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

[Almighty]

I have a few other Belgian Beer yeast strains I've tried recently:

Maredsous Bruin in a Belgian Dark Strong wort - supposedly Duvel yeast, so WLP570 and Wyeast 1388 - worked great, hydro sample tasted good, but this needs to age
http://jeffreycrane.blogspot.com/2011/11/dreg-series-maredsous-belgian-dark.html

Ommegang Dubbel in Belgian Dubbel wort - proprietary yeast - activity in 12 hours - I'm not that thrilled with the beer, but I think it is the wort not the yeast's fault.
http://jeffreycrane.blogspot.com/2011/10/dreg-series-ommegang-belgian-dubbel.html

Westmalle Dubbel in Belgian Dubbel wort - apparently White Labs 530 and Wyeast 3787 - also active in 12 hours and not thrilled with this one either, but don't think it is the yeast's fault.
http://jeffreycrane.blogspot.com/2011/10/dreg-series-westmalle-belgian-dubbel.html

Rochefort 8 in Belgian Pale Ale wort - apparently White Labs 540 Abbey IV - active in 24 hours - I would like to compare to the White Lab version - the beer turned out ok, just not my favorite Belgian yeast
http://jeffreycrane.blogspot.com/2011/09/dreg-series-rochefort-belgian-pale-ale.html

Next year, I'm going to try the commercial and dreg yeast side by side.

 

[badlee]

So, I got around to brewing this batch on Saturday. I did a one and a 4 gallon.
So,the one gallon was 800gr wheat malt, 200gr MO and 100gr TF pale crystal.
I hopped with Glacier, a little aged'but not bad.
It was mashed at about 67c for 45mins and I then did the rest. I figure I got 37IBUs.
I pitched a sachet of Coopers yeast AND the dregs from an Orval.
WOW,sh*t a brick! Furious fermentation inside of TWO HOURS
Now begind the wait.
Next up, LaChouffe

 

[bubbachunk]

I love this idea, wish I would have found it sooner as I would have started in on it sooner.

General question though, any good sites for ordering sour beers on? I am in Arkansas and the beer selection is bad at best, so finding sours local is not really any option. Also a general agreement on which beers have worked well?

 

[Almighty]

I can't help you with the online site, but if you have a decent shop close by it should be pretty easy to have them order you something. Or use Beer Advocate to trade what you do have.

Well, general agreement is hard to say and is sorta the meaning behind this thread. Whatever dregs you use will have characteristics of the beer they came from. So it is easier to start with what commercial sour beer you like and then people post to agree how well they work?

My favorite has been the Drie Brett strains that were harvested from Avery 15, but I believe they have been used in other beers (Ithaca Brute).

As far as tried and true, Jolly Pumpkin dregs are fantastic and work relatively quickly. Russian River has been good to me, but changes depending on what one of their beers you use. The Bruery also has some very viable dregs. And Orval, if you just want Brett. But there are a lot of choices, for me and others the fun part is to try new dregs to see what works.

 

[bubbachunk]

Arkansas is beer Siberia, there is nothing to buy or with which to trade.

Orval is pure Brett? I didn't realize that...

Anyhow, they dont need to work "quickly" as when I harvest I plan on throwing them into a starter to build up a solid colony.

 

[spenghali]

I am starting my sour production in a few days thanks to this thread. I am brewing up a bier de garde tomorrow and plan on doing a 6 gallon batch, letting it ferment down to about 1.035 with WLP072, then rack a gallon off to a sour vessel. Will probably pitch a culture from RR supplication since that's what I have in the fridge right now. Thanks to everyone for all their contributions to this thread. I will post updates too.

For those who are weary of taking gravity readings out of the 1 gallon, I was thinking why not just drop your hydrometer into the whole thing? Won't waste any delicious sour beer, and you should be able to pull it back out pretty easily (maybe tie a safety string to it just in case).

 

[nberk]

Orval is finished with Brett, but the primary fermentation is with a Sacc. strain.

Arkansas is beer Siberia, there is nothing to buy or with which to trade.

Orval is pure Brett? I didn't realize that...

Anyhow, they dont need to work "quickly" as when I harvest I plan on throwing them into a starter to build up a solid colony.

 

[Bithead]

For those who are weary of taking gravity readings out of the 1 gallon, I was thinking why not just drop your hydrometer into the whole thing? Won't waste any delicious sour beer, and you should be able to pull it back out pretty easily (maybe tie a safety string to it just in case).

I was thinking the same thing for readings. I would suggest not dropping too hard into your vessel lest the hydrometer hit bottom and break. I too thought about string.
Now the day I was going to take a gravity reading I decided to throw in some fruit and since there was no room in the bottle to add fruit I racked off 10 oz of beer then added fruit figuring I had enough for gravity sample. So had to taste the sample and was doing the fruit and offered girlfriend a taste. Dang the sample was good, gf wanted more sample and you guessed it, finished off 10 oz of sample and no gravity reading. It was tasty. Should hvae just bottled it then.

