Bottle dregs only for souring

[mjleslie]

I've just started a Belgian blonde and would like to make it my first attempt at a sour. I'm 24 hrs into regular fermentation and the general consensus seems to be the earlier you add the microbes the better. I don't have any Lambic or other sour yeasts available but I do have a few Gueuze Lambics I was thinking of taking dregs from.

Is using bottle dregs a reliable way of starting the souring? Or is it best to buy some wild yeast to ensure you've got everything?

Also how many bottles worth of dregs should I toss in there?

 

[fivepoundpossum]

i really like using dregs for souring. depending on how many ibu's you had in the recipe, you may find that the beer ends up being more brett-forward than acidic. the one drawback, however, is that you never know what you're gonna get as an end product, which may also be a positive thing depending on how you look at it. i like the surprise.

 

[mjleslie]

Thanks fivepoundpossum

The wort is only at 11 IBUs so hoppiness shouldn't be an issue. Would a single 750ml bottle be enough dregs for a 23L batch do you think?

 

[badlee]

If you have more,then use more as a way to make sure that you gety enough bugs to sour it up.

 

[dantheman13]

For dregs only beers, I like the 1 gallon approach (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/easy-way-make-sour-beers-1-gal-wort-dregs-189748/). If the beer turns out good in a year or two, you can blend it into another clean/sour beer. If you make an extra gallon of wort on your regular brew day to be used for this 1 gallon dregs beer, the effort is really low considering the potentially bad beer it could make (or incredibly good beer). I also like pitching dregs from multiple bottles from different brewers to get a good variety in there.

Make a starter with the dregs first to see if there is activity, however be aware that a lot of sour beers (especially American ones) have champagne yeast at the bottom of the bottles. In those cases, you can take the bottom 1/4 inch of beer and leave the sediment behind. If you don't get signs of fermentation by 3-4 days in the 1 gallon jug, pitch a couple of grams of dry yeast to ensure no other bad bacteria/molds can grow.

 

[MileHighBrewer]

One bottle might do it....It'll just take a very long time. But, you can keep adding dregs as you get them. I haven't had the best luck with gueuze, remember only some if that beer is "fresh" and some (maybe most) is 2-3+ years old.

You get a bit more sour/funk when added with primary, but you can still do just fine in secondary. Maybe go buy some funky beers while you are waiting for primary to finish? Jolly Pumpkin is great, if you can get it, as are dregs from The Bruery.

 

[mnick12]

Great forum!

Do a starter, and pitch into the beer. I grew a two step starter from hanssens oude gueuze dregs and pitched into a belgian ale made from pils and torrified wheat (60% pils, 35% wheat, 5% crystal 20, mashed @ 160F for 60 mins, 18IBU). As of now it is better than my ECY20 sours which are nearly double the age.

These bugs took a bland base beer down to a pH of 2.90 and a gravity of 1.008 in about two months! The primary beer was fermented with wy3463.

 

[mjleslie]

Great advice guys

I pitched the dregs from a Lindemans gueze last night and I've got another bottle from the Bruery (I want to say the rueuze) which I will do tonight.

what a great excuse to put down a few sour beers!

 

[smokinghole]

Here's something to try out but it takes patience and drinking.

Drink a butt load of lambics/gueuze, american sours, you name it, if its a living beer and sour/funky save the bottle sediment in a mason jar. Then brew a batch of a low to average gravity beer, something simple like a saison, mash however you want. Make enough to split it in two batches. Ferment one with a typical pitch of saison yeast or whatever you want. Then ferment the other with some of the soured beer bottle yeast/bacteria but use a very small amount. Last time I did this I used about 50ml of suspended slurry in 13gal (read not very dense or thick at all, very low cell count) and it should be ripping within three days. I also advise using some aged hops mixed with fresh hops. It's a hybrid beer of sorts that I started making two years ago. I love it. I brew it like a saison but cut half the fresh hops with old aged stuff. But still hop to about 20-30 ibus. Let ferment 6-10 months depending on when I get around to bottling, and right before I bottle I dry hop the beer. Then after about 9 months in the bottle I start drinking. I have barely bought bottles of sour beer once I started doing this....

 

[trentm]

Great forum!

Do a starter, and pitch into the beer. I grew a two step starter from hanssens oude gueuze dregs and pitched into a belgian ale made from pils and torrified wheat (60% pils, 35% wheat, 5% crystal 20, mashed @ 160F for 60 mins, 18IBU). As of now it is better than my ECY20 sours which are nearly double the age.

These bugs took a bland base beer down to a pH of 2.90 and a gravity of 1.008 in about two months! The primary beer was fermented with wy3463.

How big was your final starter from the hanssens oude gueuze and what was you batch size? Trying to get and education on sour beers. Thanks in advance.

 

[mnick12]

How big was your final starter from the hanssens oude gueuze and what was you batch size? Trying to get and education on sour beers. Thanks in advance.

