monkeymath
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2019
- Messages
- 704
- Reaction score
- 858
Hey guys,
I recently started my first long term sour project (a Flanders Red); primary fermentation with sacch only, then transfer to secondary with brett, pedio and various bottle dregs. The batch size was my standard 20-22l (can't fit much more in my 30l Speidel fermenters with the kraeusen and all) and there's still room for roughly 10 liters, which I would of course like to fill. I see various ways to do this and I cannot really decide which one is best:
(a) add fresh wort,
(b) add fresh wort and a yeast starter,
(c) add fully fermented (young) beer.
(a) and (b) add more trub and require additional headspace for the renewed "primary" fermentation, but potentially give the bugs - which had so far been deprived of simple sugars - more to chew on. With (a), I wonder what adverse effects a sluggish fermentation might have (the beer already has an alcohol content above 6%, so I think an infection is rather unlikely to happen at this stage, but we've all seen the pictures of glorious mold in fermenters...), which is why (b) might seem attractive, although it does again reduce the amount of food left for the bugs.
What are your thoughts? What is your preferred method?
Thanks in advance,
~ Daniel
I recently started my first long term sour project (a Flanders Red); primary fermentation with sacch only, then transfer to secondary with brett, pedio and various bottle dregs. The batch size was my standard 20-22l (can't fit much more in my 30l Speidel fermenters with the kraeusen and all) and there's still room for roughly 10 liters, which I would of course like to fill. I see various ways to do this and I cannot really decide which one is best:
(a) add fresh wort,
(b) add fresh wort and a yeast starter,
(c) add fully fermented (young) beer.
(a) and (b) add more trub and require additional headspace for the renewed "primary" fermentation, but potentially give the bugs - which had so far been deprived of simple sugars - more to chew on. With (a), I wonder what adverse effects a sluggish fermentation might have (the beer already has an alcohol content above 6%, so I think an infection is rather unlikely to happen at this stage, but we've all seen the pictures of glorious mold in fermenters...), which is why (b) might seem attractive, although it does again reduce the amount of food left for the bugs.
What are your thoughts? What is your preferred method?
Thanks in advance,
~ Daniel