Looking for feedback before starting my first Solera

[drgonzo2k2]

Hey Gang,

Yesterday I scored a 15 gallon ball lock keg in great condition on the cheap from Craigslist, and I'd like to use it to start my first sour Solera project. I've ready Ed Coffy's great article from the HBT front page as well as most of the resources at the MTF wiki on the subject. I'm basically looking for input on preparing/using the keg to be the Solera vessel as well as the bug blends I'll be using.

First thing I'll definitely be scrubbing/cleaning the keg, replacing all the o-rings, etc. to get it back in working order. Then I'd planned to replace the lid with one of the corny keg fermenter lids, although I'll use a 3-piece airlock instead of the one shown in the picture there. I was also going to change the liquid out dip tube for one from a 5 gallon keg. Then when I'm ready to draw off from the Solera I thought I could replace the airlock with a solid bung and transfer out under pressure at 2-3 PSI, and the shorter dip tube would ensure I'm always drawing off from the middle, not picking up any trub or disturbing any pellicle that might have formed.

After a couple of years I can then take off the liquid out post and use the longer dip tube from the 15 gallon keg to draw off any excess trub that has built off. Also, using the 3-piece air lock and fermenter lid I should be able to draw off samples and purge with CO2 simply enough using my sampling syringe and purging wand that I built.

Lastly I was going to try to mount the keg on a furniture dolly prior to filling it, as it'll weigh over 120 lbs when full, and I'll have to move it by myself if I ever need to do so.

As far as filling it the first time I was planning on doing back-to-back 7 gallon batches of something along the lines of The Rare Barrel's Golden Base in a single brew day (I have a 10 gallon kettle so will have to do 2 batches).

I plan on pitching both East Coast Yeast's Dirty Dozen Brett Blend and Bug County and some stepped up dregs from an 3 Fonteinen Armand'4 set that I've been saving for a special purpose. My current plan is to do a 3L starter of the brett blend and a 500mL starter of the dregs, but no starter of the Bug County. I think doing a starter on the bug blend would throw the ratios of the different bugs out of whack. With the starters and my 14 gallons I'll have nearly 15 gallons in the keg at the initial fill.

For oak I was going to use medium toast French oak Beerstix as I've used those before on a couple of sours and really liked the way they turned out. They are sized for 5-6 gallons, so I'm thinking I'll use 3 in the Solera. I'm not 100% clear if I should boil them before using them like this or not, and if so, for how long. I did not boil them when I used them in my sour, but I did soak them in wine first, which I don't plan to do this time around.

So once filled and everything has been pitched I'll attach a blow off tube for the first several days, as I imagine it'll get quite crazy in there and there won't be a ton of head room. Then after things settle I down I'll swap it out for an airlock and then just leave it be for 6 months before taking my first sample. After about a year I'll pull off 3-5 gallons, depending on how it's tasting, top it off, and then repeat every year.

So that's my basic plan, and I would appreciate any thoughts or feedback!

 

[LakesideBrewing]

Looks like a great plan! Seriously well thought out, looks promising. I have a 10 gallon Solera project going and I don't know if I can offer any advice because it looks like you have it covered! Maybe one thing, but it's probably just personal preference: I don't oak my Solera, I wait and use oak spirals after I pull 5 gallons from my Solera. I didn't want to risk over oaking the whole thing, this gives me more control.

-Mike

 

[bovineblitz]

Jealous of that keg! I love the idea you have for dealing with trub, but you should have a long time until you have to care at all about that. I have a ~13.2 gallon solera going in a big polypropylene carboy like this. Brewed up ~30 gallons of a 15% rye wort with a friend to fill it about 1.5 years ago, and we pulled, bottled, and blended our first year's batch fairly recently. Turned out quite well. For the refill, we brewed up a similar wort and hit it with saison yeast (Wallonian from Yeast Bay) and racked that off the trub back into the fermenter (since we're never going to get that initial trub out).