 

[bubbachunk]

By the way, is head space desired with sour beers? I was going to do ~1.25 gallon in 2 gallon buckets for a week or two then rack to 1 gallon jugs in the case if I wanted to add fruit or anything

 

[dangloverenator]

I'm hoping to make a sour porter next week. Here's my plan, will this work? I'm going to brew a 10l (2.5gal) batch, and once it's cooled, transfer 8-9l into the main vessel, and then pitch a basic dry yeast. With the other 1-2 litres, I'm going to transfer it to a separate container and pitch the dregs of a cantillon bottle. I will then blend the two together in secondary, to add (hopefully) a subtle tartness. One question - how long will it take for the cantillon dregs to sour the wort in the other vessel? Presumably longer than the dry yeast? Thoughts, please!

 

[badlee]

My coopers and Orval Belgian-ish is 11 days in and I couldn't resist. I just had to open her up and have a smell
Well, intense pineapple and peach,I wanted to fall intot he demi-john(I know,not possible) and die in there!
11 days at between 15 and 28c.

 

[Coff]

I'm hoping to make a sour porter next week. Here's my plan, will this work? I'm going to brew a 10l (2.5gal) batch, and once it's cooled, transfer 8-9l into the main vessel, and then pitch a basic dry yeast. With the other 1-2 litres, I'm going to transfer it to a separate container and pitch the dregs of a cantillon bottle. I will then blend the two together in secondary, to add (hopefully) a subtle tartness. One question - how long will it take for the cantillon dregs to sour the wort in the other vessel? Presumably longer than the dry yeast? Thoughts, please!

I only have 2-3 sour beers under my belt so take this for what it's worth. But if you just want a mild tartness just ferment the whole batch with your neutral dry yeast then pitch the Cantillon dregs in secondary after the primary sach strain reaches terminal gravity. There should be a good amount for the bugs to eat but probably won't be overpowering.

Your plan would work, it's basically like making a starter but I don't see it being worth it. You don't really need to make a starter when you're pitching bugs in secondary, they are going to take their good old time anyway.

 

[nppeders]

I have some 1 gallon experiments that I could update.

Jolly Pumpkin Biere de Mars dregs in an American Blonde-
It's a couple months since I put the dregs in and it's smelling funky, and looks like the Jolly Pumpkin bugs have taken hold. Excited for this one to use the yeast for a 5 gallon batch!

St. Somewhere Lectio Divina dregs in an American Blonde-
No activity or aroma change for 2 months. I'm gonna say this didn't take hold and use some Russian River dregs into this beer soon.

Boulevard Saison Brett dregs in second runnings of a Saison wort. Added half pound of Belgian Candy Syrup. Smell is great after 2 months. I thought that this was a bust because I didn't see any airlock activity, but I smelled the jug last night and it's definitely getting funky!

Avery 15/ Brett Drie yeast slurry 100% brett into a Biere de Garde wort. Fermentation was cooking after 12 hours. Should be fantastic!

 

[Almighty]

spenghali -
I would make a small starter in the RR Supplication bottle before adding it to the main batch. Plus I wouldn't try to transfer, I would add the dregs and WLP072 at the same time. I try to avoid transferring as much as possible and trub isn't that bad for sour beers as long as it is not too much.

Hydrometer in the wort may work, only thing is it will be pretty hard to see your reading if you have a decent pellicle on your beer.

bubbachunk-
Headspace is not desired in sour beers for long aging, but for 2 weeks as you described that will not influence much.

dangloverenator-
Cantillion dregs are pretty variable, depending on the beer because they are aged for so long before blending and bottling. Your method should work, but will require extended aging to sour. These beers are aged for usually greater than a year. So if you want a quicker sour beer then I would suggest you look into sour mashing or acid malt.

nppeders - thanks for the update and can't wait to hear what you think of the Drie Brett.

 

[spenghali]

I had made a starter in the bottle for about 4 days prior, it took pretty well. Unfortunately I had already gone along with my plan to rack off of my main 5 batch. It was at 1.030 when I took 1 gallon from it. Pitched the RR supplication dregs starter. Then today ~ 1 week later pitched some other dregs that had no starter (Epic Sour Apple Saison and some brett biere de garde I can't remember, maybe logsdon, I'll have to look).

 

[Almighty]

The RR beers take off pretty quickly because most are bottled with wine yeast that stay pretty viable. It sounds like your process will work pretty well. Post an update when you get some results.

 

[spenghali]

Just to update mine, I have a pretty nice pellicle developing over the past week or so, it's only been about 3 weeks (I think I brewed the Biere de Garde on 2/15/12 and transfered a gallon to a jug on 2/17/12, and pitched RR supplication dregs starter, some Epic Sour Apple Saison dregs and some Le Sans Culottes Biere de Garde dregs). Pretty quick take off, probably from the RR starter.

