Sour mix starter

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

xpops

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
498
Reaction score
124
Location
London
Ok so I'm not sure if this should be in yeast and fermentation or wild brewing....

I brewed a base blonde to make my first sour about 3 weeks ago. Around the same time, I drank a few local sours and harvested their dregs in a low gravity DME starter. I added one or two right at primary fermentation as well, as per the madfermentstionist.

My question is that I'm about to transfer to secondary to sit for long long months, and don't know how to pitch this sour mix starter? It's a full mix of lacto, pedio and Brett. It's about 1/2 L with about 1/8" sediment and 1/8" pellicle (see attached).

1) Do I decant like typical starter? Will I lose good bugs doing this?

2)Do I omit the pellicle or pitch it right in?

3) should I add a small DME mix at same time to help feed the starter mix? (Base went down to 1.008 with original sour dregs I added at primary) ?

Thanks for any suggestions!!

View attachment 1461985567277.jpg

View attachment 1461985597109.jpg
 
Sorry I can't help but that is one of the coolest pellicles I've seen. Makes me want to start clicking on that "show us a photo of your pellicle" thread.
 
Sorry I can't help but that is one of the coolest pellicles I've seen. Makes me want to start clicking on that "show us a photo of your pellicle" thread.

Lol - thanks. I checked there for some answers but no go!
 
Nothing? No one with experience on starters with sour bugs?
 
Sorry, no experience but I am interested in following the discussion. If you already pitched the bugs in primary, what is the theory for pitching them again in secondary?

Maybe I missed it, but can you tell us what we are looking at in the pictures? Are we looking at a birds eye view of the opening of an Erlenmeyer? Agree with xpops, that is freaking cool looking.
 
I'm just pitching some extras for when it sits in secondary. I only pitched dregs from one or two sours at primary. Wasn't convinced it get much out of just 2 dregs.

Yes, that's birds eye view of jar with the dregs sitting and waiting. The second image is just zoomed in to show how really cool it looks!
 
It looks like a brick of ramen...

Your bugs will multiply. So what I'm not sure is whether your "secondary pitch" is the same bugs as those you already pitched in primary? If so, it probably won't do much more. If it's different bugs, you'll get more diversity, which could go either way.
 
I just figured extra wouldn't hurt? I have them so just didn't make sense to throw them out. Question is....decant and get rid of pellicle? Or just dump it all into secondary?
 
Does vitality drop as quickly for sour mix starters as regular sach starters??
 
I think it really depends on the makeup of bugs, sacc, etc. that you've got going on. If you think about it, it's not uncommon for folks to have luck propping up dregs that have been sitting at the bottom of bottles for years. Some people keep a continuous starter of bugs going, feeding it a little bit of starter wort at every so often. Other folks keep jars in the fridge, pull them out every few months or so, make another starter, put some back in the fridge, repeat.

I just pulled 4 jars out from my initial "house bug farm" of 45 different commercial sours that I made last year, set them off in some starter wort, and they took right off.
 
Hmmm...so I may be better to let this sit, toss in fridge and use in a couple months...

Can you really achieve anymore "sour" by adding more to secondary? Or does it really max out? Can you add unfermentables sugars to let bugs munch on in secondary, so that regular sach yeast don't have their way with it?
 
Hmmm...so I may be better to let this sit, toss in fridge and use in a couple months...

Can you really achieve anymore "sour" by adding more to secondary? Or does it really max out? Can you add unfermentables sugars to let bugs munch on in secondary, so that regular sach yeast don't have their way with it?

I was listening to a Jamil podcast on straight lambic the other day...he recommended mashing a few tablespoons of flour for the brett to work on. You could try adding some dissolved in water although it might get kinda gooey.
 
Honestly I'm not really sure how to answer that. I'm unclear on your goals for this current beer vs. your goals for the dregs you've harvested. You said this was your first go around, so I'd probably just pitch everything in and check on it for a few months.

What was the SG vs. FG of the beer in primary? That would help determine if there's anything left for the bugs to chew on. You can certainly add some Malto or something like that to secondary to give them something else to chew on. If you're going to leave it for a really long time Brett can also chew up wood sugar so some cubes might be beneficial.

No offense to HBT, but you're probably better off researching these topics over at MTF as it is devoted to sour/funky beers.
 
Thanks for info! It was around 1.070 with estimated FG of 1.016 leaving enough for the bugs to chew up....but because I did pitch some dregs at same time as sach pitch, it did go down to 1.008...so I assume I would need to add some malto (any other options?). To help keep feeding them.

I am also adding some cubes into secondary as well.

Thanks !
 
You could do a solera type of system and rack off about half of what you have now, bottle it up and see how it tastes. Then put some fresh wort on top of the remainder and let it age for a while.
 
No problem. I love talking about this style of brewing and trying to help. Here's some feedback based on your recent info...

At those gravity readings you are already over 8% ABV, so between that and the yeast/bacteria that have already taken off, anything you pitch now is going to have a hard time getting a foothold to do anything else. Both the alcohol and other organisms are going to work against them.

