The Mixed Fermentation Thread

[JFB]

There seems to a few of us making mixed fermentation beers and even more interested in starting out.
So I thought a general thread on the subject may work??
Would be great to hear what people are up to. Pass advice and encouragement on to each other. Photos I love photos especially of pallicles.. Maybe some bottle swaps? I've only had commercial sour beers other than my own homebrewed and would love to try other home brewed examples

 

[JFB]

Anyway it goes without saying the best time make a sour beer is right now!
So this evening ive been brewing a classic Saison and realised after sparging I had more wort than needed.
Something I've been wanting to try for a long time is spontaneous fermentation. With 5 litres of spare wort I added 4ibu's of 2.5aa styrian goldings. And now have the pan sat under my apple trees.

 

[Zephyr259]

Very brave, spontaneous always makes me nervous.

I have 3 on the go currently. Two batches got split, half bottled clean and half got bugs in a carboy. An old ale originally fermented with Voss kveik got Brett C and a pseudo-bock got the yeast bay's amalgamation brett blend along with various dregs which I'd built up.

Brewed a full batch of a golden sour based on The Rare Barrel's recipe, guy a week in primary with Roeselare and Opshaug Kveik and has not had about a month in a carboy to age. Some might be kept long term as a gueuze style project or I might use the carboy as a solera.

Looking forward to hearing (and some day tasting) what others have going.

 

[Sadfield]

Great thread.

Currently I have a heritage IPA (Chevallier malt) that's been aging on a bit of oak and Brettanomyces Claussenii for the last 11 months. Once bottled, I'll use the oak chunks in a heritage Porter to carry the Brett over.

I also have an evolving Solera project that has had its third addition recently. The original beer that went into it was fermenter with the WLP670 American Farmhouse blend, reputedly from Lost Abbey. I've since added dregs from Boon Gueuze and some yeast harvested from a spontaneous fermentation. I'm blogging this on our homebrew club website, if you're interested. https://macchomebrew.club/solera-project-part-1-the-setup/

I also intend to do more hoppy kettle sours using Lactobacillus Plantarum probiotics.

Another plan in the list is to make some beer vinegar using a vinegar mother, which I'll use to add Acetic sour notes by back blending in Flemish style beers.

 

[Ajhutch]

Really excited to follow this thread.

I’ve got two on the go, and both are made from extract, dating back to last year when I wanted to get them going but didn’t have a lot of time for a full brew day.

1: pale sour on the go which was pale DME with 15% maltodextrin, fermented with WLP655 (the ‘lambic’ blend). This is going very nicely after about 9 months, it got sour quickly but over time the Brett has asserted itself more. It’s currently in an 11 litre Better Bottle, planning to fruit/bottle some this year and a gallon glass DJ for a multi year blending project.

2: red sour from pale and amber DME with steeped Special B malt and 10% lactose. Fermented with a dry Belgian yeast, WLP653 Brett Lambicus and WLP672 Lacto Brevis. I’m a little disappointed in it, it’s lacking a bit of complexity but it is only 6 months or so old. Again some is in an 11 litre Better Bottle and there’s a DJ which is 20% red grape juice.

Edit to add: both of these spent the winter wrapped in blankets in my shed. This is 100% to replicate the traditions of farmhouse brewing without temperature control and 0% to do with the fact my wife banned that many FVs around the house!

 

[Sadfield]

Fermented with a dry Belgian yeast, WLP653 Brett Lambicus and WLP672 Lacto Brevis. I’m a little disappointed in it, it’s lacking a bit of complexity.

Partly the reason for my beer vinegar plans. I age in corny kegs, so I don't get the oxygen contact that a proper barrel aged beer would, and hence no acetobacter action. I'm hopping a small, controlled addition of acetobacter soured beer will add some complexity to lacto soured beers. I've a friend who has a 20L wooden cask, and it's a bit hit and miss whether acetobacter takes over, as the volume to surface area is all wrong.

