Roadie
Well-Known Member
Hey everyone. I'm going to brew 5.5 gallons of my German Pilsner but change the hops up from the usual Hallertauer to Manderina Bavaria. I plan on fermenting with lager yeast (WLP835). Usually final gravity for this beer is around 1.012. At that point I plan on racking, raising temp to 75 and then pitching Yeast Bay's Amalgamation and letting it go for 6 months or so and see what I get. I've never brewed a sour/brett beer and I am unsure of the Brett pitching rate. I have 2 vials of Amalgamation but they only have 2-3B cells per vial. Most of the heavy lifting will have been done by the 835 but I'm unsure how large of a starter to make. I'd prefer not to wait a year to get the Brett character so sooner is better and am unsure if underpitching will increase the Brett character or not. Any ideas on how large of a starter to make? I also want to overbuild the starter a little and share with guys in my club plus keep some for future use. My initial thought was to put both vials into a 1 liter starter and then possibly do another step after decanting as I use a stir plate and I'm told the starter beer will be highly acidic so decanting is a must. Any thoughts??