Culturing from sour beers

[Warthaug]

I have a question about culturing the yeasts and bacteria out of bottled sour beers. A friend of mine brought back some French and Belgian sours. They are all bottle conditioned and have a notable sediment in the bottle. I've had great success in the past culturing yeast from bottles, but we know that at a minimum there is Sacc, Bret and Lacto (and probably pedio) in these beers.

I was wondering what the best approach is for culturing from the bottles? In my readings it looks like lacto/pedio can be inhibited by excess O2 - so should I avoid a stirred starter? What OG wort should I use? These beers travelled a long way to get here, so I don't want to screw them up!

Any advice is appreciated.

Bryan

 

[dcp27]

Depends how many bottles you will be doing, but I usually start small and low (~1 cup and 1.025 wort) and step it up over time. I wouldn't use a stir plate.

Here;s some info on the subject: http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2010/06/harvesting-sour-beer-bottle-dregs.html

 

[Warthaug]

Great info - that was exactly what I needed! So start with a lower gravity, don't stir, and be patient.

Bryan

 

[terrapinj]

may want to see if you can find out which bottles use a sacch strain for bottle conditioning - my understanding is that making a starter from bottle dregs can favor the sacch strain at the expense of the other microbes

 

[Warthaug]

I don't think that info is available to us - I'm not sure all of what he has, but according to him they're all from small local breweries that do not distribute widely.

I may take a bit of the dregs to streak out on some non-sach supporting agar, and pool the colonies from there...

Bryan

 

[solbes]

Sounds awesome! Hopefully they weren't pasteurized. I had a few Flanders that fell into that category.

I personally skipped the starter for my dregs from JP and Odells. Pitched at time of primary yeast pitch. They smell sour and look plenty infected 3 months in.

 

[Xpertskir]

Depends how many bottles you will be doing, but I usually start small and low (~1 cup and 1.025 wort) and step it up over time. I wouldn't use a stir plate.

Here;s some info on the subject: http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2010/06/harvesting-sour-beer-bottle-dregs.html

Came in to post this.

Im doing a direct pitch on friday from some JP dregs.

The problem with starters for dregs is that they include multiple bug strains and that the they all have different environments in which they thrive(ie o2 levels, acidity, ect). So with a starter you will alter the ratio of the different bugs.

That is one benefit of repitching a slurry of your own of bugs/brewers yeast, from a previous batch. The ratio of bugs to yeast keeps increasing.

For friday, Im drinking 2 bombers of JP(oh the burden) and pitching the dregs with my primary yeast. I then plan to reuse the cake for a few batches, and potentially add more dregs along the way.

 

[TNGabe]

I have a question about culturing the yeasts and bacteria out of bottled sour beers. A friend of mine brought back some French and Belgian sours.

I'm not familiar with any sour beers from France. What did he bring you?

 

[Warthaug]

He didn't bring me anything; he's just nice enough to re-seal the dregs in the bottle so I can culture from them

As for what they are - I don't know. He's originally from the Nord region, and picked them up while visiting family. Its right on the Belgian boarder, so I imagine it would be similar to the Belgian sours.

Bryan

 

[TNGabe]

He didn't bring me anything; he's just nice enough to re-seal the dregs in the bottle so I can culture from them

As for what they are - I don't know. He's originally from the Nord region, and picked them up while visiting family. Its right on the Belgian boarder, so I imagine it would be similar to the Belgian sours.

Bryan

So you're trying to culture dregs from un-labeled, re-capped bottles?

 

[Warthaug]

Done it before. First time with sours though...

Bryan