Repitch in secondary?

[Lynchy217]

Hi, I'm going to be taking my first shot at a sour soon, and I wanted to clear this up before I brew it.

So I plan on pitching White Labs 655 in the primary, and from what I've read, I should let it go for a month before racking it to my "Barrel" (Glass carboy or better bottle with wood chips) in order to avoid autolyzing off flavors. After I rack to secondary, is there enough microbes suspended in the beer to get a decent souring, or should I repitch a non-sacc blend to age?

Thanks!

 

[Dcpcooks]

That’s a low to mid flocculating yeast you’ll have plenty of bugs left to sour the beer. It’ll take 3 months to get there though.

 

[madscientist451]

I don't know if I'd rack it at all, perhaps the best thing would be to observe it for a month and see what's happening, pull a sample and taste it and decide.
Racking the beer could cause more oxidation and produce more off flavors than just leaving it alone.
Another method would be to use a clean yeast for primary, then cold crash and rack to secondary and add the sour mix. Mashing high provides some unfermentables for the Brett, Pedio and Lacto to work on.
ECY Bug farm does a good job souring using the above method. I haven't tried WL 655 yet.

 

[couchsending]

I’ve never used this yeast but it’s desigened to represent somewhat of a lambic fermentation. Lambic brewers will leave beer that primary fermented in barrels without transferring for three years and not worry about autolysis flavors. Brett can consume those flavor compounds I do believe. Do you have the ability to purge the secondary vessel incredibly well with Co2? I’d worry more about O2 exposure messing with the beer than autolysis personally. I’d recommend oak cubes that have been microwaved in water a bit, and not a lot of them. 1oz, Light toast.

 

[Lynchy217]

I have an oxygen stone that I can hook my co2 tank up to. Should be able to keep plenty of co2 in it. Thanks for the tips guys. I had read that a lot of pros do primary before racking to barrels, and I thought I remembered Vinnie saying they take the beer off the yeast before racking to barrels. That being said, I'm sure his culture is way different from 655

 

[radwizard]

I have an oxygen stone that I can hook my co2 tank up to. Should be able to keep plenty of co2 in it. Thanks for the tips guys. I had read that a lot of pros do primary before racking to barrels, and I thought I remembered Vinnie saying they take the beer off the yeast before racking to barrels. That being said, I'm sure his culture is way different from 655

You really can do it either way. Sometimes I rack of the primary cake and sometimes not. There are benefits to either way. Regardless, I like to top off the fermenter after primary fermentation is finished.

 

[Lynchy217]

There are benefits to either way.

What are some of the benefits/drawbacks you've experienced?

When you do rack to secondary, do you usually pitch more sour blend or just rely on the bugs already floating around in the beer?

 

[radwizard]

What are some of the benefits/drawbacks you've experienced?

When you do rack to secondary, do you usually pitch more sour blend or just rely on the bugs already floating around in the beer?

You do not need to pitch additional bugs, there should be plenty of bugs floating around. Sometimes I do add some dregs- if I happen to have something around that I think would help out. You can rack as soon as the Sacc begins to fall out.

In regards to autolysis:
The Brett will feed on the dead sacc and clean up some of those off flavors. They will create new flavors and aromas from this, and that may or may not be desirable in the beer you are going for (not be the same off flavor as Sacc autolysis, but an off flavor nonetheless). It is thrown around often that "it doesn't matter because Brett eats everything" and "traditional lambic producers do it this way". But not every sour is a lambic, and almost nobody is brewing them in the traditonal way.

What I get from leaving a aging sour on the original yeast cake is a more rustic character. Better for Goldens and Lambic style recipes- but not always so great in a maltier sour.


Anyways, a benefit would be gaining access to the healthy yeast cake to get another beer on. Using one microbe blend and adding different dregs to the secondary, you can get a bunch of Sours going off the cake in a short time (good for blending)
Also doing primary in a 6 gallon carboy, then racking to a 5 is a great way to end up with not head space for a long aging process.


The benefit for me to leave it on the cake would be to get a funkier rustic type beer. Less O2 exposure, and sometimes I'm just lazy. I do top off if I leave it in primary- sometimes with beer, sometimes with wort.

 

[Lynchy217]

Thank you! That was an extremely thorough answer and exactly the kind of explanation I was looking for.

 

[cactusgarrett]

One benefit of transferring: When i know I'll want to get my sour into a secondary for longterm storage at some point, I'll plan ahead and transfer some sour beers to the secondary towards the end of fermentation. I do this before fermentation stops with the hopes of some cake will still be deposited, while not being as much as if in the primary. This lesser cake would still something for the bugs to work on during longterm storage. Also, the little bit of fermentation that continues will scrub O2 that the beer picks up in the transfer, as well as swap the O2 in the headspace with CO2.

This could all be way off, but that's my current reasoning.