All we initially pitched was a single vial of 6 month old Bug County each. Seems like a big underpitch, but crazily enough, I had visible fermentation within 36 hours of pitching, which seems like a bit of an anomaly. The reason we did that is we were going for a relatively mild sourness with more brett complexity (sorta lambic-esque), and I think we got the first part right, could use a little more brett character. However, seeing as how it's a long-term project, I'm really happy with a milder sour level since my first half dozen sours were all extremely sour, and I can always blend in a bit of something for a bit more bite. I think I'm going to try to hit it with as much Allagash dregs as I can, since their brett character is fantastic and will work really well with the level of sourness we've achieved. I think the Wallonian might not have been the best choice for getting more character in there, but I could top crop it from another batch that was rolling so it was a utilitarian choice.

I also have my first 100% spontaneous going right now, and at 6 weeks the gravity has only dropped from 1.058 to ~1.050, which is pretty normal for how these fermentations go. So, rushing to get the wort colonized isn't such a big deal with sours, but since you're starting a long-term project it makes sense to minimize risk of funky (ha) things happening. Given that, pitch whatever you think is going to give you the ratio you want. A 3L starter seems like overkill to me, but it certainly won't hurt anything.

You might consider brewing the maximum volume you can at a higher gravity and then just adding some boiled and cooled water to dilute the wort, we did that for the initial wort to save ourselves some (a lot of) time and energy. Seems easier to pump out 10 gallons at 1.080 and then dilute down to 15 gal at ~1.053 than brew twice, but that's just me. Even if you need a little extract to pump the gravity up, sours love the unfermentables in there. I guess it depends on equipment and the value of your time/money ratio. Oak-wise, that product looks cool, seems like a similar product to spirals which have worked well for me. I typically boil for ~3 min to get harshness out. Didn't add any to this solera, but I might blend in some oaked beer next year.

Feels like I rambled a bit, but hopefully some of this is useful!

 

[drgonzo2k2]

Hey guys, thanks to both of you for your feedback; I really appreciate it!

Regarding the oak, after doing a little more reading I have decided to use 3 of the Beerstix I mentioned, and I"ll boil them for 5-10 minutes or so to drive off most of the "oaky" flavor. I'm really just adding them more to provide a good home for the Brett and give it something a little interesting to chew on.

The one thing I'm still stuck on though is my initial pitch rate. I posted over in the Milk the Funk group as well, but so far only crickets in response. Using any of the online pitch calculators, I am drastically under-pitching; however, that is based on traditional Sach cell counts in White Labs/Wyeast packages. According to the ECY page, there home brew pitches for ales contain 2-4 hundred billion cells though, so it's essentially like I'm starting with 2-4 vials just for the Brett blend. Using 3 "vials" in the calculators and doing a 2L starter gets me to a sufficient cell count for the Brett blend.

I'm thinking since Bug County is Brett heavy as well, I might just not do a starter at all for either and pitch the vials as-is with my stepped up 3 Fonteinen dregs and call it good.

 

[bovineblitz]

Hey guys, thanks to both of you for your feedback; I really appreciate it!

Regarding the oak, after doing a little more reading I have decided to use 3 of the Beerstix I mentioned, and I"ll boil them for 5-10 minutes or so to drive off most of the "oaky" flavor. I'm really just adding them more to provide a good home for the Brett and give it something a little interesting to chew on.

The one thing I'm still stuck on though is my initial pitch rate. I posted over in the Milk the Funk group as well, but so far only crickets in response. Using any of the online pitch calculators, I am drastically under-pitching; however, that is based on traditional Sach cell counts in White Labs/Wyeast packages. According to the ECY page, there home brew pitches for ales contain 2-4 hundred billion cells though, so it's essentially like I'm starting with 2-4 vials just for the Brett blend. Using 3 "vials" in the calculators and doing a 2L starter gets me to a sufficient cell count for the Brett blend.

