Using bottle dregs

Good point, I didnt think about their yeast being in there. Hopefully it didnt create much junk for the beer to sit on during this period in the barrel.

So the cold from the fridge wont cause the bugs in the dregs to die off?

How long do you think I could store them like that?

Do you think I should pitch some wort in there?

 

Cold isn't great for Brett, but a few weeks won't hurt. I do think some wort is a good idea. No idea on a max time, directly into the beer is best, the longer you wait the more risk there is that you won't have a wide variety of microbes left.

 

I know many of you are much more scientific than I tend to be, but I'll put my experience with dregs here also.

I did a wheat beer base, added berlinerweiss blend from whitelabs, and racked to secondary after about 2 weeks. I let it sit in my secondary for a couple months before taking a sample. It was almost unnoticeably sour, and not at all what I wanted. At this point I decided to experiment and add the dregs for everything I could get my hands on and hopefully impart some acidic character. Over the course of several months, I added around 15 different dregs to the carboy. Each addition was only about 10-20ml of fluid. Off the top of my head, there was some cantillon, upland, RR, almanac, cascade, mikkeller, 3F, tilquin, lost abbey and bruery bugs in this batch. All bottles were added to the carboy within 6 hours or less of being opened, and sealed with shrink wrap to limit any outside contamination. I tasted a sample every couple months, and after about 9-10 months after the original brew day, it was quite sour and tasty. Bottled it up, let the bottles sit another month, and these things are drinking very nice now.

Some things I'm changing next time I use dregs...
I will do a different base beer. The flavor is great, but it is definitely a bit light bodied for my taste due to base beer being a low alcohol berlinerweiss. Also I am planning to split the batch into 1 gallon carboys, and only add one beer's dregs to each carboy, so I can identify which breweries/beers are worth using. The one thing I still haven't decided on is whether to use an ale yeast to start, or only rely on dregs to get fermentation started. (I'm thinking in a 1 gallon carboy it could start up in a reasonable amount of time).

Really what I learned is that it just takes time for the acid to build. There was periods where the beer was awful, but eventually things balanced out and the flavor pulled through. That was much more than I was planning on typing, sorry for being so long winded guys.

 

I'm about to start a new sour by pitching the dregs from a bunch of Allagash sours we're opening at a tasting next week. Since Allagash bottles with wine yeast, I'm assuming it's not a great idea to pitch just the dregs, and that I ought to pitch a regular sacch strain too. Does anyone have recommendations for which sacch strains work best with brett and bugs? I'm assuming a lower attenuating strain will leave more food for the bugs to eat and so give a more funky/sour beer (which I want), are there other characteristics I should like for in a sacch strain to pitch for a sour? I'm not brewing to any particular style and then souring, I'm brewing a pretty simple golden sour base (probably pils/malted wheat/unmalted wheat) and just hoping for as sour/funky a beer as I can get.

 

Oh, also, follow up question from the earlier posts on leaving sours in primary for longer: does it make sense to just use one fermentation vessel and never transfer off of it, or is there a certain period of time you'd usually leave the beer on the original yeast cake, or what? Wondering if I should start the beer in a fermenting bucket and then transfer to a carboy for the long haul or just put it in a carboy to start with and leave it there...

 

Don't use that bucket for clean beers after you put a sour in it... Old stock mentioned leaving it on the yeast cake longer will give more funkiness. I don't think it's good to keep it on there for 6 months or a year though...

 

I'm still pretty much a noob, but from what I've read you don't have the same problems with autolysis (sp?) that you get with normal fermentation. The brett can metabolize the off flavors that normally occur with longer time spent on primary. I haven't tested this myself, as my sour was racked to secondary after a month and had good results. If you're doing the 1 gallon carboys, maybe try one left on the yeast, and another moved to secondary, and see what the difference in flavor is. I will do more experimentation with the next batch and try to report back, even though it will be several months before I can compare results. Pro tip: my gallon carboys are 4L carlo rossi jugs. Works great, its about the same price as buying the glass by itself, and keeps a few of the women in my life nicely sauced. lol.

As for a yeast strain...Again, no experience here, but this is what I would do.
For a sacch strain, I'd tend to go with either a belgian or german yeast. Something that puts off esters. My reasoning is that the belgian geueze and german berlinerweiss are my favorite styles, and why mess with success.

Also, from an earlier post, "Brett can make esters on its own, that is true, but there are a wide variety of esters that it can’t make without the addition of acids from another source. Lactic acid for example becomes ethyl lactate, a signature fruity aroma in sour beers not present in a Sacch/Brett only beer. Some of the fatty acids released by dying Sacch form really fun esters (ethyl caproate etc.), not present if you separate beer from yeast. The phenolic compounds responsible for “funk” Brett can make some on their own, but a phenolic primary yeast will boost the character (which is partly why 100% Brett beers tend to be less funky)." -Oldsock

You might have luck using only dregs, but personally I would do one gallon with sacch and dregs pitched at the same time, one gallon with sacch pitched first, then dregs added after most of the fermentation has been done, and one with only dregs. No clue how that wine yeast will affect the beer, but might be worth sacrificing a gallon of wort to find out. Worst case scenario you lose a little wort and gain some knowledge. I'm planning to do much experimentation in the coming months, so I'll keep posting anything that I learn. Hope I helped.

 

I realize it's anecdotal, but I have a sour in bottles that was kept in the same vessel for 13 months without issues. I have a lambic going that has been in the same vessel for more than 11 months with no issues, as well.

 

If you like an acetic character to your flanders a bucket is a great place for top off fluid for a barrel to increase the acetic character of the barrel aged beer. My barrel beer had no acetic character, but the bucket had a lot due to the O2 permeability of the bucket, and helped round out the barrel aged beer. But barring that, buckets aren't a good idea for long term sour storage.

 

It was a three gallon batch using leftover ingredients and i added the dregs on a whim. If i were to do it again i would definitely do a starter, as i got little to no results just from one bottles dregs.

 

We just brewed a saison & saved about a quart of the wort, which we put into a 2L growler & pitched the following dregs:
Sour In The Rye, Tart of Darkness, Supplication, Hanssens Oude Gueuze, Cuvee de Ranke, Trois Dames Oud Bruin, & our own homebrewed wild sour. Thinking about adding some dregs from a La Folie, but it's already bubbling pretty good, so that might be a bit much. Exited to see how this will turn out!

 

Unless that's an old C&C la folie, don't botter. It's now pasteurized.

 

Lambics are traditionally aged in the "primary" barrel until they are ready for blending or fruiting, as long as four years in some cases.

 

Is that because the brett or various bugs take care of the off flavors you usually get off sitting on a yeast cake for an extended period of time? What do you think the benefit is to leaving it there for so long rather than transferring it off?

 

As Saccharomyces dies the cell ruptures, releasing sugars and fatty acids that the Brett uses to help it grow and to create new flavor compounds. It is part of the reason that lambic/gueuze has a "different" character than other sour beers. Just another tool for the sour beer toolbox. I rack most of my sours out of primary after a few weeks, but haven’t had an issue with up to 18 months in primary for my lambic-inspired beers.