touch of the brandy.
Pretty enjoyable beer! Let me know when you get to cracking open mine.

I think I will crack open yours soon, I was planing on bringing to my brothers in Sacramento over the holidays, but I forgot it in San Diego! I'll post when I do.

I just read this thread. Probably one of the coolest threads on HBT. Thanks for the collection of stories, recipes and experience, folks...

I'm interested in doing something along these lines and I hope I can pull something like this together soon.

I purchased the grain bill from wild brews and will be giving this a go. Lots of great info here!


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So...I've been sitting on these last two bottles for...3+ years. one of mine and one of saq's. I've been wanting to crack them open for since I got them, but was waiting for a good time. So what's a better time than NHC? The two beers really held up well, good tartness saq's cherry flavors where still present and the beer was very good, and a close approximation of the cuvee, Mine did not have cherries, the brandy flavor had faded and there was a hint of acidic acid that I knew I picked up. over all everyone was impressed especial on how well they aged. we even blended a little with some mead, and that was really interesting.

Inspired by this thread. Going to do something along these lines starting sat. Never had this beer before.