Bottle Dregs for first Lambic/Gueuze

[dlampen45]

After a lot of research I think im going to dive in soon with one of these. The wife and I just returned from 10 days in Belgium and amassed a little collection of 3 Fonteinen and Cantillon bottles to share with our friends (some of the bottles anyways) and thought it would be good to start a batch with the dregs.
My idea (and I apologize who im stealing this from but I read it on here) is to make a 5 gal batch, pitch a "generic" belgian yeast at it and let it sit a couple weeks. Then add to it whatever bottle dregs I can muster up from the Cantillon, 3 Fonteinen and Timmermans stuff I have.
Let 6 months go past and brew another batch and just keep adding to it every 6 months until I get 15-20 gal collected. Does this sound "right" to the general consensus? Should I just collect all the dregs in the same vessel and continue to add to it as I drink bottles that have live yeast in it (I can get Jolly Pumpkin here).
Any other advice anyone can shoot me would be great. Im sure I wont fully understand this new venture ever but I would love to get something started at least, and want my bottle dregs to go to a good cause!

 

[TNGabe]

I would skip the sacc primary if you want a final product that has the depth and complexity of lambic. That only comes from a slow, diverse fermentation. How many bottles are you planning on opening? For a 5 gallon batch, you probably want over a dozen at a minimum, so unless you're getting crazy, it might be better to start with a smaller batch or at least make a starter. If you want something that tastes like lambic, it's probably best to to stick to limbic dregs. Something like JP dregs may come to pretty quickly dominate a blend. Also, think about how you want to make your wort. For a lambic like final product, I'd suggest making a very dextrous wort, even if you don't want to go through the trouble of a turbid mash.

 

[dlampen45]

damn, a dozen? is that without adding any addition yeast then?
I have 3 Cantillon 750s, 3 Drie Fontienen 750s, 3 Cantillon 375s and a 375 from Timmermans, so I was just going to start collecting all the dregs into a mason jar or something until those were all gone and then start putting together a recipe.
If I start with all of that then I was planning on just adding the dregs of a Jolly Pumpkin every time I add another 5 gal to the mixture
I've read both sides of feeding the dregs (i.e. making a starter with it) and not sure what way to go with.

 

[crusader1612]

After a lot of research I think im going to dive in soon with one of these. The wife and I just returned from 10 days in Belgium and amassed a little collection of 3 Fonteinen and Cantillon bottles to share with our friends (some of the bottles anyways) and thought it would be good to start a batch with the dregs.
My idea (and I apologize who im stealing this from but I read it on here) is to make a 5 gal batch, pitch a "generic" belgian yeast at it and let it sit a couple weeks. Then add to it whatever bottle dregs I can muster up from the Cantillon, 3 Fonteinen and Timmermans stuff I have.
Let 6 months go past and brew another batch and just keep adding to it every 6 months until I get 15-20 gal collected. Does this sound "right" to the general consensus? Should I just collect all the dregs in the same vessel and continue to add to it as I drink bottles that have live yeast in it (I can get Jolly Pumpkin here).
Any other advice anyone can shoot me would be great. Im sure I wont fully understand this new venture ever but I would love to get something started at least, and want my bottle dregs to go to a good cause!

Cantillon......mmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[dlampen45]

I am going to bring this thread back from the dead. I am looking to harvest dregs but do not have a beer planed to use it for. Basically I would like to have a jug that I can pour dregs into to keep around and use to pitch into beers im planing on souring. A home brewers house blend of commercial strains if you so wish. So my question is, can I create a starter at 1.020 in a gallon carboy and just continuously pour dregs into it? How can I keep them happy and how long can they stay in the gallon jug? Like i said id like to continuously add dregs to it and when brewing a sour (once ever couple months) pitch some of it

^^^^^^^Essentially this ^^^^^^^^
Just sent him a PM

 

[Northerngal]

I am going to bring this thread back from the dead. I am looking to harvest dregs but do not have a beer planed to use it for. Basically I would like to have a jug that I can pour dregs into to keep around and use to pitch into beers im planing on souring. A home brewers house blend of commercial strains if you so wish. So my question is, can I create a starter at 1.020 in a gallon carboy and just continuously pour dregs into it? How can I keep them happy and how long can they stay in the gallon jug? Like i said id like to continuously add dregs to it and when brewing a sour (once ever couple months) pitch some of it

^^^^^^^Essentially this ^^^^^^^^
Just sent him a PM

My understanding is that over time the ratios of the bugs will change, causing different results? But by all means go for it and let us know!!

Jenn

 

[hirschb]

I've done this in a 1/2 gal growler. Filled ~1/4 with starter wort, and dumped dregs each time I opened an appropriate bottle. I kept in the fridge, so there was no need for additional sugars over the 3-4 month period I kept it around before using.

 

[khannon]

For what it's worth.

I did 10 gallons of American pale ale, I don't have my notebook with me, so I can't post the recipe or OG/FG right now.

As an experiment I split the batch and pitched one with the yeast provided at LHBS, and one with the dregs of 2 bottles of Cantillon Gueze 375ml, that I used to make a 1L starter a few days before using DME.

The dregs batch took about 12 hours longer to start showing signs of fermentation than the commercial yeast from the home brew store, but once it was going, it was pretty vigorous for a while and kept releasing bubbles though the airlock for a long time.

I racked the dregs yeast batch to a secondary after a few weeks, and let it go in the secondary(glass) for ~6 months, bottled it with about some priming sugar, waited another month, and it came out pretty amazing, and it seems to get better with every bottle I open. The hops have pretty well faded.

I did this just to see what would happen, and to use some of the hops I grew myself for the first time.

About a month ago, I tried again using the dregs from a bottle of wild fermented sour from two meter tall farms http://2mt.com.au/ that I managed to get my hands on, and a slightly different grain bill with fewer hops. Fermentation picked up almost right away, and I still have bubbles passing pretty steadily through the blow-off tube though it has slowed considerably. I am racking that to secondary fermentors tomorrow to free up my primary to brew this weekend, and will see how it turns out in a few(6-8) months.

I guess the point I was attempting to make when I started the post was that it didn't take much in the way of dregs to get a starter going that seemed to take off turning wort into beer. I waited a while to bottle and drink, though nowhere near the years they do for a proper lambic or blended gueze. There are probably shortcuts, but I plan on keeping a few bottles around to see how they change over time.

 

[dlampen45]

Awesome, thanks for the input. Actually the hops were going to be my next question. I have a bunch (6-7oz) of whole leaf cascade a friend grew last year that have been sitting in the basement. I was planning on just dumping them since they arent sealed really well and havent been stored the greatest but then I thought of using them in sours. Any idea how much to use? Maybe a half ounce in a 5 gallon batch. Theres no real way to figure out how much they've lost I dont think

 

[505-Brewer]

I mashed hopped w 2 oz of old homegrown cascade in a golden sour 10 gal batch. Thinking I got some flavor from them. If I recall traditional lambics hop at quite high rates. If your pitching a culture there is really no need to use aged hops. Use 5 ibu of some low alpha is fine. But since you have em just use em.