Relatively high gravity after a year on Roeselare

[SkinnyPete]

I started a 30 gallon solara of a flanders red a year ago with a Roeselare yeast cake from an 8 gallon "starter" batch. The 30 gallons fermented down and stabilized at 1.016 in 3 weeks. I mashed high to leave residual sugars so this was pretty much as expected. I racked off the cake into an oak barrel where it sat for the past year. Took a sample at 9 months and it was 1.013, with PH of 3.8. Just took another sample at 12 months, still 1.013 but the PH is at 3.7 and it's definitely noticeable more sour, although the brett is still the overpowering taste. It has finally developed a pellicle at the 12 month mark. I do have some evaporation headspace in the barrel now, but not terrible. Recipe is at 8 IBU, by the way.

My plan was always to leave this for 18 months before taking my first pull. So, I've still got 6 months to go but it seems like I've been stuck at 1.013 for at least 3 months, only down from 1.016 over a year. PH seems to be about on track and it's tasting decent, but any reason why I should still have this high of a gravity this far along? I've got an Omega Yeast Lacto pack in my fridge that I was thinking about throwing in the barrel to maybe help move things along - maybe make a starter for it first. Any thoughts at all?

 

[deadwolfbones]

I had a sour stout on Roselare (plus dregs from four bottles) for more than a year and it still finished at 1.011 or something.

 

[cactusgarrett]

If that's your only source of bugs/brett, i don't think this is out of the ordinary. I've found the Roeselare mix to work somewhat slow. Give it time - some homebrew sours take more than 12 or 18 months.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I don't see a problem with 1.013 FG. It's just a number. What was the OG?
Top up the barrel with distilled water to replace the evaporative loss. You may see the FG decrease just from that.

One cool thing about a solera is that you can make adjustments to the grist over time if you aren't totally happy with the ABV, FG, malt flavor, or sourness.

I'm pretty sure adding Lacto at this time won't help. There is nothing for it to eat and too much hops for it to work well anyway.
My advice: Use less hops or no hops in the replacement wort after your first pull.
Typically 0.2-0.4 oz of hops per 5 gal will provide a moderate amount of sourness in a reasonable amount of time, depending on the microbes present.
Adding bottle dregs from a higher IBU mixed sour would help sour (and potentially drop the FG) if you want to go that route. Those yeast and bacteria will be a lot more robust than the stuff from Wyeast or Omega.

Cheers

 

[505-Brewer]

Count your self lucky. You can pull out a tart beer without having to worry about blending for the first run. Pull some into carboy and add cherries or currants. They will add to complexity and increase tartness. As said fill w less hopped wort. It will continue to get more sour. The nice thing is your brett is still operational. If it gets too sour then brett will cease. If you add jolly pumpkin dregs you could end up w straight acid beer w low pH ( think less than 3). Typically i have found blending sour beer dnds up like 1:5 so to mix 10 gals of sour you need 50 gals of regular beer. I say let it continue to evolve and enjoy the first batch.

If you really want it more sour pull out a portion into a carboy and add jp dregs to that. It’ll be sour in a couple of months. Add fruit as desired (sugar for bugs)

My 15 gal bbl with sour brown is at pH 3.1. Will be blending it out. Adds to complexity but it is a pain in the ass

 

[SkinnyPete]

For the record, OG was 1.056. Double checked the recipe. Was actually about 5 IBUs. I bittered with 0.5 oz of Sterling per 8 gallons and they were about a year old so < 5 IBU I'm sure.

I don't see a problem with 1.013 FG. It's just a number. What was the OG?
Top up the barrel with distilled water to replace the evaporative loss. You may see the FG decrease just from that.

Ugh, I'm a dumb dumb. Yeah, evaporation would leave sugar behind wouldn't it?

I wasn't too concerned about the number itself. More worried about bottling with so much sugar still left in the bottle and wondering why my beer was getting more sour and PH was decreasing but my gravity wasn't. Evaporation makes sense.

Replacing with distilled water is a fairly common practice in a solara? I haven't read that. There was a lot to digest when planning this project so quite possibly I just missed it. Will have to think about it a little.

Count your self lucky. You can pull out a tart beer without having to worry about blending for the first run. Pull some into carboy and add cherries or currants. They will add to complexity and increase tartness. As said fill w less hopped wort. It will continue to get more sour.

For the first pull the plan is to split two 5 gallon batches. Keep one as is if it's decent, and throw the other on fruit. I'm going to try the Rodenbach Caractere Rouge process over sour cherries, raspberries, and cranberries. Lofty goal, but, going for it.

