Harvesting yeast from sours that are still aging

[TheZymurgist]

I have two sours that are both less than 5 months old, so they still have a long while to age. I'd like to harvest some of the yeast from both, while still leaving them on the trub. My thought is to stick my auto-siphon all the way to the bottom of the carboy they're sitting in, and rack a small amount into a new carboy I'll be using for another batch. I plan on adding a small amount of sacch to the new batch to supplement as well. Does anyone have a better idea or see any issues with this?

 

[solbes]

I did this same thing once. I never grabbed any of the stuff at the bottom, just used my sample thief to grab 6 oz or so of the young sour. Certainly provided enough to do its thing in the receiving vessel.

You are only trying to get the Brett, Lacto, Pedio, etc right? If you are going to pitch fresh sacch yeast then I would think all you need could be supplied by getting some of the young sour in there.

 

[TheZymurgist]

I did this same thing once. I never grabbed any of the stuff at the bottom, just used my sample thief to grab 6 oz or so of the young sour. Certainly provided enough to do its thing in the receiving vessel.

You are only trying to get the Brett, Lacto, Pedio, etc right? If you are going to pitch fresh sacch yeast then I would think all you need could be supplied by getting some of the young sour in there.

Just trying to get anything that's still viable in there, including sacch if possible. The only thought in supplementing with new sacch is to ensure good fermentation.

My thought is if I rack towards the top of the trub, I'll get some of the aging beer along with some possibly viable bugs and yeast from the bottom.

 

[chefchris]

That's what I would do. I've inoculated another beer with just young sour beer but it was from 5 gallons into a 1 gallon batch. Throw some belgian yeast in there if you want more sach. Brett will turn those esters into da funk.

 

[TheZymurgist]

That's what I would do. I've inoculated another beer with just young sour beer but it was from 5 gallons into a 1 gallon batch. Throw some belgian yeast in there if you want more sach. Brett will turn those esters into da funk.

Excellent. This is going to be for my 20 gallon portion of a three person, 60 gallon barrel Flanders Red solera. The others are using Bug County, so I thought I'd add some diversity by doing 10 gallons with repitched Roeselare, and 10 gallons repitched Melange (The Yeast Bay.)

Since these batches are 10 gallons each, I'll probably end up pulling almost half the trub from both.

 

[MileHighBrewer]

There is going to be a decent amount of bugs in suspension, they don't always flocc out like sacch.

Here is an idea....but be cautioned this will likely make you current beers kick off again, a bit, and make them even more sour. Make your two 10 gal batches, but retain 1 gal from each. Remove 1 gal from each current sour, pulling up some trub with the beer. Add this along with fresh sacch to your new batches. Now take those 1 gal fresh worts, add them to your old sours to top them back off. A solera, of sorts. But again, remember that this may kick off refermentation, and will be feeding the old bugs fresh food, creating more funk and more sour. If these were 5 gal i would go with 1/4-1/2 gal, but in this case a full gallon should do the trick

 

[TheZymurgist]

There is going to be a decent amount of bugs in suspension, they don't always flocc out like sacch.

Here is an idea....but be cautioned this will likely make you current beers kick off again, a bit, and make them even more sour. Make your two 10 gal batches, but retain 1 gal from each. Remove 1 gal from each current sour, pulling up some trub with the beer. Add this along with fresh sacch to your new batches. Now take those 1 gal fresh worts, add them to your old sours to top them back off. A solera, of sorts. But again, remember that this may kick off refermentation, and will be feeding the old bugs fresh food, creating more funk and more sour. If these were 5 gal i would go with 1/4-1/2 gal, but in this case a full gallon should do the trick

That's an excellent idea!! I've been a little disapointed in the level of complexity in both of these so far. I know they're young, but they're still only very mildly tart and have more of a saison-esque funkiness, rather than funk I would expect from Brett. I think that's what I'll do. Thanks!