Tart of Darkness

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The_Nid_Hog said:
I bottled my first attempt at a Tart of Darkness-like beer last September. I only varied from the standard recipe here by adding dried sour cherries. After ten months fermenting and bulk aging, then another five months of bottle conditioning, it's excellent. The sourness is quite distinct, but it's still balanced.

Rather than waste that nice thick layer of yeast, bugs and cherries at the bottom of my carboy last September, I brewed a Belgian dark strong and added it. Today, I racked that over to secondary (a carboy issue rather than my standard practice), topped it off with a nice Cab-forward meritage that I'd been saving and added 1.5 oz of oak. The sample I pulled to test (at 1.015 today) was delicious. At this point, it's less sour, more brett than its daddy was at the same time. Complex, leathery funk with a mellowed cherry note. I'm planning on checking it again at the end of the summer.

I was a little sad when I dumped the dregs. Still, they've served my well for two batches. Time to try something different.
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Sounds Tasty.

I have a question.....If I aged this as per the norm and then once ready for packaging, I dryhopped for a short period, how would this come out? I know people have dryhopped lighter sour beers, but I struggle to find anyone who's dryhopped a darker sour like this.
My initial thoughts are Centennial & Amarillo, but given I haven't even brewed this yet, the hops would be up for debate.
anyone got any thoughts?
 
I can imagine that you'd have some interesting flavors. For me, I'd have to work out the time that it would take for the bottles to carb and the speed that I'd drink them in order to decide if this was worthwhile. It would be a shame to come up with something interesting, only to have them oxidize while I was cellaring them for a long time.

Old Sock has an old post where he talks about bottle dry hopping a Flanders Red:

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2009/12/dry-hopped-flanders-red-tasting.html

That might be an interesting experiment.
 
I would say re: oxidation that it shouldn't be an issue because of Brett's unique ability to scavenge oxygen. I would dry hop without reservation, as there is some benefit even after the fresh flavor is gone. Brett will keep evolving in the bottle and I would expect turn it into fruity notes over time. This is my experience in dry-hopped Brett saisons, at least. Good luck!
 
youreanimpulse said:
I would say re: oxidation that it shouldn't be an issue because of Brett's unique ability to scavenge oxygen. I would dry hop without reservation, as there is some benefit even after the fresh flavor is gone. Brett will keep evolving in the bottle and I would expect turn it into fruity notes over time. This is my experience in dry-hopped Brett saisons, at least. Good luck!
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Awesome - Cheers Guys. At least I'll have plenty of time to decide on a good hop combo. Given my ease of getting hold of NZ Hops, its likely to lean that way.
 
What type of FG are you all seeing on this? I made a sour stout (not really a ToD clone, but inspired by it.) I mashed at 160 to try and get a lot of dextrins in my wort and pitched roeselare along with dregs from a Jolly Pumpkin bottle. 11 months later the gravity has been at 1.011 for the past 5 months now. Seeing a gravity not budge like that should be a sign that it's for sure done, but at the same time most people seem to say not to bottle a mixed fermentation sour when it's at this high of gravity.

Just want to see what other people's experience is with this sort of beer.
 
inflictor-of-grimness said:
What type of FG are you all seeing on this? I made a sour stout (not really a ToD clone, but inspired by it.) I mashed at 160 to try and get a lot of dextrins in my wort and pitched roeselare along with dregs from a Jolly Pumpkin bottle. 11 months later the gravity has been at 1.011 for the past 5 months now. Seeing a gravity not budge like that should be a sign that it's for sure done, but at the same time most people seem to say not to bottle a mixed fermentation sour when it's at this high of gravity.

Just want to see what other people's experience is with this sort of beer.
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Mine finished at 1.008... How's the taste?
 
So here's my dilemma.... brewed a ToD clone last May. Gravity has been right around 1.007 since September. It's nice and sour from ECY01 and dregs from one bottle of ToD.

While it's enjoyable, I think it's missing those "Black Tuesday" bourbon/oak notes. I have 1 oz of French Oak cubes saved from a batch of imperial stout that were soaked in bourbon prior to use. They have been in the freezer for about 2 years :cross: They've been stored in a sanitized container. I pulled them out to let them defrost and they smell strongly like that batch of RIS.

I'm thinking about adding them to my ToD clone, but would prefer to not transfer at this point. Should I just carefully throw them in? My other thought was to transfer one gallon onto the cubes, but again I'd prefer not to transfer. Any thoughts welcomed!
 
Update to my beer..

Brewed in Oct of 2014.. so young.

Tasted it in mid Jan of 2015.. Still in primary, subtle pellicle, but nothing wild.

Used Yeast Bay Melange, and ECY Flemish ale. No starters, straight pitch. Added one bottle of Wicked Weed Black Angel dreg, which is the beer I'm trying to mash up with ToD.