Also, overshooting your FG might not be just to the dregs you pitched. LAB won't really produce much alcohol during its fermentation, but Brett will eat nearly anything really. What temp did you ferment at, and what kind of yeast did you use?

1.008, in my opinion, does leave enough there for bugs and Brett to chew on. For example, I just had a Saison with Brett that was 1.004 when I racked to secondary and today it is down to 1.001.

Malto is generally what I use in secondary, if anything to feed bugs. I usually dissolve 1/2 lb. in 500ml of water, bring it to a boil for a couple of minutes, pour it into my fermenter, purge with CO2, and then rack off to secondary.

Regarding the cubes, if you're going to leave them in there for a while you probably want to boil them for 15 minutes or so before use. That will get a lot of the oak flavor out of them and stop you from over-oaking, just leaving the oak more or less as a place for the Brett to take up residence.
 
Thanks for all the info! I just checked my sheets when I got home tonight....1.057 was OG....clearly been brewing too much and mixing up numbers! :)

I used Belle saison danstar and fermented around 63 in ferm chamber. Been sitting at 65 for about 2 weeks now.

Good to know that at 1.008 still leaves some goods!

For the cubes, I boiled and also soaked in white wine for 2 weeks, dumped off the wine and have been soaking in fresh wine for the last 2 weeks.

So by sounds of it, im somewhat on the right track. Sounds like there's still some goods for chewing on, so it might as well be worth throwing in my mix of dregs? Or maybe half, and save the other half? How long would it last in fridge?

Thanks sgain for the help!
 
Cool, so you're sitting at about 6.5% now. I would go ahead and pitch your whole starter of dregs into secondary along with the oak, and let it just hang out at room temp for a couple of months.

Purge with CO2 before and after transfer, if possible, and either way, resist the urge to open up your fermenter to see if you've got a cool pellicle growing, take samples, and so on. Just try to forget about it for a couple of months.

Then take a small sample and see how it's doing. Chance are you will have dropped a few more points and have something funky/tart going on.

When you rack out of your fermenter for packaging, leave about 1/2" of beer or so on top of whatever type of cake/trub you have on the bottom. Swirl it all up and then use some of that as the starter for your next one!
 
Awesome - sounds like a good idea and is confirming what I figured I needed to do. Only downside is lack of ability to purge with CO2 :(

I've never pitched onto a cake before but from what i read, it seems like pitching onto something funky just keeps getting better and better batch after batch!
 
So we're confident that if I drink some more sours, I'm best to save those in a new vessel in fridge, and I should have no issues getting them going in 4 months or so when I start my next sour?
 
Hey, sorry, it looks like I somehow missed your replies.

Regarding pitching on the cake, I think that is a mighty fine idea. In fact I will be doing it myself several times this summer.

I've got my "bug farm" all ready to go, and I will be using it to kick off a sour blonde tomorrow.

That will go for 30 days @80F in primary, and then I'll rack it off to a secondary with some wine soaked oak.

The same day I rack the blonde, I'll be brewing a sour red and pitching straight onto the cake.

30 days later I'll repeat that process but brewing a sour brown, repitching on the cake again.

Then I'll finally finish it up 30 days later with a sour stout.

Regarding your last question, I think you have 3 options what to do there...

1 - Each time you drink a sour, flame the top of the bottle, cover it tightly with sanitized foil, and then leave them collecting in the fridge until you're ready to make a starter.

2 - Get a few bottles ready to go like in #1, and then use them to make a starter, and keep feeding it new dregs as you drink them and occasionally feed it more wort to keep it going until you're ready to brew.

3 - Drink a bunch of sours, use them to make a starter, grow it up sufficiently, and then harvest off several jars for future starters.

Which way you go is totally up to you!
 
I'm hesitant to brew a second sour without testing the first, but I guess it doenst make much sense to wait a yr...maybe I should just brew a second and pitch onto cake.

What would the difference be really between saving individual bottles, vs keeping all the dregs just in a single vessel over time? The only sours I have available to me, are from a local brewery and I already know they use the same sour mix for all of them...figure this is safe to do?
 
Alternatively ... Could I transfer yeast cake to sanitized vessel, store in fridge, and pitxh on it in a few months rather than brewing up a sour right away? Sours AND repitching on cakes are both extremely new to me. Thanks again for all your info!
 
If you wait until you taste the first sour until you brew the second one that could mean a really long time in between sours for you. I'd say to just take accurate notes and brew as often as you can.

My advice is not to transfer the dregs out of the bottles until you are ready to make some sort of starter with them. There's just no reason and you risk too much oxygen exposure, leading to acetic acid production and possible contamination.

What I'd suggested previously was to save some of the cake in jars and use that to make your next starter. All of the online starter calculators should allow you to specify "slurry" as you're starting material.

Also if you're getting all of your sour beers from the same brewer, you are not going to have much diversity in your dregs beyond what they've already got going on. It's generally recommended to pitch lots of different dregs to get the diversity. Even your nearest Whole Foods or good liquor store should have some bottles with harvestable dregs. Beyond that you might even just try asking the local brewery to give you some of their culture. Some are open to sharing yeast/bugs and some are not.
 
Back
Top