 

[badlee]

cracked my first bottle last night.
6 weeks primary and 4 days in the bottle. Pretty good carbonation, slight haze,but clear.
There are SO many different tastes going on it's just mad! It's fruity(pineapple,peach,passion fruit) , smokey,woody, tart, medicinal and something in the aftertaste which clings to the palate ever so fleetingly. Even with all of this going on it's SUCH a balanced flavour and it TOTALLY works! This will be done again in a few weeks with La Chouffe.

 

[Almighty]

badlee - I'm glad it worked for you. And it will be neat to hear if you had equally good results with the La Chouffe dregs as I did.

 

[Jipper]

Great post here everyone. Something I recently started doing (maybe this works for you, maybe not) was after sparging and collecting my total volume in my boil kettle, I sparge the extra volume into a small 5 gallon kettle. You can steep some grain during the small sparge to add a little color/character if you want, but not necessary. I generally just add some DME, start with about 3.5 gallons, and boil this on a camp chef burner next to my Tippy Dump sculpture, adding 8-15 IBUs at 60 minutes (depending on the gravity). Take this into a 3 gallon carboy (or a couple of 1 gallon jars), pitch some dregs or a vial of brett, and leave it in the closet for 3-4 months. Adding an ounce of oak cubes helps also, as they give the brett a "home". Whats cool about this is when you are ready to rack this beer out, you can rack fresh beer right back in and have a great colony going already. Just something to consider on your next brew day!

Cheers.

 

[Almighty]

Jipper -
Do you notice any astringency from over sparging? What gravity are your last runnings from the mash tun?

And I do agree that most Brett or sour beers do benefit from some oak. I actually like almost all beers better with oak, but with the aging time already needed for flavor development from the bugs you have plenty of time to get a nice oak extraction and for the oak flavors to mature.

 

[iijakii]

Great thread!

Now I just need to find out what style to brew that I can snake a couple gallons off of. I mostly do pretty high IBU pales or big stouts. Don't want to make any Belgians :3

 

[Almighty]

One of the points early in the thread was about how to get around the high IBUs. My idea is that you plan to make an extra gallon of wort. You mash and sparge normally then you make sure that you have an extra gallon more for you pre boil volume. After you add your bittering hops you can calculate how long the wort has to boil for you to extract 10 - 15 IBUs and then you rack off a gallon of the boiling wort into a pre-heated 1 gal glass container. Does this make sense?

And for the stouts I have really been liking the roast flavor mixed with some Brett funk. And high alcohol is not a big problem for most Brett or souring bacteria. And you can even do as Jipper recommended and use your 2nd runnings from your big mash to make a smaller beer that you experiment with dregs.

 

[BigBill]

Question on use of dregs..... If I add dregs to my secondary should I see anything happen? I did 2 1G batches. One with cherries and JP Oro de Cabeza Noel dregs and then one with just JP Bam Noire dregs. It doesn't seem like anything is happening with the Bam Noire dregs so I am wondering if I need to add more dregs or if it is just too soon still.

 

[Bithead]

I had a gallon of my October Ale on Bam Noire and saw small bubbles but my Red Ale on La Roja I've seen nothing except a small bit of pellicle which also disappeared quickly.

 

[Almighty]

You may or may not see a lot of activity, it completely depends on the amount of sugar and the type of dregs you added.

How did you add your cherries (frozen, dethawed, mashed or whole)? And how much?
On this beer you may see some light activity on the surface, but will probably be hard to see with the cherries. And the activity will just be from the Sacc yeast left in the dregs, if any is still alive depending on the age of the beer.

And your other one with just Bam Noire dregs, I doubt you will see any activity.

Now if you have some oxygen in the headspace then you will probably see a pellicle pretty soon. These types of beer you just need to be patient. Take a sample in a few months and you'll find out if you have anything. (You could try sooner since the JP dregs are known to be very aggressive)

 

[BigBill]

Cherries were whole. I just opened a can of Oregon Tart Cherries and dumped them in. It looks like something is going on there under the cherries.

Plain Bam Noire batch looks like nothing is going on which sounds like that isn't unusual. I just wanted to ask to make sure I hadn't failed at infecting with Brett.

 

[badlee]

I just had two bottle of Saison Dupont brought over from HongKong. So, tese are the next dregs I will use. Can't wait!

 

[phished880]

I just had two bottle of Saison Dupont brought over from HongKong. So, tese are the next dregs I will use. Can't wait!

I guess I will be the guy who bursts the bubble. DuPont does not have any Brett/bugs,however it is a great Saison strain if you can be patient enough.

 

[Coff]

Is anyone adding bottling yeast to these batches? I would think after ~6 months there should be plenty of active yeast for bottle conditioning but I'm not positive.