The beer was 3.32 pH at 3 months, and was SOUR. Slobbery good sour, makes your jaw lock and your mouth water. It was tasty.. Minimal to non existant funk, some in the nose and finish, but nothing huge. Tons of layers of sour notes, subtle roast, and mega cherry pie. Gravity was a 1.016, so plenty of room to go. Minimal to normal pellicle, and no vinegary notes from acetic acid yet.

I plan to move this to a 3rd use Bourbon Barrel in a month or so, to age in the hot garage for the summer. I feel the dregs moved this beer along faster, and therefore, I think I can probably bottle slightly sooner than planned. Planning on adding sour cherries, dried, to the carboy, and letting it ferment again for a bit, and then transferring it to the barrel to finish up. I won't be using the chunks of barrel included with the ToD recipe.

I'm impressed with the sour and pH of the beer thus far.. I should have brewed 10 gallons.
 
I made my TOD clone in November 14th and moved it to the 5 gallon oak bourbon barrel November 30th. On February 16, 2015, I racked it to a keg and added 1 quart of sour cherry concentrate. I did a quick taste test before adding the concentrate and it was great, both chocolate and sour. My only concern is when I did a gravity/hydrometer check it was only 1.035 (OG was 1.075). I am hopping over the next six months it will drop to 1.01.
 
2bL6OjE.jpg


This thread had great info. Thanks everyone. Will post more in a year!
 
An update on the batch I bottled last September:

I tried a test bottle in February. I thought that the flavors were complex and it was plenty sour. The dried sour cherries that I used imparted a hint of fruitiness, but in ways that complement the rich, sour taste of the stout. I was concerned that, after five months in the bottle, it hadn't carbed very much. It wasn't exactly still, but it was pretty darn close.

Three months later, I chilled another bottle for a week and gave it a try. Flavors are more blended, but it's still aggressively tart. Fuller funkiness too. And the carbonation is perfect. Very happy am I!
 
Brewed mine on 10/23/14. It has been sitting in a glass carboy secondary since around 4/23/15 with 2 oz. of oak cubes that were in bourbon for 2 months.

Tasted it for the first time today (6/19/15). It has a nice sourness to it and a faint nose of coffee/chocolate. It actually doesn't taste much like a stout in the roastiness/chocolate/coffee sense. I am not getting any of the vanilla or bourbon at this point.

Gravity is at 1.008 w/ OG being 1.059

Drinkable now, hopefully it will get better with a few more months.

For priming are people using the normal amounts of priming sugar for a stout?
 
Yourrealdad said:
Brewed mine on 10/23/14. It has been sitting in a glass carboy secondary since around 4/23/15 with 2 oz. of oak cubes that were in bourbon for 2 months.

Tasted it for the first time today (6/19/15). It has a nice sourness to it and a faint nose of coffee/chocolate. It actually doesn't taste much like a stout in the roastiness/chocolate/coffee sense. I am not getting any of the vanilla or bourbon at this point.

Gravity is at 1.008 w/ OG being 1.059

Drinkable now, hopefully it will get better with a few more months.

For priming are people using the normal amounts of priming sugar for a stout?
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I haven't bottled mine yet, but the taste is coming along nicely and I plan to bottle in about 6 weeks (would be 6 months in the carboy). I will use about 120g of dextrose in a 5g batch with a goal of 2.2-2.3vol co2
 
For those that bottled, did you use regular beer bottles, belgian or wine bottles?
 
I used regular bottles for mine a few weeks ago. But I was only aiming at 1.9 vols.
 
Anyone put fresh wort straight onto this yeast cake?

Mine is finally ready to bottle after 24 months in primary, and I'm thinking of putting a new beer directly onto the cake that is in the carboy. I'd add fresh Sacc of course.

Is there any reason not to?
 
as long as the beer you're pulling off tastes good (and not infected), i don't see why not. the whole cake is overkill so expect it to sour quickly (and potentially violently). might not be quite as complex as the first long-aged version but should still be tasty (and did i mention really sour?)
 
I did it with a 15 month old cake,but did a sacc ferment first.
As mine soured a lot in the bottle in the first few months,I fully expect the new batch to be done in 6 months or less.
 
I reused the cake from my ToD for a Belgian strong dark, although I added new sacc. My original take on ToD used Abbey II and Roeselare and was aged on dried sour cherries; the strong dark got Abbey II. It's been going for about a year now. The BSD has a more complex funkiness that the ToD, but is a bit less sour.
 
As a follow up, I just added two pounds of dried sour cherries and 1/2 pound of dried raisins to the Belgian strong dark that was on my ToD yeast cake. Plus 1.5 oz of bourbon-soaked French oak cubes as well as the bourbon that they'd been soaking in.

The_Nid_Hog said:
I reused the cake from my ToD for a Belgian strong dark, although I added new sacc. My original take on ToD used Abbey II and Roeselare and was aged on dried sour cherries; the strong dark got Abbey II. It's been going for about a year now. The BSD has a more complex funkiness that the ToD, but is a bit less sour.
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Finally tried our version brewed with ECY20 in March of 2014. We added some wine yeast at bottling and after four weeks, it still needs some carb, but the beer overall is very good. Definitely tart, but the roast is clearly there too, in a good way. We split this batch and the other half was put on blackberries. Will try that in a few more weeks to make sure it really carbs up.
 
