A year ago I grew a yeast starter from Beatification dregs and brewed a sour blonde with it. It turned out amazing and I'm about to bottle it up. I was planning on brewing this beer again with yeast from the current Beatification batch, but am wondering about also mixing in some of the 'cake' that is at the bottom of the carboy that has been souring for the last year. I racked the beer from primary to get it off the main cake, but it's created a nice layer of sediment over the last year since. What are your thoughts? Should I just dump the carboy after I bottle, or would it be OK to use some of the remaining slurry in the next batch?
You could reuse it if you wanted to. Odds are most of the sacch. is not super viable after all this time, so you may want to ferment whatever you're racking onto the cake out first with something.
Thanks for the responses! I'll go ahead and ferment it out with a starter grown from the dregs, then add some slurry of the current batch. Sock: I'm really enjoying the book so far, thanks for writing it!
You don't actually have to wait. You can pitch some of the slurry along with the starter. No issue with that. Might serve you a little better as the slurry is probably quite beat up at this point and putting it into nutrient rich wort you will get better growth than an already alcoholic, low pH, low simple sugar environment. @OldSock pitches his dregs (essentially what you are doing, just much larger slurry) at primary even when using commercial mixes.
Me too, and over time my sour beers have often gotten more sour in a good way. I've often brewed a new batch and pitched it directly onto the old cake (or half of the old cake), with no extra yeast or bugs.
When you repitch onto the old cake, is this the cake left over from primary fermentation, or the cake that formed during secondary? Thanks!