 

[IainM]

Agreed, this is a great thread. I'm still learning the ropes, but so far I've done:

(1) A Lambic-style beer with 70% pilsner and 30% wheat, no hops, and Imperial Sour Batch Kidz. I split it into 4 1 gallon batches, one I'm drinking young, one is being aged for blending later, one went onto a big can of mango pulp and another went on a kilo of cherries. They are all tart. The young one is this side of good, the fruit ones are a bit too much, in fact I don't think I've ever had a sour as sour as these, and I've tried 'em all! I think I'll save them for blending with something sweeter, perhaps a brown ale to make something along the lines of Petrus aged red. I explain the extreme sourness by (1) It spent 4 months in a plastic fv and probably had a bit too much oxygen, (2) I mashed high so the sacch left loads of fermentables behind for the brett and lacto, (3) no hops, (4) pitching mixed right at the start to give the lacto a head start.

(2) I have a 33 month old triple and a 32 month old dubble that fermented a bit hot and are fusally. After reading a thread on homebrew talk that suggested that brett can metabolise fusal alcohols in the presence of oxygen, I decided to take a gallon of each, oxygenate the hell out of them, and age them on the yeast/bacteria cake from the lambic above. 6 months down the line, it has worked to a limited extent. The aged version tasted much better than the old one, but still give me a headache from hell the next morning.

(3) I've got two 11L glass carboys of Flander's Red ageing under the stairs. I direct pitched the Roeselare blend, and learnt my lessons from (1). I let the sacch do most it's work then racked to glass for aging. I'll leave one carboy for 18 months, at least, and might taste the other at around 12 months to see how it's going. Although not traditions, lots of people but unmalted wheat to give the non-sacch stuff a boost. I went a different route and added a bit of kamut, the taste of which I think will work very well in this style.

I have also done mixed fermentation chilli sauces with beer-brewing blends and wild bacterial from the garden and have just started playing about with krauts and kimchi. Last year I bought the agar, inoculation loops etc... to start harvesting, isolating, banking and propagating yeasts and bacteria, either commercial or wild. So far I'm just banking single sacch strains but I hope to have a bit of time to play around with more exotic stuff in the summer, mostly for beer but also for food.

 

[strange-steve]

I also intend to do more hoppy kettle sours using Lactobacillus Plantarum probiotics

How many capsules do you use to kettle sour a batch? Planning another weisse but I've never used these before.

 

[stz]

I'm probably going to brew my (don't know what to call it?) this weekend. I've had a few beers titled beer de garde or beer de saison from the kernel. People were like try this saison you'll like it to which I've had to say dude that isn't a saison because they have surprised me by being pretty tangy and farm house. They got back to say that they call all their beer de saison and beer de garde is fermented with a mixed culture then goes off to old wine barrels to let time and additional microbes to do the work. I would suspect that it is a primary sacc ferment without any intentional lactic activity followed by barrel ageing, probably with a mixed culture including brett, lactic and pedio.

I'm planning an SG of 1.052 or so. No boil hops. Probably only bring it to the boil. 23% rye, 23% spelt, 9% acid malt, rest pilsner. Pre acidify to 4.5 with lactic acid. Mash at 67-68C.

I don't really want to get into barrels yet (though I'd love to) and I don't want to drag out the mangroves jacks or belle saison just because I've saison in my head, but I got a strong saison vibe from the kviek I did recently (peppery, spicy, earthy) which I think I'll use for primary fermentation at 42C. This is an ideal temperature for quick souring so I'll likely pitch a delbrueckii and acidophilus culture first, the kviek a day later and then maybe day 3 depending on pH a healthy hop tea (<20IBU's) and maybe a little dry hop which I'm hoping will halt the lab. I'm preparing a brett anomalus pitch as well which as the kviek winds down and it begins to cool itself with the heating off I'll add. My last kviek SG 1.042 mashed at 68C got down to 1.009 which I think will be plenty for the brett to get stuck into, but failing that might feed some maltodextrine?

I don't want to tie up my fermentation chamber for months with the brett so I'll probably move the fermenters to somewhere like my airing cupboard or maybe I'll keg it. Try one young, forget the other one.

 

[Sadfield]

How many capsules do you use to kettle sour a batch? Planning another weisse but I've never used these before.

