Funkifying my Olde Ale

[Strave19]

I brewed ~5gal of an Old Ale several weeks ago with OG: 1.090 and am thinking about bottling half in a month or so, and putting some dregs in the remaining half to let it sit for 6-12months and get its funk on.

The old ale has a lot of crystal malts, lots of pale MO, 1lb corn sugar, 1lb of DME (because my efficiency suuuucked - 59%... 20+lbs of grain is way too much grain for my mash tun) Pitched 2 packs of 1028 London ale. I have not taken an FG yet, but I'd expect it to be around 1.025.

I've got a bottle of Beir de Mars and Consecration waiting to be consumed and I'm thinking of dumping the dregs of BDMars in first because it is just brett B, then after awhile dumping the dregs from consecration which has lacto, ped, and multiple bretts (I think). I have never done any brewing with bugs but it sounds like fun to me. Will the bugs dry it out too much to make it kind-of gross? Should I add the dregs from both bottles together or does my timing sound better for making it less sour, due to the high FG Im not sure if it will get too sour and weird if I put all of them in at once. I'm also thinking of adding some oak chips soaked in Pinot just because it sounds nice... After it hits a stable FG for a month or two (might take a year?) I'll add a bit of priming sugar and bottle.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks!

 

[Oldsock]

Sour beers are always a gamble. The Brett C spiked old ale I brewed ~4 years ago taste fantastic, but ~1.010 it doens't have the fullness that I want in an old ale. Your gravity is also pretty high, so it is hard to know much much sourness and funk you will get. I think it is worth trying (good idea on the oak), if it gets sour just call it an imperial oud bruin, just a little call it a stock ale etc... hope it turns out well, good luck!

 

[maskednegator]

As an aside, your efficiency on big beers is a sparge volume issue and not a mash tun issue. You probably sparge 10 lbs of grain with about 3.5 gallons of water to get a pre-boil of ~7 gallons. With 20 lbs of grain, your first runnings are already your usual pre-boil volume. If you don't sparge, you're going to get substantially lower efficiency. The trade off is that you will also not have a 3 hour boil.

 

[Strave19]

Thanks for the replies. I think I'm just going to wing it and pitch the Brett B dregs first and see what happens, maybe pitch the consecration goodness a few months later. I'm hoping the dregs will be viable.

As for the bad efficiency, I could not fit nearly enough water so the mash was extremely thick... I had attributed that to my poor efficiency because I sparged to over 6 gallons. It seemed (to me at least) to be a true efficiency problem, probably just not enough water and very uneven temp due to that... Who knows, next time I make a special beer that big I'll just do two mashes.

 

[godofcheese]

wyeast is releasing their old ale strain which has some brett in it soon.

 

[Strave19]

Well folks, I appreciate all the feedback - but the thing is, I decided to bottle all of instead of saving some to put bugs on! It just tasted way too good out of the secondary for me to only have 2.5gallons bottled. I do plan on making a similar beer this winter and put bugs on the whole 5 gallons, but it just wasn't worth it to me to only have 2.5gallons of each and a carboy tied up for a year or so only half full.

Cheers - I have really high hopes for this olde ale!

 

[maskednegator]

Again, as another aside, You shouldn't half-fill carboys with funky beers. That's a case of wet cardboard or vinegar waiting to happen.