started 3, 1 gallon sours. Shout out to Dantheman13/Almighty

[GluStick]

I did a 3, 1 gallon sour thing that I have seen on the forum. I think so far it is going well. On the other hand, one of them is going crazy! I pitched a starter of a couple different dregs into them. I learned this great idea from several youtube videos and the HBT forums. Dantheman13, your videos are great and Almighty, the thread is great!

I might have gone too hog wild on the yeast though. I made a starter for some brett from a bottle of Galaxy IPA and I had a nice starter going for that one. Then I made a starter for a bottle of Oude Tart from the Bruery. I pitched only Oude Tart into one gallon, only Galaxy Brett into another gallon, then I pitched a combination of both into the third gallon. The gallon with the combo is going bananas! Maybe I pitched too much brett yeast? I found that the Galaxy IPA is bottled with champagne yeast, maybe I accidentally started up some champagne yeast with the brett... Anyhow, I just brewed up my three gallons yesterday and the combo gallon has blown its top and has quite the overflow. Is this normal at this point? If it is, then ROCK ON! im on my way to some sours! :rockin:

 

[dantheman13]

Hey, thanks for the shoutout! Almighty's thread was a gift to me and my brewing. It not only got me started brewing sours, but those same sours have continued to be my focus nearly three years later.

I think that in general an active fermentation is a good thing. I'm not sure what the effect of champagne yeast will be (you can probably find some information here somewhere), but I suspect it won't be an issue. Just stick to cleanliness as usual, make sure it has a blow off, etc. The biggest issue that I came across while doing one gallon batches was keeping O2 out. Since you have a considerably larger air to surface area ratio, it can be a problem. If you can keep the temperature steady during the aging process, that is ideal. Since I can't do that, I currently use silicon rubber waterless airlocks. They let in a lot more air than other air locks, but I feel like it's better than the water suckage you get when the temperatures shift dramatically. You can also try a rubber bung, which lets in considerably less air, but sometimes those pop off. I don't use them because I would probably never notice it if they did.

If I were to do the one gallon batches that I did nearly three years ago again, and if I had more storage room to age them, I would do 4-5 more of them. Continue to mix dregs for greater chances of success. In 2 years you will have a lot of options on what to do with these beers as far as blending them with each other and/or fresher beers, or stepping them up into 6 gallon fermenters with wort (straight bottling them shouldn't be an option to consider IMO!).

Cheers,
Dan

 

[GluStick]

Good deal, im glad to hear it. Thanks for the reply I wasn't expecting such a big celeb to reply lol. It turned out that my second jug with just Brett also had a blowout, but not nearly as bad as the first. They have settled down now and I believe at this point they are going to stay settled. It was pretty vigorous there for a few hours. I did see those waterless airlocks online the other day, but I was so stoked to do the gallon jugs that I didn't want to wait for them to be delivered, I just went for regular 3 piece airlocks and rubber bungs.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I saw what you did with your sours and I really liked your ideas. I hopefully will get a good couple sours and then mimic your idea of creating a solera. I also saw that some other brewers use an oak barrel for sours and I thought that was a cool idea as well. I keep telling my fiancé that Christmas is right around the corner and I want santa to bring me a 5 gallon oak barrel lol

 

[Coff]

Its hard to say for sure what you have in the Galaxy IPA dregs as Champagne yeast is a Killer strain (depending on the strain, see the link below), but from what Ive read it may not be capable of killing off Brett entirely so youre getting something there. Either way, youre probably doing a primary ferment with at least some Champagne yeast. For that reason I tend to stay away from doing primary with dregs that came from beers bottled with wine (champagne) yeasts, i.e. Russian River.

You can read more here...

http://www.babblebelt.com/newboard/thread.html?tid=1108752780&th=1275037001

 

[GluStick]

Hey thanks yo. I am hoping that i didnt get any champagne yeast in there, it smells just like brett yeast, so im not too worried about it. I wouldnt have used the dregs from galaxy if i had known at first that they used champagne yeast to bottle condition. But oh well. Ill add that one to the list of learned things lol

 

[dantheman13]

Good deal, im glad to hear it. Thanks for the reply I wasn't expecting such a big celeb to reply lol. It turned out that my second jug with just Brett also had a blowout, but not nearly as bad as the first. They have settled down now and I believe at this point they are going to stay settled. It was pretty vigorous there for a few hours. I did see those waterless airlocks online the other day, but I was so stoked to do the gallon jugs that I didn't want to wait for them to be delivered, I just went for regular 3 piece airlocks and rubber bungs.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I saw what you did with your sours and I really liked your ideas. I hopefully will get a good couple sours and then mimic your idea of creating a solera. I also saw that some other brewers use an oak barrel for sours and I thought that was a cool idea as well. I keep telling my fiancé that Christmas is right around the corner and I want santa to bring me a 5 gallon oak barrel lol

Aww shucks, I'm no celeb. Thanks for the kind words. There are a lot of folks around here (like Coff) that know a lot more about this stuff than I do. I just make videos on youtube.

Yeah, I always use a 3 piece water airlock during the primary fermentation as well, and usually use temperature control for that portion of the beers life.

 

[Almighty]

Hey guys, sorry to be late to the conversation. It looks like you got some good advice already.

Blow-off is a bit tough with these small 1 gal jugs. I'll give you a few tips:
- 1 gal mark is about to where the main body starts curving toward the neck
- you can do a small starter ~ 2 - 4 oz of the bottle dregs (do it in the same bottle with foil on top), but no larger is needed
- FERM CAP - one drop is all you need and this will pay for itself in the beer you save

I also agree about being careful with beers that use wine or champagne yeast for bottle conditioning. These are the healthiest strains and they will be built up the quickest. This is not necessarily a bad thing as they can only ferment simple sugars and will leave plenty for Brett to metabolize. They tend to produce pretty mild flavors that aren't too exciting and the resulting beer will probably not be anything like commercial beer. If you want to mimic the commercial beer more closely you will need to pitch a primary yeast similar to what they used and add the dregs after primary (like Coff mentioned).

Have fun.