I’ve been aging something in the Flanders Red/Brown neighborhood on oak for a year and it is funky but not sour at all. Started off with Roselare and then dumped some brett in at about the month mark. All bugs still in the fermenter.
I want to really punch up the sour and hope to not wait another year. Any advice? I have a fresh tube of lacto. Start that and dump?
I’m sitting at the eight months mark or so for my Flanders. At six months I wasn’t getting much sourness so I did a little reading and a lot of people say the first generation Roselare doesn’t really do it for them so they supplement with some bottle dregs so I dumped in the yeast sediment from a couple bottles of La Roja to kick it up a notch.
[quote=“spykeratchet”]I want to really punch up the sour and hope to not wait another year. Any advice? I have a fresh tube of lacto. Start that and dump?[/quote]Not sure there would be much left for the lacto to eat at this point. Best bet might be to make a really sour 1-2 gallon batch (keep it nice and warm) and then blend.
+1 Adding la roja dregs and waiting a few more months made a signifigant difference in a sour red I have that wasnt progressing as I thought it should
Some funk comes from lacto and brett, but the real sour comes from acetobacter. This is the vinegar type sour that is found in Rodenbach. My best results have come from letting the beer age in the presence of some oxygen. I have put plastic wrap over the top of a carboy in secondary fermentation. It was sour in a few months. I have also kegged a beer and left the pressure release valve open for a few months.
In my opinion a Brett beer is funky or wild, but not sour. You need to get some acetobacter in there. Drink a low hopped home brew, and let the bottle sit on the counter for a few days. If you smell vinegar, you got acetobacter. If it smells bad, toss the bottle and start again. You don’t want mold.
So… I’m doing something very similar to the OP’s beer.
If I want to reuse the Roseleare/Brett “yeast cake” from the first beer… should I just pitch fresh wort right on top of the cake after it’s been sitting a year in order to get the “second generation” or is there a different process when dealing with sours as far as reusing the yeast?
Brew new sour wort and start fermentation with new yeast and then re-pitch some of the original yeast cake for second generation benefits?
Thanks
