What do you think is still viable in the bottle (Oude Geuze Boon)?

[Calder]

Yesterday I bought 5 bottles of Oude Geuze Boon. At $5 a bottle I really couldn't leave them. I picked up 3 Krieks too.

I have 7 pints of 1.050 wort in a gallon carboy that I intend to add the dregs, to see what happens. If I get some life, I will probably use the cake from this for a larger beer in 6 months time.

I opened one today; really good!. I plan on having 2 tomorrow, and saving the last two until Christmas.

The bottle I just opened has a 'Best By' date of January 2031. According to their website, the bottling date is 20 years before the best-by date, which would mean it is almost 3 years since bottling. What do you think may still be viable in these?

If I see no active fermentation in 4 days, I plan on pitching some sacc to ensure the wort doesn't get contaminated.

It is my understanding the Kriek doesn't have any viable bugs ...... but I don't know for certain. Looks like there is no sediment in the bottom of the bottles.

 

[Twinkeelfool]

I find adding those dregs to brett beers you are currently fermenting works well. Never tried to culture from the bottle. I love the cherry character brett l adds.

 

[mnick12]

There are definately some good bugs in there. I would recomend a smaller starter first like ~20ml then pitch into something like 250-500ml.

I did the same for one of my best sours. I took 5ml of the sedement from a bottle of Hanssens oude geuze and pitched into 10ml of sterile wort in a vial. I then capped the vial and vented it daily. I didnt see any activity for 6 days, then about 2 weeks after the first sign of activity I pitched the vial into 500ml of sterile wort. Two days later there was a giant bubbly pellicle and an awesome funky sour smell, just like hanssens oude geuze.

This was pitched into a belgian pale that I had tried to sour with commerical bugs, and the cultured dregs really brought it to life. Airlock activity increased and within 2 months I had the best sour I have made. It tastes and smells very similair to the geuze. I would strongly recommend a small two step starter!

 

[Calder]

There are definately some good bugs in there. I would recomend a smaller starter first like ~20ml then pitch into something like 250-500ml.

I thought about a small low gravity starter, but decided that was not what I was after. I'm trying to grow the bugs, not any residual traces of sacc that may be there.

I'm going to give the bugs a nice big playground to work in for a few days, and then pitch an appropriate amount of sacc for the size of the beer (unless there is some sign of sacc within the dregs, coming to life.

Once sacc is introduced, and is making alcohol, the growth rate of everything else slows down.

 

[mnick12]

Calder,

I think my post was a little ambiguous. I was not trying to grow sach from the dregs, rather the surving bugs in geuze. The reason I chose such a small initial starter was to allow a higher pitching rate for whatever was alive.

I doubt there were any viable sach cells in the hanssens with such a low pH, and extended bottle conditioning. I just brought up my experience to confirm that geuze does indeed have a lot of viable microorganisms. The reason for the starter was to make sure I had healthy cells when I pitched into the belgian pale that had already been fermented by regular brewers yeast.

Either way, I am sure that with a starter you will end up with a lively culture of funkolicious bugs!

Out of curiosity what is the grainbill for your anticipated sour?

 

[smokinghole]

There absolutely is living microbes in there. I saved up bottle sediments for a few years and then direct pitched some into 8gal of 1.045 wort. It made a very sour beer,with a citrusy mineral edge. Finished fermenting in 4-6 months, bottled at 8, and was drinking good at 15 months.

I actually gave up on buying souring cultures because of how this turned out.

 

[davejanssen]

I agree with mnick that there shouldn't be much, if any, viable sacch in a beer that old with that low of a pH.

And I'm not sure about the reasoning that a big starter will result in proportionally less sacch growth. If the worry is that sacch grows faster and would take over, then i would expect that to be exacerbated with larger starters. I could definitely be wrong on this and if someone has done a study on this i'd love to see it.

I'm also don't really know of any evidence that once sacch starts growing it slows everything else down. I get that simple sugars are probably easier to use, but that may not be the only thing at play. Some bugs may not grow as well in the presence of O2 so they may be helped out by sacch using that up. Also fermentation lowers pH and different yeast and bacteria will have different preferred pH ranges.

I think there will definitely still be viable bugs in this and using them sounds like a good plan. Opening multiple bottles to increase your pitch and potentially diversity also sounds like a good plan.

 

[smokinghole]

Dont underestimate wild-type saccharomyces its not like average brewing yeast. The ph tolerance varies greatly by strain and its normal environment.

 

[mnick12]

To be clear, I was considering sach cervisiae not other wild yeasts.

But the point about acid tolerant wild sach is something that should be considered.

Additionally I agree that dregs from your favorite sour are probably much better than any commercial pitches.

 

[davejanssen]

Yeah, I suppose there could be some wild sacch. This figure based on data from belgian researchers of what is in fermenting lambic that Raj Apte put together (slide 11) starting at just over a year shows that actidione resistant yeasts are basically the total yeast counts. Most Sacch strains are susceptible to actidione but brett is not.

So you can see that up to about a year sacch type yeasts dominated the fermentation and after that it was brett and maybe some actidione resistant sacch. So a geuze would have little sacch going in to the bottle and even less would survive long term in the bottle.

http://www2.parc.com/emdl/members/apte/slides_nchf.pdf

edit: and anyway maybe some weird wild sacch would fall into the 'bugs category' as something more funky that one would be looking for in a beer like this rather than something they are worried about dominating the fermentation like a more clean S. cerevisiae.