TandemTails
Well-Known Member
I've been slowly getting my feet wet in regards to wild / sour brewing and would like to eventually start a solera project. So far I've done a tart cherry mead with wyeast lambic blend (8 months into aging), a blueberry mead with wyeast lambic blend (6 months into aging), a sour wort berliner weisse and a cider pitched with wild yeast, lacto and brett.
Based on all the researching I've done, it seems like the solera method goes like this:
1. You start with a base beer and pitch your culture into it (interval 1).
2. The next interval you rack that into a separate vessel and pitch new wort ontop of the original yeast/bacteria. The original beer continues aging.
3. At interval 3 you rack the 2nd generation beer to a new carboy and add fresh wort to the original carboy on the same original yeast/bacteria.
4. At interval 4 you bottle half of your original beer and then top it off with the 2nd generation, which in turn gets topped off with the 3rd generation. A 4th generation wort is brewed to top off the original carboy.
5. This cycle continues indefinitely or until the taste starts to stray.
Am I missing anything as far as the process goes? Is the "primary" fermenter the only one I need to worry about keeping innoculated with yeast/bacteria (adding bottle dregs, etc)? i was planning on using the larger 6.5 gallon carboy for "primary" so some of the original beer stays behind during interval 2 and 3 rackings and it lets me completely fill a 5 gallon carboy to eliminate headspace.
I'm still not sure what style I want to brew for the actual beer itself. I'm not sure if I should go with a more standard clean sour or if I should try brewing something darker. I'd plan on doing any fruit additions after racking from carboy 3 to a different fermenter before bottling.
Does everything look good so far? If so, I need to start figuring out what style I want and then get to obsess over recipes for a while
Based on all the researching I've done, it seems like the solera method goes like this:
1. You start with a base beer and pitch your culture into it (interval 1).
2. The next interval you rack that into a separate vessel and pitch new wort ontop of the original yeast/bacteria. The original beer continues aging.
3. At interval 3 you rack the 2nd generation beer to a new carboy and add fresh wort to the original carboy on the same original yeast/bacteria.
4. At interval 4 you bottle half of your original beer and then top it off with the 2nd generation, which in turn gets topped off with the 3rd generation. A 4th generation wort is brewed to top off the original carboy.
5. This cycle continues indefinitely or until the taste starts to stray.
Am I missing anything as far as the process goes? Is the "primary" fermenter the only one I need to worry about keeping innoculated with yeast/bacteria (adding bottle dregs, etc)? i was planning on using the larger 6.5 gallon carboy for "primary" so some of the original beer stays behind during interval 2 and 3 rackings and it lets me completely fill a 5 gallon carboy to eliminate headspace.
I'm still not sure what style I want to brew for the actual beer itself. I'm not sure if I should go with a more standard clean sour or if I should try brewing something darker. I'd plan on doing any fruit additions after racking from carboy 3 to a different fermenter before bottling.
Does everything look good so far? If so, I need to start figuring out what style I want and then get to obsess over recipes for a while