saving dregs? suggestions

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ellijo89

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So i have a few sour beers saved up which i of course want to drink but i would like to also save these dregs for future sour beers. Any suggestions on best way to do this? i was thinking of getting a gallon jug with a starter in it and an air lock and just adding dregs as i drink them. slowly create a house funk i suppose. is this suggested? better options?

thanks!
 
Never having done it, I don't have any tried nd true methods to share, but I am pouring the dregs from the Jolly Pumpkin Bam Bieres I brought back from Michigan into an empty honey jar and keeping it in the back of my fridge. When I drain them all I will add these dregs to a starter on my stirplate with some 1.040 wort and grow it up for a few days then harvest it and freeze it in a slant.

Looking forward to see input from people with experience to see if we are on the right track here.
 
I am pouring the dregs from the Jolly Pumpkin Bam Bieres I brought back from Michigan into an empty honey jar and keeping it in the back of my fridge. When I drain them all I will add these dregs to a starter on my stirplate with some 1.040 wort and grow it up for a few days

I did just that...kept a 22 in the fridge with plastic wrap and aluminum foil rubber banded over it for a few months while I filled with sour dregs (quite a few were JP beers :rockin:) mostly to try out saving/growing bottle dregs.

See my thread on that topic: HERE

Ended up working REALLY well!
 
sweet well looks like it wont hurt to try, but i may just do your method and just pour them into an empty jar in the fridge. we will see what my best drunken idea is after i finish a bottle:mug:
 
There are quite a few ways to save dregs. Here are a few:
1)Pour into sanitized WL vial
2)Into foil or airlock covered container with wort
3)Pour into bag of oak chips
 
So far I have done 1) Pour into sanitized WL vial.

I'm having a bit of a sour beer party and will have a bunch of different dredges to save. So i'll go the mason jar route with some wort and cubes I reckon. I'll pour dredges from similar type beers in one mason jar.
 
So far I have done 1) Pour into sanitized WL vial.

I'm having a bit of a sour beer party and will have a bunch of different dredges to save. So i'll go the mason jar route with some wort and cubes I reckon. I'll pour dredges from similar type beers in one mason jar.

Somewhere on this board, some genius drilled a hole in the lid of a mason jar, put in a silicone washer and plugged it with a airlock. That might be a nice way to go.
 
Something else you can do if you're going out to a beer bar or something is tuck a fresh ziplock baggie in your pocket.

It starts out sealed and sterile on the inside, and it's much easier to carry than an empty, recapped bottle if you decide you want to save yeast from something that you're drinking. I just toss it in the fridge when I get home and pitch it from there into either a beer or a starter.
 
I'm at the point in my geekdom that I'll probably start carrying around autoclaved WL tubes when I go to places from now on. I wonder if the stickers/adhesive would cause problems during autoclaving?
 
Something else you can do if you're going out to a beer bar or something is tuck a fresh ziplock baggie in your pocket.

It starts out sealed and sterile on the inside, and it's much easier to carry than an empty, recapped bottle if you decide you want to save yeast from something that you're drinking. I just toss it in the fridge when I get home and pitch it from there into either a beer or a starter.

And if you get harassed on your drunken walk home by the police, you could say it's your piss bag.
 
I'm at the point in my geekdom that I'll probably start carrying around autoclaved WL tubes when I go to places from now on. I wonder if the stickers/adhesive would cause problems during autoclaving?

Peel 'em off and save 'em. White labs will give you a free vial if you send them 10 labels.


And if you get harassed on your drunken walk home by the police, you could say it's your piss bag.

Less likely that I'm gonna get harrassed for a ziplock of yeast in my wife's handbag than it is for a 750mL sticking out. :p
 
Peel 'em off and save 'em. White labs will give you a free vial if you send them 10 labels.

I never knew this, that is awesome! So do you just peel them off and mail them in when you have enough?:mug:
 
Something else you can do if you're going out to a beer bar or something is tuck a fresh ziplock baggie in your pocket.

It starts out sealed and sterile on the inside

I highly doubt they are sterile. They are more likely very clean, but sterile is certainly a stretch.
 
I highly doubt they are sterile. They are more likely very clean, but sterile is certainly a stretch.

Yah, this has actually come up somewhere else before, and after actually contacting the makers of ziplock, they responded by saying that the bags are NOT sterile in any way
 
Yah, this has actually come up somewhere else before, and after actually contacting the makers of ziplock, they responded by saying that the bags are NOT sterile in any way

I've not seen that response. However, there is a lengthy thread over on the AHA forum, including a response from a guy who swabbed some baggies, plated on agar, and observed no growth. That might not be good enough for Ziplock to guarantee sterility (and assume some sort of liability issues in the process), but it's good enough for me to feel confident storing my yeast in one.


http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=11.0
 
Maybe we should start thinking sanitized instead of sterilized. Why don't you baggie folks just spray down your sacks with some star san before you go to the bar (it might even help you single folk hookup). That way you can rest assured that you're carrying home the good bugs (single folks might want to spray down afterwards as well). By the way, I still think it looks like you guys are carrying around a bunch of piss bags. And I don't care if your old lady is carrying it for you. :)
 
Ok, looking to get some input. I have dregs from 2 jp bam bieres sitting in my fridge that I really want to use. Due to an unfortunate illness with my dog, I won't be able to brew for a while, as she requires constant supervision.

I have two 1 gallon batches left over from a sparkling mead I made last year (bottled 3 gals and split rest into growlers with airlocks)

Anyone pitch these beasties onto a mead before? I figure its about 9% abv and already completed fermentation. My thought is to add dregs to one and age out, maybe toss in some oak.

Potential for disaster? If nothing else I could brew a r gal batch later and blend them. Hmmmm

Thoughts?
 
I have heard about some interesting and good results with Brett in ciders and wines (search on Babblebelt homebrew forum). I'm not sure about mead. I guess it really depends on your taste. I associate mead with trying to achieve more wine-like flavors. And Brett and other souring bugs are the biggest enemy in that industry.
There is only one way to know and that is to go for it. But if you already have a very low gravity then those bugs probably can't do much. It would be a good idea to add some dextrin when you pitch the bugs. Or I think even better idea is to add some fruit when you add the dregs.
Like you said if it doesn't turn out great, it might be a good batch to have for blending. I would think a sour braggot sounds great.
Oh, last thing is that the Jolly Pumpkin bugs are very aggressive. Of all the batch I have going, the JP dregs soured a beer in 4 months as opposed to 12-18.
 
I have heard about some interesting and good results with Brett in ciders and wines (search on Babblebelt homebrew forum). I'm not sure about mead. I guess it really depends on your taste. I associate mead with trying to achieve more wine-like flavors. And Brett and other souring bugs are the biggest enemy in that industry.

I actually think of meads as being sweeter and far less tannic/acidic than wines; sour browns a la Supplication are much more "winey" to me. Gueuze has long been called the champagne of the beer world.

The dirty secret in the wine world is that while they claim to hate brett, lots of classic big reds have Brett in them. In recent years, lots of critics are starting to come around to the idea that the "unique French" character of lots of old houses is, in fact, brett activity in their barrels--many of the Bordeauxs (e.g. Chateau Pichon-Lalande) have quite noticeable brett character. http://www.wineloverspage.com/randysworld/brett.phtml is worth a read.
 
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