If you add jolly pumpkin dregs you could end up w straight acid beer w low pH ( think less than 3).

I added dregs from 2 bottles of La Roja (which, as you say was AGGRESSIVELY sour) to the barrel about 6 months in.

Thanks all for the input. Bottom line: the sample tasted pretty good, fairly sour already. I'll let it ride out and maybe consider topping off at some point. Mostly curious why my gravity wasn't dropping but, evaporation probably answers that.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Replacing with distilled water is a fairly common practice in a solara? I haven't read that. There was a lot to digest when planning this project so quite possibly I just missed it. Will have to think about it a little.

Most sour breweries top up their barrels and foeders to prevent excessive oxygen ingress. If the wood dries out, the staves contract and let in more oxygen through the slits.

It's pure water that evaporates, so I thinkit makes sense to top up with distilled or RO water (close enough) if you don't want to change the beer composition. I'd suggest to remove the oxygen from the water by boiling 10 mins and rapidly chilling, if possible. Alternately you can add some dextrose and bread yeast to deoxygenate (see the LODO forum for yeast oxygen scavenging).

 

[SkinnyPete]

Most sour breweries top up their barrels and foeders to prevent excessive oxygen ingress. If the wood dries out, the staves contract and let in more oxygen through the slits.

It's pure water that evaporates, so I thinkit makes sense to top up with distilled or RO water (close enough) if you don't want to change the beer composition. I'd suggest to remove the oxygen from the water by boiling 10 mins and rapidly chilling, if possible. Alternately you can add some dextrose and bread yeast to deoxygenate (see the LODO forum for yeast oxygen scavenging).

Makes sense. I have a couple gallons of distilled laying around anyway. I could boil and chill easily. Would there be a problem disturbing the pellicle you think? Might be able to pierce it with a wine thief and pour water through it slowly to keep disturbance to a minimum.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I'd generally avoid disturbing the pellicle, but when you're topping up, the pellicle won't be needed because the fermenter is full!

Sounds tasty. By the way, some acetic acid would definitely add some tang and increase the sourness. Consider adding some malt vinegar at packaging if the beer hasn't developed it by itself.

 

[jfolks]

Seems like the Brett and Sach wasn’t healthy enough to dry the beer out. So if you want it to dry, add a fresh pitch of Brett. If you want it to get more sour, pitch more bacteria/sour dregs

 

[bmaupin]

I'd top off with some sugar water to bring the fg down, give the bugs some food, and replenish the co2

 

[madscientist451]

My thoughts are: Forget about your timetable, stop worrying about the numbers. Pull a good sized sample, sit there and taste it for a while and think about how much you like it. If you don't like it all that much come back in 60 days and taste it again.
In 6 months you might not like it at all. The breweries with barrel programs have to dump whole barrels all the time, so its not a sure thing that you'll have something acceptable 6 months from now.
So if its drinkable, start drinking and bottling it. The brew will continue to bottle age.

 

[SkinnyPete]

Thanks, all. I appreciate all the responses.

Pull a good sized sample, sit there and taste it for a while and think about how much you like it.

Funny, I actually did this the day before you posted. I pulled about 20 ounce sample and chilled it, and my wife and I sat with it for a while. While brett character is still more pronounced than I would like, it's much less aggressive when cold. Tasted good, although only mild sourness at this point. I'm definitely patient and I'm definitely going to wait. I was just curious why my gravity wasn't going down even though ph was dropping and brett was obviously doing it's job. That didn't make sense to me. But, I was being dumb. The evaporation was definitely the answer. I started topping off with water but abandoned that because it didn't feel right. I topped off with lower gravity wort, no hops, after having an email conversation with Mike Tonsmeire, the Mad Fermentationist. In a couple weeks I'm going to pull ~6 gallons into a plastic Speidel fermenter over sour cherries, raspberries, and cranberries and let it sit for ~6 more months. That, alone, should get me the sourness I'm going for. If it doesn't after ~3 months, I'll add some dregs or bugs. I'll replace that 6 gallons in the barrel with the same recipe but no hops to hopefully promote the bugs a little better. As was mentioned, I am just lucky it tastes good on my first try and I don't have to dump 30 gallons of beer. Since this is a solera, I'm assuming this will just get more and more sour as I go, so now that I'm aware of the evaporation issue, I should be good. Mike says he keeps a lower gravity version around for topping off. Seems like a good thing to setup for the future.