Easy Way to Make Sour Beers (1 gal wort + dregs)

[MatthewHall]

The only description that I've found is:
“ale brewed with Saccharomyces cerevisae and Brettanomyces. Transferred to oak foudre after initial fermentation. Foundre has previously gone through a spontaneous fermentation.”

So we'll see where that takes me. Any reason to believe that I should do anything different because I had a little sacc in there? The bugs/brett should still be able to work on the small amount of sugar left right? I'll question more when the time comes. patience patience patience. haha.

 

[Almighty]

It is probably good that there is some Sacc yeast in there. Depending on the viability it will help you get fermentation faster to prevent off flavors. And you will get plenty of contribution from Brett and the other "spontaneous" bugs. Even in super dry Saisons when Brett is added it will make a substantial difference over time.

 

[stevehollx]

It is probably good that there is some Sacc yeast in there. Depending on the viability it will help you get fermentation faster to prevent off flavors. And you will get plenty of contribution from Brett and the other "spontaneous" bugs. Even in super dry Saisons when Brett is added it will make a substantial difference over time.

Brett produces more off flavors in the presence of Sacc, since it competes with Sacc and stresses the Brett.

 

[Almighty]

I have a few comments:
1. By off flavors I was referring to flavors that can be produced before yeast becomes the dominant organism. During the lag period some nasty flavors can be produced by airborne bacterias and molds.
2. I don't think the flavors produced by Brett are considered "off-flavors"
3. Do you have any evidence to back up your claim?

 

[Rolly]

I think I'm gonna start doing this with every batch I do, only after primary with just a clean ale yeast. With small kids, I can only find time to brew once per month, so its hard to justify having a whole brewday for 5 gallons of funky beer that may not even turn out. If I just rack 4 gallons of each batch into my keg, and one gallon into a jug, I'll have a whole sour pipeline before I even know it.

If I dump in the bottle dregs after primary is complete, would you say the dregs from one bottle of say, Jolly Pumpkin, would be enough to brett & sour a one gallon batch that had a post-primary FG of around 1.012?

Thanks for the idea!

 

[phished880]

Rolly:
I've found, with adding at bottling, which could be considered similar. It will funkify and slightly sour a 1.012 beer. I took a FG of a brown ale from 1.014 to 1.004 and enjoyed the results.

 

[Almighty]

Rolly you are in the same position as I am. I only brew once a month, but wanted a way to experiment with sour beers. My sour pipeline has started and it is really great to have a gallon of sour beer a month. It is just enough to bottle about 9 - 12 oz bottles. So this allows you to try these beers over time. Just be careful with hoarding, which I'm getting to that point right now. You find yourself saying this beer just has the chance to be so much better in a few months or a year.

One thing to think about is that a lot of these dregs do have a good amount of Sacc yeast and should ferment just fine on their own. I recently have been making 4 - 6 oz of starter wort to dump into the bottle to get the dregs going before they are dumped into the 1 gal jug (Flame the lip). For example, Jolly Pumpkin dregs have WLP530 yeast and were active in 24 hrs. Also I have found using non-neutral yeast like Belgian yeast gives far more complexity to sour beers. It has to do with the esters and acids changing over time.

If you add the dregs after primary fermentation you will have a more difficult time getting sourness. You will probably get enough funk over time, but not much more than a mild sourness. You can add fruit or maltodextrin to feed the bugs to produce more sourness.

This blog article by ryane is very helpful for producing good sour beers. And you will have several batches so blending is a real possibility and has made my sour beer much better.
http://ryanbrews.blogspot.com/2011/03/blending-and-fruiting-lambics-my.html

 

[ashmgee]

so I have about a gallon of wort that I brewed (very low ibu) and not real strong (maybe an expected 4%)

I just bought a bottle of Don-De-Dieu that is on lees. Can I pitch this into the batch. and not pitch any yeast? I left a little room for extra pitchings down the road.

complete newb to this process, but it seems interesting.

What beers work for this type of experiment. I wrote down some of the ones listed in this thread, but am not sure if I have access to those.
thanks in advance

 

[ryane]

so I have about a gallon of wort that I brewed (very low ibu) and not real strong (maybe an expected 4%)

I just bought a bottle of Don-De-Dieu that is on lees. Can I pitch this into the batch. and not pitch any yeast? I left a little room for extra pitchings down the road.

complete newb to this process, but it seems interesting.

What beers work for this type of experiment. I wrote down some of the ones listed in this thread, but am not sure if I have access to those.
thanks in advance

I could be wrong as Ive never tried the beer, but I dont think don de dieu is a sour, its a golden strong, so while you could reuse the yeast it wont be sour or funky

 

[GiraffeBrew]

I have had Don De Dieu. Good beer. NOT sour.

