My first attempt at a "sour" was adding dregs from a Limonello-Bruery along with Blackberries and it turned out to be the best 1 gallon experiment that I've ever done. I added the dregs along with the blackberries into a gallon jug and waited 3 weeks. I understand if it aint broke don't fix it but wanted to know how you all added dregs with some good/bad/better experiences. I have two questions: 1) When adding dregs do you add along with the initial yeast? Or do you wait until primary is complete, move to secondary and then add? 2) Have you ever mixed dregs from two beers whether it be commercial or homebrew and added them to a batch? I'm brewing a saison 1.050 OG and plan on adding dregs from HF Dorothy and/or RR Sanctification.
One potentially negative consequence to adding dregs to the primary is the dregs may contain wine yeast that can kill the primary sacc. It will still make beer. Possibly very good beer. RR Sanctification is probably bottled with wine yeast. Not sure if it's a killer strain. When you use dregs, it helps to know exactly which microbes are used. This might influence your pitching strategy. There is nothing wrong with rolling the dice while pitching dregs randomly and taking whatever you get unless what you get smells like an elephant's arse. So the answer to pitching dregs in the primary vs secondary is "it depends on several variables".
No dregs. If you mean you use commercial dregs from production bottles that's fine, but you may or may not have enough to do the work needed. Go outside and collect wild flowers, and flowering weeds, the yeast will do something you might or not like. Jester King does this and trys various things, it works for them,why not you? Culture your own magic blend.
Not sure I want to introduce wild flowers or wild weeds to my brew due to the risk of infection... also I live in Illinois, wont see flowers for 5 months. Brew_Betty, both Dorothy and Sanctification use Brett so at least its the same strain, however it may be a subset of Brett. Either way I think let my Saison yeast do its thing and pitch dregs into the secondary to avoid Brett's rebellious nature and taking over the damn thing.
This is what Sanctification contains according to RR 50% Brett Brux. 10% Brett Claus. 10% Brett Lambicus 30% Russian River Brewing “Funky Bunch” house yeast culture- mix of Brett, Lacto, Pedio, & other wild yeast The RRBC house culture we call the “Funky Bunch” could be cultured from a bottle of Beatification. It might also contain wine yeast added at bottling time.
I've had good luck pitching dregs into primary with a healthy culture of brewer's yeast. Killer wine strains (like the one Russian River uses for bottle conditioning) shouldn't be grown up if you plan to pitch in primary, but in my experience won't be active enough to cause issues when pitched as dregs.
I've researched that fresher bottles are the best for dregs.. would this mean that the fresher the Sanctification bottle, the more active the wine strain would be, thus use an older bottle if possible?
Nope, still fresher the better. The brewer's yeast will ferment the simple sugars quickly, and the wine yeast won't be able to grow or produce it's kill factor.
What kinda bitch would put killer whine yeast in a beer they've spent months making pretty...I don't believe it...
I don't have much experience with adding dregs, but I have always done it in secondary, with the idea that the beer coming out of primary might be something I love as is, giving me the option of splitting the batch. Of course, as long as we are in the land of hypothetical, there may be some awesome beers that can only be achieved by adding those dregs to primary.
Killer wine strains are only an issue for "susceptible" Saccharomyces. There likely isn't much Sacch left in a 12 month old sour beer!
I've done it both ways if I know what is in the bottle. Usually I just pour them in post or towards the end of fermentation, but I will also pour them in along side (if I'm using Gueuze) at the beginning of fermentation. When I pour them in at the beginning acidity is created quicker then if its done post fermentation, which would make sense.
What are some of the dregs that you all have used to produce great/crappy beers? I've used Limonello from Bruery along with Crooked Stave's NOB Red Wine Barrel... Both with great success when added to secondary.
I co pitch with my clean strain. I did a saison with a 1 lt starter of Wyeast Belgian saison (3724?) and pitched that and dregs from La Roja, Surette, and Prairie Ale at the same time. Took a good 6-8 months to get good and soured and funked up, but it's drinking really nice right now.
I think Orval dregs are just plain awesome, makes everything taste better I used some Wicked Week Bretticent dregs to fix a boring IPA, turned into a much better beer. I have a couple of 3 gallon Better Bottles that have a bunch of dregs slowly working, but haven't had a chance to sample.
@OldSock and @Brew_Betty, this should probably still be considered anecdotal, but my favorite "house" yeast culture right now was built up from an old bottle of Sanctification (3 or 4 years). I took my time building it up through starters and have used it 3 times so far in the past year as the primary (only) yeast for fermentation. Results have been great, if a little different each time. I'm going to continue to let this evolve as long as I can. Currently drinking on a hoppy sour that is as good as any commercial version that I've had so far.
Sanctification is 100% Brett (no ale yeast in primary, no wine yeast for conditioning). As of 2010 anyway: https://store-54e42.mybigcommerce.com/bottle-logs
