House Blends?

[jblank44]

Can someone explain exactly what a 'house blend' is?

Is this just a blend of Saac/wild yeasts that a brewery uses most often and have developed themselves?

Also, if you are creating a blend, do you simply just have a certain percentage of each strain you use? I know you probably cannot culture these as one would grow more than another and the ratio would change over time.

Example, if I was creating my own lacto blend, I could do 80% L. delbrueckii, and 20% L. Brevis?? Just saying something for the sake of asking.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Oldsock]

There is no set definition. For some breweries it is a blend they get from a lab of existing isolates. For others it is a wild culture that they continually propagate. Still others might have a combination of strains they bank and propagate to hit the exact cell ratio. Wicked Weed uses a particular base beer (Cassette) as a mother culture to start other barrels. Brewers figure out what works for them.

I have a House Saison culture that I started a few years ago and just repitch every couple months. If it drifts off I’ll start over. In general for my long-aged sours I’m looking to encourage diversity to give more choices for blending or tasting variety.

 

[jblank44]

There is no set definition. For some breweries it is a blend they get from a lab of existing isolates. For others it is a wild culture that they continually propagate. Still others might have a combination of strains they bank and propagate to hit the exact cell ratio. Wicked Weed uses a particular base beer (Cassette) as a mother culture to start other barrels. Brewers figure out what works for them.

I have a House Saison culture that I started a few years ago and just repitch every couple months. If it drifts off I’ll start over. In general for my long-aged sours I’m looking to encourage diversity to give more choices for blending or tasting variety.

Awesome, okay. This is what I figured but I was just curious. If you don't mind, what is your house saison culture?

 

[Oldsock]

Awesome, okay. This is what I figured but I was just curious. If you don't mind, what is your house saison culture?

It started as two saison strains, Sacch Trois, and a Brett from Cantillon. Later I added Lacto. Not sure exactly what strains have won out, picked up, muted, interbred etc. over the last few years, but Bootleg Biology isolated a similar mix to what I started with and is propagating it now: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=621126

 

[ShareBrewing]

Oldsock is absolutely correct. You can essentially start with a commercial mix and continually re-pitch it. Eventually the yeast/bacteria will mutate (to some degree, if at all) or one can make their own mix of yeast and use it going forward. Obviously there will be mutations or changes in the ratio of the microbes once propagated. But a house culture is what you want it to be, you just need to keep pitching it and see what becomes of it.