Long legs means more room for beer!

 

[ashmgee]

just had jolly pumkins la roja, and also picked up a bottle of oro de calabeza. your right the don de dieu was not sour, but had a good flavor. if it was the yeast than it could be good later in my batch.
so this will be a couple of batches!
possible blending later.

 

[Almighty]

Ashmgee - this same idea can be used for non-sour beers also. And I have actually started doing that because I was making more sour beer than I could drink (I didn't think it was possible). The big difference when using non sour beers is that you really should build up the yeast before pitching. I make 4-6 oz of starter w nutrients and pour it right into the bottle. I will then build it up once more or go from there depending on activity and amount of yeast. And you also need to be very clean and careful, so use sanitizer everywhere, flame the bottle lips and try not to work anywhere with a draft.

Here are my last two beers using dregs from Belgian beers:

Belgian Pale Ale with Achouffe yeast
http://jeffreycrane.blogspot.com/2011/09/dreg-series-achouffe-belgian-pale-ale.html

Belgian Pale Ale with Rochefort yeast
http://jeffreycrane.blogspot.com/2011/09/dreg-series-rochefort-belgian-pale-ale.html

And here is a great list of Beers with wild yeast or souring bugs
http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2010/06/harvesting-sour-beer-bottle-dregs.html

And here is another that lists bottle conditioned beers
http://www.nada.kth.se/~alun/Beer/Bottle-Yeasts/

Hope that helps

 

[ashmgee]

That helps a lot.

Just curious, how long should I wait for fermentation to start before contemplating adding more dregs? Will the wort be fine sitting if active ferment doesn't take right off?

This is the coolest brew experiment I've tried so far! My plan was to get this one going and the possibly add it to 4 more gallons down the road to fill a 5 gallon carboy. Is that a good bad idea?

 

[ashmgee]

and if you have too much sour beer, you could always send me some

 

[weirdboy]

What are you doing for temperature control on these little jugs?

 

[Almighty]

ashmgee -
For sour beers you "should" be okay without seeing activity for a few days. And for those occasions it is probably good to have some dry yeast on hand to add. I have had very good success with pretty quick activity, but it really depends on the age and viability of the dregs. If in doubt make a small starter. Or if you are adding dregs to an already finished beer than you may never see activity or a pellicle, it just depends on the strain of Brett and the amount of oxygen.

As for adding the 1 gal to more wort: That was my idea with the 1 gal batches. I can try out different dregs and worts. And when I like a certain combination, I now have a gallon starter to add to a 5 gal batch.


wierdboy -
For most of these 1 gal batches I don't worry about temperature control. For the sour beers I don't think temperature control is as big of an issue as it is with Sacc yeast. With that said I live in Southern California and I have relatively mild weather. My brew closet stays 70 -75 year round. I pitch all the yeast around 70 degrees. Through my 15 + batches I have not got any big off-flavors from my temperatures being too high. I also don't know how different my results would be if the beers were fermented cooler. The other reason for my confidence at these temps is because Lost Abbey in Northern County San Diego has all their beer aging in barrels in a room that has much greater temperature swings (60 - 90 degrees at least) and their beers are world class.

Now for ferments when I am using a Sacc yeast, I have only been using yeast that can ferment in the 70+ range. I have only done Saisons and Belgian beers. These are actually pitched around 65 and then allowed to free-rise. Which is my normal fermentation profile for Saisons and Belgians.

If I was to try to use dregs from and English or American ale then I would put my gallon jugs into my fermentation cabinet.

 

[MatthewHall]

Just thought it would be fun to contribute to this as the process goes along. Any and all comments are appreciated. This has been going for 3 weeks.


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This is my belgian golden w/Supplication & Two Brothers Askew dregs along with a a little bit of my WLP570 starter thrown in the mix. Not sure what things are supposed to look like at this point. The fermentation went along like normal for a couple days krausen and all. It almost looks as though some of the krausen remnants stayed on top? Lots of little bubbles and such. I don't know what to expect with this sort of thing... so i wait. and hope for the best.

 

[ashmgee]

The gallon I started on sunday with just dregs from la roja and from a bottle of uni don-de-dieu has started fermenting. ferm started in about a day and a half. nothing crazy just lots of tiny bubbles and a thin krausen.

I'm so proud! can't wait to start another, but I need to bottle some beer before I will have space to brew another batch.
I know, I know, its a tough world.

 

[ashmgee]

I was thinking that if i started one a month (maybe a couple this month) then next year i would be looking pretty good.

 

[Almighty]

ashmgee -
Your one a month is exactly how I started. My suggestion is to buy the 1 gal glass cider containers and use whatever yeast you are using at that time to make some hard cider.

