Saison plus dregs, what to expect?

[TheBrewingBear]

1st time brewing a funky beer... I brewed a saison and pitched the belle saison yeast. After about 24 hours, I added the dregs from Jester King Bier de Miel. About 1 week in I added the dregs from JK Wytchmaker.

It's in a carboy right now, so it's airtight. Long term plan is to keg it. I also understand a 2nd set of tools is recommended to prevent contamination of my clean beers.

Does anyone know about how long should I let it work? Any tips on how to pass by the time until it's ready? How will I know when it's ready?

 

[NTexBrewer]

Two things to pay attention to.

1. Make sure it has finished fermenting before bottling. Brett is a super attenuator. Belle Saison yeast is also very aggressive so if you mashed low it is possible that it will go all the way to 1.000. Usually you check Final Gravity over a two week interval to see if it has stopped. I would be wary of any final gravity that is above 1.006.

2. Once final gravity is finished Brett can still work on esters that were produced by Belle Saison to produce its funk. This is the hard part as you need to be patient. Usually wait a couple months minimum. After a few months taste a sample to see how it is progressing.

I have a few sours that have Jester King dregs in them. I put the dregs of Dichotomous in a 1 gallon Belgian Table beer and in a few days it was bubbling as it worked on what the Sacc could not eat and has a small pellicle. I think JK bugs are pretty viable since the beers are so fresh. Interested to see how this beer turns out since it only has the Dichotomous dregs.

 

[Dirty25]

I love funky Brett saisons. If I am going to keg a funk beer I will secondary in a sealed keg and get those "bottle conditioned" funk flavors.

I am not familiar with that JK beer but I would assume some Pedio is in it and you might get some diacital flavors from it that might take a few months to age out. I have used Cantillon dregs a few times on saisons and they always get sick. If this happens to your beer it could take 6 months to age away.

Good luck and just let the beer take its time, it will let you know when it's done.

 

[m00ps]

Jester King uses a house culture for all of their beers. They maintain it basically in a big container and Ive read that they put it through a hoppier beer if it shifts too far in the souring bugs direction to help balance things out.

So there is definitely brett and pedio and lacto in your beer. If you only added the dregs of two bottles, it may take some time to get a decent amount of wild character. I usually recommend building the dregs up in a small starter and pitching that to get more character faster

 

[TheBrewingBear]

FINALLY! Kegged this up today. Sample was delicious. Fruity and tart with a touch of phenolic. Can't wait until it's cold and carbed.

 

[ChefRex]

FINALLY! Kegged this up today. Sample was delicious. Fruity and tart with a touch of phenolic. Can't wait until it's cold and carbed.

Love a saison with brett, but I always bottle so it has time to develop, a year or two is not unusual, if you can bottle some off the keg and forget it,depending on the FG I might add a small bit of fermentables to ensure has something to work with.

 

[sweetcell]

nice to hear it turned out good.

how bitter is the base beer?

a while back i had too much saison on hand and decided to sour some. unfortunately the IBUs were high, and after the bugs chewed away all the residual sugars and added acidity, the acid and the bitter clashed in an unpleasant way. i suspect it would have been a nice sour had the IBUs been much lower.

tl;dr: not all beers are good candidates for souring. souring should be in mind when designing the beer as opposed to an afterthought.

 

[TheBrewingBear]

Vitals for this beer are OG 1.056, FG 1.003, 27 IBUs.

I was a bit worried about the acidity vs IBUs at first. I took some comfort in that my dregs were from Bier de Miel (26 IBUs) and Wytchmaker (55 - 71 IBUs).

However this beer is more tart than what I vaguely recall about the beers I drank 6 months ago. There may be some clash going on, but it doesn't severely degrade drinkability IMO.

I plan to put it in a comp or two to get feedback. I will also post their feedback and some beer porn later once it's carbed.