Pitching Cantillon Dregs

I do what's known as bug farming. Get a jar, throw in some boiled oak cubes and open it whenever you open a sour that you want to pitch the dregs into. I pitch the dregs in there and feed it some wort every now and then. So far I've put in RR and Cantillon dregs. RR, Cantillon and Lost Abbey are the only dregs I'd put in my bug farm. You can create different ones for specific breweries if you want. Another guy pours dregs into lab test tubes with screw caps and stores them for future use.

 

I harvested some dregs from a Cuvee des Champions by pouring them into a mason jar with sterile wort. Then the next day I poured them into the carboys I had brewed the day before. Normally I would probably wait until the primary Sac strain had finished fermenting or was close to it before adding the bugs. But in this case I wanted to try pitching them side by side.

And to answer your question, if you don't use another yeast strain you will probably be severely under pitching.

 

The sourness mostly takes time. Given enough time the bugs will create sourness.

 

Terrific results. One of my bug farms used dregs from 3 bottles of Red Poppy, and that was growed up and built in a yeast starter and put into a Flanders Red which scored in the high 30's (I want to say its 39 but could be 38.)

 

How long do you keep them before using your bug farm?

 

It's different every time. There is no schedule to follow, just your own.

 

Do you then only pitch the cubes into your wort you want to sour, or do you pitch the actual dregs from your jar? Do you pitch all of the dregs if the latter?

 

I was just curious if you use any sort of acid buffer.