I believe I am up to about 10 - 1 gal jugs. It makes it much easier to forget about the batch you just made when you have 1 that is just about to be ready.

It's funny I bet you will start doing what I do now. I buy beer based on wanting to try the dregs.

 

[ashmgee]

I've got a head start on gallon jugs because that is what I have brewed all of my meads and ciders in.

I figure if I do one a month that allows me to buy one beer a month so it isn't to spendy. these beers are ridiculously priced, but I will have my own supply coming out in a years time. until then I get to drink one beer a month that is special. other than that it's all my own stuff, which is pretty darn cool too!

 

[ashmgee]

second gallon in the jug!

made a saison style beer, and stole a gallon before pitching.

dregs were from lindemans cuvee rene oude gueuze
we'll see what happens.

the other one seems to be picking up speed fermenting. (started pretty slow, but is catching up)

I have some french oak chips, and I am wondering if I should add a few to both or if that is really a non issue.

 

[Almighty]

It depends on what you are looking for. From my experience, in 5 gals about 1 oz of French Oak chips boiled for 10 minutes then decanted is a nice background flavor in a darker malt forward beer, but on a paler beer that amount can become a dominant flavor. And I have had it over power some of the subtle flavors I was hoping for.

Oak is traditionally not a flavor in Belgian sour beers, they use barrels that have very little flavor left and the surface to volume ratio is also pretty small.

I however am a big fan of oak and like to use it in all my malt forward sour beers.

If you are looking to add oak cubes so you can store the bugs or use the same bugs on another beer, then just make sure to boil several times to try to remove as much flavor as possible.

 

[ashmgee]

the lindemans seemed to not take, so I pitched J/K oro de calabaza. I really was stoked to try the beer, but was a little disappointed by it. seemed a little sour with no other character.

feel free to school a sour newb, but I personally wasn't that impressed. pitched dregs anyways because I know that they are good on the aggressive yeast part of the deal, and this just an experimental batch.

I have tasted other stuff this week that I have made and I am really excited. things are really good, and I am starting to underestimate the time things have been sitting. I let the household taste my iipa tonight even though I didn't think it would be done, but they demanded to try it.

It was awesome!

 

[Almighty]

I have not had great results with the dregs from gueuze either. First of all, the bottles are pretty old when you get them so viability is very low. And I am not sure of all the bugs that are lambic dregs. It would be a good idea to build a starter for those dregs if you want to use them next time. Maybe build the starter up a few times, then give it a taste and smell.

I actually don't remember Tasting JP's Oro de Calabaza so no comment on that one.

Glad to hear you are having success

 

[Solether]

Almighty, your posts and blog have convinced me to give this 1 gal jug system a try. I'm a recent convert to liking sour beers, and think this is a perfect way to get more into it. On saturday I made a starter with the dregs of a RR Temptation bottle, which I'm going to pitch onto a gallon of a Saison I brewed yesterday. Made 15 regular, 1 extra for bugs. I'll let you know how things go.

 

[Almighty]

That is great to hear.

It looks like several of you are somewhat local. Ee will have to have a tasting party or bottle exchange when these batches get ready.

 

[MatthewHall]

I'm about 5 weeks into my Soured Belgian Golden project, and although this is probably pretty normal to most clean beer brewers, I was pretty amazed to see this crystal clear product! I could see medium sized bubbles coming from the bottom. i got excited, took some pics, and thought i'd share.



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[BrewDocND]

I am inspired. I just moved across the country and haven't brewed in months, but this sounds like a fun little experiment to get me excited again.

 

[Almighty]

It is still exciting for me to make a new batch. I have been pleasantly surprised with how well these beers have turned out.

The nice part about this experimental batches is that you can learn a good amount about the different Brett and bug combinations without too much risk. Meaning you can find out what strains of Brett you like compared to the base beer. Also you can find out if like Brett Only, Brett + Sacc or Brett + Lacto & Pedio fermentations.

Here are some conclusion for my personal taste:

I really like the Drie (Avery 15) Brett Strains in just about any wort. They are incredibly fruity and have just enough funk that you know it is not a Sacc fermentation.

I don't really like White Labs Brett C with malty or roasty beers, because it produces a phenol that I don't think blends well.

Brett in beers that had a decent amount of hop aroma and flavor do not age well. The hops oxidize quickly and the Brett flavors do not cover up that flaw.

On the other hand dry-hopping a beer with Brett and drinking it somewhat quickly works pretty darn well. Especially if using fruity hops, I have really enjoyed a Saison with Brett C that was dry-hopped with Amarillo.

I will add more as I think of them.

We should also think of getting a yeast swap going. I am starting a pretty good library and would also like to try some cultures from beers on the East Coast and Colorado breweries.