I'm thinking since Bug County is Brett heavy as well, I might just not do a starter at all for either and pitch the vials as-is with my stepped up 3 Fonteinen dregs and call it good.

Found your MTF post! Sometimes it's hit or miss over there.

Typically for initial pitch I've always just pitched a single vial of whatever blend I'm using. It's always worked well, and it's a massive underpitch, particularly if we're talking a Wyeast or White Labs blend. And that single vial of ECY20 into 13.5 gallons was the biggest underpitch I've ever done (save an in-progress spontaneous batch).

My understanding is that you don't need very much brett for character, there was a MTF post a while ago comparing a big vs small pitch of brett into secondary and there wasn't a difference in character. Theoretically, everything is going to start multiplying, and sacch will colonize the wort first and eat almost all of the maltose. Then, brett will slowly metabolize other things out of necessity and create lovely brett flavors. And finally pedio will slowly work on small amounts of complex sugars and byproducts.

Since you're introducing big amounts of wort-adapted 'spoilage' organisms, getting a quick sacch fermentation isn't all that vital. So, I think your plan of just pitching the vials and some of your stepped-up dregs is just dandy. You should consider saving a bit of the dirty dozen for other projects, it's fantastic as a primary yeast for berliners, and gives a really nice character to saisons.

 

[drgonzo2k2]

Found your MTF post! Sometimes it's hit or miss over there.

Typically for initial pitch I've always just pitched a single vial of whatever blend I'm using. It's always worked well, and it's a massive underpitch, particularly if we're talking a Wyeast or White Labs blend. And that single vial of ECY20 into 13.5 gallons was the biggest underpitch I've ever done (save an in-progress spontaneous batch).

My understanding is that you don't need very much brett for character, there was a MTF post a while ago comparing a big vs small pitch of brett into secondary and there wasn't a difference in character. Theoretically, everything is going to start multiplying, and sacch will colonize the wort first and eat almost all of the maltose. Then, brett will slowly metabolize other things out of necessity and create lovely brett flavors. And finally pedio will slowly work on small amounts of complex sugars and byproducts.

Since you're introducing big amounts of wort-adapted 'spoilage' organisms, getting a quick sacch fermentation isn't all that vital. So, I think your plan of just pitching the vials and some of your stepped-up dregs is just dandy. You should consider saving a bit of the dirty dozen for other projects, it's fantastic as a primary yeast for berliners, and gives a really nice character to saisons.

Thanks again for your input, I really appreciate it! I think I'm sold at this point that I should just pitch the Bug County and Dirty Dozen as-is with the stepped up dregs and call it good.

One of the reasons I was going to make a starter of the Dirty Dozen was to make an oversized starter to harvest some for future batches. Keeping that in mind I still might go with a 2L starter, pitch 1L and harvest 2 - 500mL jars for future use.

 

[LakesideBrewing]

When I started my ten gallon solera I just pitched two packs of Roeselare along with dregs from 3 bottles each from Cantillon and 3F. I just bottled my first 5 gallon pull from it (after it sat on peaches for 3 months) and it was delicious!

 

[drgonzo2k2]

When I started my ten gallon solera I just pitched two packs of Roeselare along with dregs from 3 bottles each from Cantillon and 3F. I just bottled my first 5 gallon pull from it (after it sat on peaches for 3 months) and it was delicious!

Hey, thanks! I checked out your FB page for your brewery, and it looks like you are turning out some great stuff! I'd actually planned on trying to pull 6 gallons every year. I'd like to take 3 gallons and keg/bottle that as-is from the solera with no additions and then put the other 3 gallons on some fresh local fruit for a few months before kegging/bottling that. Should be a bunch of fun over the years!

Pretty sure at this point (unless someone manages to convince me otherwise) that I'll just pitch the Bug County and Dirty Dozen vials as-is (no starter) along with my stepped up 3F dregs and call it good.