I used 3 capsules in 16.7L of wort, that a pre-boiled, but didn't pre-acidify. It dropped from pH5.6 to 3.2 in 37 hours at 35C. I held it at this temperature in a corny keg, using my brew fridge. I then continued as if I was doing a west coast pale, except to 20 IBU, using Hallertau Blanc, and fermented with MJ Liberty Ale. I plan to do the same and just swap the hops each time (Galaxy, Amarillo, Citra).

 

[strange-steve]

I used 3 capsules in 16.7L of wort, that a pre-boiled, but didn't pre-acidify. It dropped from pH5.6 to 3.2 in 37 hours at 35C. I held it at this temperature in a corny keg, using my brew fridge. I then continued as if I was doing a west coast pale, except to 20 IBU, using Hallertau Blanc, and fermented with MJ Liberty Ale. I plan to do the same and just swap the hops each time (Galaxy, Amarillo, Citra).

OK thanks, so I'll go for maybe 5 capsules in 25L then.
I'm planning a lemon weisse, with lemon zest in the fermenter and a lemondrop dry hop.

 

[stz]

What probiotics are you using? I started out trying those quest plantarum capsules. I bought 90 and tried to get two brews out of them. They worked, but very slowly as I suspected that they contain nowhere near the advertised number of viable cells. Say you want 10^7 cells per ml. They said they were 2*10^9 per capsule which would be 1 capsule per 200ml assuming they are ALL viable, (unlikely!) I just wasn't using enough cells. The swanson ones which everybody reports success using are 10^10 per which is much better, 1 capsule per litre though most make a starter. They are cheaper and easier to get than back when I was looking for alternative bacteria sources. After that I went through a period of grain souring. It works really well, but you need good temperature control. Success is increased by co2 purging and pre-acidification. You do not want to leave it any longer than necessary or drop into temperatures which favour yeast. These days I tend to brew based on what I've got on hand, but also very fond of using fage 0% yoghurt? Cheap and does the job.

 

[JFB]

Great content. So good to know about all these crazy beers being lovingly brewed under stairs, backs of sheds and any where else they can be shoved without getting in to much trouble

Would like to know how you all go about inoculating your brett beers?
My first brews with bretts were a saison with brett lambicus then my blackberry funky rye with brett brux. I bought whitelabs for these .
Then I made "Dubbel jaggery the brett edition" I just added some dregs from the first two beers. Now this beer turned out quite gross! I think the brett and 500g of jaggery really clashed. It dose actually seemed to of chilled out now become quite good. (luckily as I sent @Zephyr259 a bottle)
Next is this seasons "blackberry funky rye". This year I added a saison yeast as primary(instead of last years Notty) then dregs from all the above beers plus dregs from my Flanders red.
The first sample had a horrible thick texture to the liquid. This seems to of passed now and the last sample seemed quite good. Its over 3 months old now so was going to sit on my hands for a few more weeks sample and hopefully bottle.
Definitely seemed to of created my own personal blend now..

 

[Sadfield]

The Swansons ones.

 

[Zephyr259]

The first sample had a horrible thick texture to the liquid. This seems to of passed now and the last sample seemed quite good./QUOTE]
The clean half of my bock got a pedio infection and it's gone ropy in the bottle. First noticed about 5 weeks ago so it might be clearing up soon hopefully. Be interesting to see what happens to it.

 

[F00b4r]

If you are using probiotic capsules then stir them at fridge temperatures or their cell count will drop rapidly.

 

[strange-steve]

What probiotics are you using?

I've ordered some of the Swansons capsules.
I've also tried the grain souring technique with really good results.
I have a load of bottles of lambic so I might add some dregs to give it a kick start.

 

[strange-steve]

stir them at fridge temperatures

I spent 10 mins trying to figure out what you meant by that, then realised you meant store them at fridge temperatures

 

[Ajhutch]

Great blog @Sadfield and how amazing that you have a wonderful Saison yeast wild in the air of Macclesfield!

 

[Leon103]

Would really like to brew something sour but already confused and don't know where to start. I have won the geterbrewed comp for free imperial yeast so was thinking sour batch kids yeast.