I'm starting out in the process of doing a bunch of lambics brews so that down the line I will be able to blend. I was thinking of doing about 3-5G a few times a year.... Given the frequency I would like to reuse WLP655 as much as possible. Anyone have any suggestions for the best course of action? Trying to figure out what is best... For sach yeast I usually just brew a big starter and refrigerate half if I know I am going to use the same yeast in the relative future. Is that the best course of action here? Any outside the box ideas? Do you guys just keep a jar of bugs that you periodically feed? (If so how often)?
Best way to reuse lambic blend?
- Thread starter BigBill
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I don't know if this is the best way, but what I am doing is:
After about a week (while the beer is still fermenting), I siphon off a few pints, which I keep under airlock until I brew again. This is my 'bug-starter' for the next batch. I use a 1.5 liter wine bottle with one of the small airlock corks.
I make a sour about every 4 months, but alternate useing 2 different cultures (one is the Lambic Blend, the other is made up from multiple commercial bottle dregs), so I am saving my yeast/bugs for 8 months between brews. When I pitch this saved 'bug-mix' I add some fresh yeast, usually a Belgian yeast, because the original sacc has probably died off.
I keep my sample at room temp to allow the 'bugs' to increase their population. If it were kept in the fridge, probably the sacc would survive, but the 'bug' count would be very low when pitching.
If you think taking 3 pints is too much loss from the main batch, you can always add some wort back to the main batch.
After about a week (while the beer is still fermenting), I siphon off a few pints, which I keep under airlock until I brew again. This is my 'bug-starter' for the next batch. I use a 1.5 liter wine bottle with one of the small airlock corks.
I make a sour about every 4 months, but alternate useing 2 different cultures (one is the Lambic Blend, the other is made up from multiple commercial bottle dregs), so I am saving my yeast/bugs for 8 months between brews. When I pitch this saved 'bug-mix' I add some fresh yeast, usually a Belgian yeast, because the original sacc has probably died off.
I keep my sample at room temp to allow the 'bugs' to increase their population. If it were kept in the fridge, probably the sacc would survive, but the 'bug' count would be very low when pitching.
If you think taking 3 pints is too much loss from the main batch, you can always add some wort back to the main batch.
I just keep a mason jar with some oak cubes on the shelf with my brewing stuff. I dump new yeast from a lambic or other sour from time to time. I have every type of brett that is commercially available in there plus other stuff. I tend to pull small portions of yeast from experiments gone wrong like a sour wit I did last year. I ended up with some crazy bacteria an unhopped portion that made the beer very viscous. Then it got normal, I bottled, and it got viscous again. So maybe next year it will be good again. I recently fermented 8 gal of saison with a small amount of the thin culture I have in the jar. I'm talking low cell counts and it's an awesome beer.
Bacteria survive better at room temps and so does brett I believe. Sacch will be fine and or not as important as the souring bacteria and the brett. You can always do what Calder does and add a fresh sacch yeast with the rest of the wild souring culture. I just roll with it and embrace the unpredictability of the culture.
Bacteria survive better at room temps and so does brett I believe. Sacch will be fine and or not as important as the souring bacteria and the brett. You can always do what Calder does and add a fresh sacch yeast with the rest of the wild souring culture. I just roll with it and embrace the unpredictability of the culture.
