Wow! I guess bottle dregs really do work

[worlddivides]

If you'll remember, I posted a thread asking when was the best time to first sample my sour beer. Most said something like 3 months. I was at about 1.5 months at the time, but a lot of people recommended adding bottle dregs, so I took a sample around that time and added the bottle dregs from 3 all-brett fermented sours (by local breweries: Almanac and Modern Times). The sample I took at the time had gone down to 1.006, but was just "tart" and not too "sour." A couple days later I added the bottle dregs from 2 unfiltered unpasteurized oude gueuze/oud bruin sour beers and one more all-brett beer.

Fast-forward to today, just about a month later, and I took another sample. The gravity only dropped from 1.006 to 1.005, but the flavor changed drastically. It's already way more tart than most all-brett commercial sours with mostly lactic acid and very little noticeable acetic acid (which is interesting, considering the ABV is currently at 7.8%). Also, the grape character I've been going for (with the red wine-soaked oak cubes and nearly a pound of golden raisins) is now noticeable and very pleasant (although it wasn't noticeable at all a month ago). It has a very "round" tartness and smooth sourness, very much unlike how it tasted about a month ago.

I had heard that most commercial sour blends by White Labs, Wyeast, and so on weren't that fast or strong, so I have to imagine this is more due to the bottle dregs.

But the beer already tastes awesome and just as sour/tart and good as a lot of commercial beers I've had. I plan to let it age in the fermenter for another 3 months before bottling and I'm interested to see how far down the gravity can go and just how sour the flavor will get.

Even though I've read American Sour Beers, I hadn't planned on adding bottle dregs until you guys recommended it. Thanks!

 

[sweetcell]

bottle dregs from 3 all-brett fermented sours (by local breweries: Almanac and Modern Times). The sample I took at the time had gone down to 1.006, but was just "tart" and not too "sour."

when you say "3 all-brett fermented sours", do you mean brett-only beer? if so, they shouldn't be sour since brett on its own rarely creates sourness. i would call them wild beers, not sours... but that's me getting caught up on labels, sorry. but if they are brett-only beers, you shouldn't have gotten any real sourness.

very little noticeable acetic acid (which is interesting, considering the ABV is currently at 7.8%).

ABV and acetic acid aren't related, as far as i know... were you expecting acetic in the beer? if so, why?

Also, the grape character I've been going for (with the red wine-soaked oak cubes and nearly a pound of golden raisins) is now noticeable and very pleasant (although it wasn't noticeable at all a month ago).

grapes and wine are quite acidic. the bug's acidity likely created the conditions for those grape and wine flavors to come out.

I plan to let it age in the fermenter for another 3 months before bottling and I'm interested to see how far down the gravity can go and just how sour the flavor will get.

6 months total is usually cited as the minimum time you want to age a sour before bottling it, with 9-12 being better and safer. you wanna give the bugs all the time they need to ferment out all the sugars, otherwise they could do so in the bottle and create over-carbonation or bottle bombs. the prime ingredient in sours is patience.

 

[worlddivides]

when you say "3 all-brett fermented sours", do you mean brett-only beer? if so, they shouldn't be sour since brett on its own rarely creates sourness. i would call them wild beers, not sours... but that's me getting caught up on labels, sorry. but if they are brett-only beers, you shouldn't have gotten any real sourness.

I hear a lot of people saying that all-brett beers aren't sour, but something like 90% of the commercial all-brett beers I've had have been pretty sour to my personal palate (sure, "tart" is a more accurate term, but I see "tart" as just one kind of "sour" among many). The other 10% that I've had, of course, weren't sour (or "tart") in any way.

Or perhaps the beers I had weren't really "all-brett beers." One of them was Saison de Brettaville by Almanac, which is very tart and has a very pleasant round sourness to it. I assumed it was all-brett because of the name and because it never mentioned using anything other than Brett (12 different strains).

But, while the first bottle dregs were all-brett, in the second addition I also added bottle dregs from beers with mixed fermentations such as The Bruery's Rueuze, so the lactic acid production could be coming from the Lactobacillus in there (if it's more alcohol-tolerant and more aggressive).

ABV and acetic acid aren't related, as far as i know... were you expecting acetic in the beer? if so, why?

Acetic acid isn't, but I've heard that lactic acid is, since Lactobacillus is apparently very sensitive to alcohol (most sources saying that most strains of Lacto can't ferment above 3%, 4%, or 5% ABV, and I didn't add the Lacto to my beer until it was already close to 7% ABV).

I wasn't expecting any acetic acid since there had been little to no exposure to oxygen, but I wasn't expecting much lactic acid since I had been told it was unlikely that Lactobacillus would be able to produce lactic acid (much or even any) at an ABV close to 8%.

So, my point in that sentence wasn't that I was surprised that there was no acetic acid (I wasn't), but that I was surprised there was so much lactic acid (when most Lacto supposedly has trouble at high alcohol levels and because Pedio tends to take such a long time to develop lactic acid).

grapes and wine are quite acidic. the bug's acidity likely created the conditions for those grape and wine flavors to come out.

I think it's a combination of the time required for the ethanol to absorb the flavors from the raisins and oak cubes (with wine in them) and also what you said with the bugs creating the conditions for the flavors to be more noticeable.

6 months total is usually cited as the minimum time you want to age a sour before bottling it, with 9-12 being better and safer. you wanna give the bugs all the time they need to ferment out all the sugars, otherwise they could do so in the bottle and create over-carbonation or bottle bombs. the prime ingredient in sours is patience.

Granted, if at six months the gravity still isn't stable, I'll have to wait to bottle it. I'm certainly not going to bottle a beer if it's not ready, but the beer has been souring much faster than I thought.

 

[worlddivides]

Something is definitely souring the beer quicker than I had heard was typical for commerical strains. I just did my next gravity sample and tasting (with the last one in June) and, while, just like last time, it has only gone down 1 gravity point (from 1.005 last time to 1.004 this time), it has gone from being "pretty tart with some distinct sourness" to "puckeringly sour." Yes, it actually made me pucker my nose. While it still seems to be almost entirely lactic acid with very little acetic acid, it did kind of remind me of the vinegar-like quality of some lambics, Flanders Red Ales, Oud Bruins, and so on. Still no pellicle, though, and the only times oxygen has been given a chance to get in the small amount of head space (which has admittedly increased from taking a sample) was about 30 seconds this time and 30 seconds last month.

Since, other than bottle dregs, I used White Labs Belgian Sour Mix (WLP655), my guess is that the bottle dregs might be what's speeding this up. But this is only my second sour, so it's just an interesting experience for me. Maybe White Labs Belgian Sour Mix DOES work that fast. It's the first time I've ever used it.