MTF Funklandia Mega Blend

[gordonmonaghan]

A buddy of my nw has given me a pouch of this stuff. Super geeked. Couple of questions maybe someone here can answer:

1. Since this has a blend, will it work as a primary (and only) pitch?

2. At what point should I rack to secondary?

3. Should I ferment it at ambient temperature or colder?

 

[radwizard]

I have some as well. It arrived a few days ago and I probably wont get around to doing anything with it for a few weeks. It id basically just a pouch of dregs that no testing has been done on.

I am leaning towards using mine in secondary at ambient temps in my basement (68).
If you want to use it in primary, it would probably be safest to pitch with some sacch yeast.

 

[sweetcell]

i did an un-stirred starter: i filled a 22 oz bottle about 70% full of 1.030'ish wort, pitched the funklandia, and it took off in less than 5 hours. i shook the bottle occasionally. a few days later i pitched that whole mess into 4 gallons of 1.055 rye & wheat wort and it took off like gangbusters. pitched at 68*F, kept it uncontrolled in my 67*F basement. a week later i racked those 4 gallons, along with 1 gallon of saison-only beer, into a secondary 5 gal carboy. filled to the top, sealed it up, see you in summer 2019.

i suspect that a pouch would be fine on its own, as the only pitch, in primary. there is clearly a lot of sacch in there. might take a while (24 hours?) to take off, but that will just allow the bugs to get a small head-start before sacch takes over. if i were to do it over i'd probably skip the starter and just straight-pitch.

FYI if anyone is interested in this blend, send me a PM. i collected a nice slurry from my primary carboy that i won't be using. it'll be heavy on the sacch but the bugs will be in there too. i easily have enough for 2 or 3 primary pitches. you'll need to pay shipping (or pick up in north bend or bellevue, washington, for free).

 

[sweetcell]

quick update: racked my 5 gallons of funklandia onto 15 pounds of plums a few days ago. got to taste a spoonful, t'was nice, some tartness but not overly sour. i was going to skip the plums and bottle it straight but i was told that i was taking up too much space in the freezer with all my brewing ingredients, so...

 

[sweetcell]

quick update: racked my 5 gallons of funklandia onto 15 pounds of plums a few days ago. got to taste a spoonful, t'was nice, some tartness but not overly sour. i was going to skip the plums and bottle it straight but i was told that i was taking up too much space in the freezer with all my brewing ingredients, so...

update, a year later: this batch was somewhat ruined by the plums. they were very tannic and very acidic - malic, i believe. unfortunately i only discovered this after the beer was bottled. took a really long time to carbonate, like 3 or 4 months, but eventually got there, barely (lower carb than expected - maybe the bugs had time to partially munch the priming sugar before yeast woke up?).

so the beer isn't horrible, and the first few sips are nice, but the time i get the end of the glass i'm ready to move on to something else. the acidity is strong and isn't particularly pleasant. the beer has a strong drying effect on the mouth. definitely a kentucky beer: one-and-done. it's much nicer when mixed with a saison or some other ester-y beer.

again, it's not Funklandia's fault, the downfall here was too much of the wrong kind of plums. grumble.

anyone else have results to share? i might pour dregs of this into my soon-to-go-sour barrel.