Help with strains please

[newtobrew1981]

So I'm awaiting on a order from the yeast bay. I'm waiting for saison/ Brett blend 2 , amalgamation 2, lacto blend, and melange. My question is if anyone has experience or advice on a strain or strains I would love to hear your thoughts. Cheers

 

[cactusgarrett]

Uh... that's a pretty broad question on a lot of mixes. Do you have any more specific topics/issues in mind?

 

[newtobrew1981]

Just looking for don't do s that the novice would fall for I know it's pretty broad. Guess my main concern is do I pitch the Brett with yeast or let gravity stabilize then pitch

 

[mirthfuldragon]

I would co-pitch in just about every circumstance I can reasonably think of in making sours. I have fallen down the sour rabbit hole for the last six months or so. I don't see a lot of benefit from using saccharomyces first before pitching brett. The point of brett is to provide brett flavors. There are situations where I would pitch lacto by itself, but that's mostly kettle sours so it does not really count.

 

[newtobrew1981]

Ty

 

[mirthfuldragon]

With the four blends you mentioned, those all go in different directions. I presume they are going to different beers. Only the lacto blend is a "pure", single bug culture, where the other three are blends of sacch, brett, laco, and pedio. I would not mix them together.

 

[cactusgarrett]

In my opinion, it really depends on your recipe and what flavor profile you're attempting to impart. Times I would consider pitching Brett after Sacc would be to obtain subtle Brett characteristics instead of strong ones.

For example, if you ferment your beer down very far (1.010 or lower, for example) with just the Sacc, then there will be less for the Brett to work on. However, if you design your recipe to finish primary Sacc ferment at 1.020 (via mash temp or less attenuative yeast), there's obviously much more for the Brett to work with once introduced, and you'll get more "Brett character".

There are a vast number of commercial breweries who do clean ferments and only add Brett/bugs after transferring to a secondary vessel for aging. For my Flanders Red that I routinely do, I pitch Sacc and Brett together, up front, because I've found it gets more sour that way. Conversely, for the LaFolie clone I did, I mimicked what New Belgium did and clean fermented with a lager Sacc first, then added Brett/bugs prior to long-term storage.

 

[newtobrew1981]

No they are all for different beers the lacto blend is for a kettle sour and I was thinking pitching the saison blend with French saison yeast from white labs the melange and the amalgamation still not sure what I'll do with them