Sorry forgot to ask in my last post. For bottling are people adding some fresh yeast since it has been sitting so long or does the brett keep working and produce CO2? Sorry blanking on the reaction of brett and sugars right now.
 
I bottle but do not re-yeast.
I bulk feed the beer a few weeks before packaging to give Bret and the gang a wake up call.
That way the beer has seen some recent fermentation,has more chance of carbing up without the need for new yeast.
 
Yourrealdad said:
Sorry forgot to ask in my last post. For bottling are people adding some fresh yeast since it has been sitting so long or does the brett keep working and produce CO2? Sorry blanking on the reaction of brett and sugars right now.
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We reyeast all our sours now with some wine yeast. We used Premier Cuvee wine yeast for our ToD which worked really well, but have also used this too.
 
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badlee said:
I bottle but do not re-yeast.
I bulk feed the beer a few weeks before packaging to give Bret and the gang a wake up call.
That way the beer has seen some recent fermentation,has more chance of carbing up without the need for new yeast.
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What do you mean by bulk feed?
 
Boil up some DME in a small amount of water.
For one gallon,say 50-60ml of og 1.050-ish wort.
This wakes up all the critters and readies them for priming in the bottle
 
ive still got about .25 of a keg left of my batch. its effing great. a bit more sour than the OG one. but really good. just sucks that it takes so damn long. i pulled the plug on the waiting game at 10 months.
 
I brewed my ToD clone 5/17/14 from the MoreBeer kit, and I'm thinking about bottling it soon, so I have some homebrew around for Christmas (I've been unable to brew since May due to buying a house and a broken collarbone - at the same time). This brew has moved house twice with us, and I haven't tasted it since I added the oak cubes in Feb (I think).

For bottling, I guess adding more yeast (champagne? or something else) is in order if I want to guarantee it carbs within a month or two? What level of carbonation are people targeting?

Hmm, and I guess I could manage an extract brew with the current condition of my collarbone and brewery to reuse the yeast/bug cake - should I do that in the same glass carboy, or should I decant the yeast/bug cake off (that would at least let me can pull the oak cubes out, I guess). Should I go for a complementary sour, or a rerun of something ToDish? I guess I'll finish the two cases of ToD before the new batch is ready.
 
dyqik said:
Hmm, and I guess I could manage an extract brew with the current condition of my collarbone and brewery to reuse the yeast/bug cake - should I do that in the same glass carboy, or should I decant the yeast/bug cake off (that would at least let me can pull the oak cubes out, I guess). Should I go for a complementary sour, or a rerun of something ToDish? I guess I'll finish the two cases of ToD before the new batch is ready.
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Twice I've decided to dump a yeast cake when my sour was complete, only to change my mind at the last minute. Both times, I've rushed out and grabbed enough extract to cobble together a partial mash brew with what I had left around the house. In both cases, I made something a little different--I reused my last ToD yeast cake for a Lost Abbey Cable Car-inspired sour.

I have added fresh wort to an old yeast cake as is--the remnants of fruit and oak still in place. I have also strained it out and reused it. Both versions produced fine results.
 
Bottled this on 10/24. Had it in a plastic carboy for 6 months. Transferred to a glass carboy with less head space and put it on oak cubes that had been soaked in four roses for a few months for another 6 months. Also threw in dregs of a TOD.

Put about half a packet of champagne yeast in the bucket and about 5.5oz of corn sugar.

Forced carbed the leftovers from the bottling and it tasted great. Great level of sour. Notes of cherry, cinnamon, and vanilla.

Pretty excited for it. My picky brother said he would pay money for it and he is stingy.
 
The_Nid_Hog said:
Twice I've decided to dump a yeast cake when my sour was complete, only to change my mind at the last minute. Both times, I've rushed out and grabbed enough extract to cobble together a partial mash brew with what I had left around the house. In both cases, I made something a little different--I reused my last ToD yeast cake for a Lost Abbey Cable Car-inspired sour.

I have added fresh wort to an old yeast cake as is--the remnants of fruit and oak still in place. I have also strained it out and reused it. Both versions produced fine results.
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I've grabbed enough pilsner extract to make a golden strong wort (as a first guess at a "recipe", cribbed from the copy of BCS in the LHBS when I was buying new beer lines and champagne yeast for bottling the ToD) and some Wyeast Abbey Ale yeast to throw on the cake. I figure that if I just use extract, with no sugar additions, the Abbey Ale will leave something for the bugs to chew on, and still have some body left afterwards. I expect it to pick up a bit of color from the ToD left in the bug cake. It's going to be the simplest possible brew - 9lb of pilsner extract, 5 gallons of dechlorinated tap water, and maybe 5 IBUs of whatever hop pellets I've got in the freezer.

I might dry hop some of it at the end of souring. Just to see what it does.
 

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