I took a 15ml screw top vial (the ones you would use for a yeast slant), and added 12ml of ~1.035 wort. This was pressure cooked for 25mins to sterilize it along with 600ml of wort in a 1l flask. The night I drank the gueuze I took 3ml of the bottle sediment and added it to the 12ml of wort. This was capped and allowed to sit for ~12days. I vented the flask daily to avoid pressure build up, but fermentation was not evident until the 9th day. Once the vial was finished fermenting I pitched it into the 600ml of wort. Within 14hrs a pellicle with large foamy bubbles bursting through it had formed. Two days later fermentation was basically done and the sour smelling starter was pitched into the beer.

Oh one thing I forgot to mention, the bugs in gueuze are voracious little critters. The belgian ale I dumped them into was hopped to 25 IBU and had a massive amount of large sugars. These bugs ate them and made the beer quite sour in about 2 months

 

[sweetcell]

however be aware that a lot of sour beers (especially American ones) have champagne yeast at the bottom of the bottles. In those cases, you can take the bottom 1/4 inch of beer and leave the sediment behind.

i wouldn't leave the sediment behind. if the beer is more than a few months old (and most sours are), the champagne yeast will be dead. if there are any viable champagne cells in there (and there would only be a few), the only thing they can ferment is simple sugars. any other sacch strains you have in your beer will ferment those before the bugs anyways, so it's the same difference to the bugs.

there will be bugs in the sediment (for example, brett that is munching on the dead sacch). leaving sediment behind = leaving bugs behind. don't leave bugs behind!

 

[dantheman13]

Here's something to try out but it takes patience and drinking.

Drink a butt load of lambics/gueuze, american sours, you name it, if its a living beer and sour/funky save the bottle sediment in a mason jar. Then brew a batch of a low to average gravity beer, something simple like a saison, mash however you want. Make enough to split it in two batches. Ferment one with a typical pitch of saison yeast or whatever you want. Then ferment the other with some of the soured beer bottle yeast/bacteria but use a very small amount. Last time I did this I used about 50ml of suspended slurry in 13gal (read not very dense or thick at all, very low cell count) and it should be ripping within three days. I also advise using some aged hops mixed with fresh hops. It's a hybrid beer of sorts that I started making two years ago. I love it. I brew it like a saison but cut half the fresh hops with old aged stuff. But still hop to about 20-30 ibus. Let ferment 6-10 months depending on when I get around to bottling, and right before I bottle I dry hop the beer. Then after about 9 months in the bottle I start drinking. I have barely bought bottles of sour beer once I started doing this....

The dry hopping technique that you mention is interesting. How much of that character do you think lasts after 9 months in the bottle?

@Sweetcell - good points. I think you could look at it either way.

 

[smokinghole]

Well i have tasted batches using this method with out dryhopping and dryhopping certainly makes a difference and hangs around. How noticeable I think depends on the hops. Remember brett had amazing oxygen scavenging capabilities and will use oxygen which I think keeps it tasting "fresh" when it come to hops. I love the mix of slightly bitter with fresh/aged hops in the finished beer. I prefer it to stand as its own brew, but if it must be categorized, its a mix between Saison and lambic or we can just call it sour blonde/saison to not offend those that want to abide by the EU TSG for lambic.

Its a fairly quick and rewarding brew. Use your fave hops for a Saison and let it rip, I use a lot of spelt in my grist by the way.

 

[MileHighBrewer]

I'm curious about your results with spelt. I have a bit here, used some in a saison, but have been wondering about using it with sours specifically for the high protein. I think it might have more stuff left over for brett and bugs, plus more body. Chad spoke of using non barley adjuncts like wheat, oats, and rye to retain body in sours. I think I May but more and go for a lambic type grist but using spelt, 30-70 spelt/oils.

 

[smokinghole]

I like brewing with spelt. It's easier to mill than wheat because it's a bit softer especially in the raw form, and it mashes just fine. I brew my brett and sours with wort only decoction type temp raises. I rarely if ever pitch saccharomyces separately first, so I don't know what kind of attenuation I'd get from my mash profile and techniques with out brett or bacteria. I'm a pitch it all at once type of guy, let the microbes work it out. I'm not in the business of controlling my beers I just brew and let the living things do their thing and I adjust to how my fermenting culture acts on the next batch to get more of what I want.

I think the spelt keeps my brews from getting thin tasting. My saisons all get under 1.004 in very short order (always brett of some sort) but don't taste thin even when brewed at low gravities like between 1.035 and 1.040. They have a nice mouthfeel and perception of body, not overwhelming though. I made one beer with 3711 and the glycerol production of that strain is off the chart leaving a slick a mouth feel for my tastes, especially considering the gravity they tend to finish.

I've gone lazy/simple with all my brewing. I rarely use more than three types of grain and very little specialty grains. Only thing that I make anymore that is specialty grain heavy is imperial stouts, flanders type sours, and my recent high gravity sour stout.

 

[mjleslie]

When racking a sour into the secondary is it best to leave the trub behind as you would a regular beer?

Or do you mix it all up to ensure you don't loose any of the good bugs?

 

[smokinghole]

When racking its not really possible to leave the all yeast and bacteria behind especially if there is a pellicle. They are fairly homogenously distributed in the beer. So I just leave behind what I can and let what moves with the beer go along. Due to my underpitching I lose very little beer to yeast mass. I tend to ferment and bottle from 10gal kegs so i just use the liquid tube and CO2 to move the beer. I dont add yeast when bottling either.