To starter/activate yeast and bugs or not?

[FatsSchindee]

I'm brewing my first lambic tomorrow, and am planning on pitching both WLP001 and 655 (Belgian Sour Mix 1 - the number is off top of my head, could be wrong) at the same time for primary fermentation, along with dregs from a bottle of Monks Cafe Flemish Red.

The 001 is harvested from January (3rd gen), and has been in the fridge since then. I also bought the vial of 655 in Jan (I originally was going to brew this then; plans changed!), and it was probably a month or two old already then, so 3-4 months old now (I'm not at home to double check vial date).

I've heard you don't want to do starters with mixed cultures, as a general rule, because the microbes grow at different rates. But given the age of both these, should I at least just toss them into some starter wort tonight (not the same volume I'd do for a normal growth starter, but just enough to "wake them up"), and let it go overnight on a stir plate (~12ish hrs)?

Or should I just pitch as is (using enough of the 001 slurry for the 5 gal batch to compensate for the reduced viability - per a yeast calc)?

I've heard since its a long ferment with the microbes an under pitch wouldn't be as big of a deal as with a clean beer, and that over time the littler amounts will grow up anyway in the wort, with maybe more sour and funk than otherwise?

Thanks for any ideas/info... Cheers!

 

[TNGabe]

First, not trying to be a buzzkill, but using 001, 655, and Monk's dregs isn't going to make a beer that's even vaguely lambic-like. You're working with a very different blend of microbes than what is found in lambic.

The White Labs brett, bacteria, and blends all have a very, very low cell count and in my opinion aren't nearly as robust as other strains. Very active microbes, like you would find in some bottle dregs are fine underpitched, but if it was me, I would make a starter because of the low cell count and nature of the strains you're working with. It needs to be 100ml first and then stepped up twice until you get to 1L with at least one week per step, which obviously doesn't jive with your plan to brew tomorrow.

 

[botigol]

I've read (no experience) that the way to handle the lambic and West Flanders strains from White Labs and Wyeast is to pitch without a starter and add maltodextrin to your grist. I don't recall if it was supposed to be 1/2lb or 1lb. This will give the bugs a food source that will be available after saccharomyces is finished and right about when the microbes really start working. Unless the WLP655 (665?) is expired, it seems like this could still be good advice.

 

[FatsSchindee]

No worries on being a buzzkill - I appreciate any info/opinions and am new to sour brewing and am open minded about the whole thing.

From what I've been reading, don't most lambics have a combination of sacc, brett, pedio and lacto (which is what is in the 655)?
My partial mash grain bill is about 65% barley (Belgian pale and light DME) and 35% wheat (white, flaked, and DME), which seems similar to a lot of lambics. I'm going to mash high (158) to leave some higher chain sugars for the bugs (and am contemplating adding some flour or maltodextrin... Needed?). Should make an SRM of about 4.5, so not as dark as a Flanders red or oud bruin.

I based my recipe initially off of Chris Colby's on beer and wine journal:
http://beerandwinejournal.com/basic-lambic/#more-2734

He recommends pitching a neutral yeast first (001), and then the bug mix (655). But I just finished reading Old Sock's American Sour Beers, and he recommends pitching the neutral sacc along with the mix, so I'm opting to do that instead. He also says to add dregs for complexity, so that was my plan as well. I do agree, though, that a Flanders red probably isn't the best choice for a lambic. I went to a local bottle shop, along with Mike's list of good bottles from which to harvest dregs:
http://www.themadfermentationist.com/p/dreg-list.html

They didn't have any lambics or gueuzes, so I found the Monk's Cafe Flemish Sour Red Ale, and also grabbed Jolly Pumpkin's Saison X. After reading another thread on here that many people said JP dregs tend to take over a beer, I opted to save that for something else. But I guess I'll save the monks also...

And, I did just realize once I got home that I still have my fermentation chamber set to lagering temps for another week, so I won't be brewing tomorrow anyway! So I'll have time to track down a good commercial lambic (hopefully), and to step up the yeast and bugs (I checked the vial of 655, and it says best by 5/23/15. I know the regular white labs yeast was made 4 months before the best by date, but can't find info about the bacteria. I bought it in mid January, so I'm thinking 6 months?).
I'm planning on primary in the ferm chamber for a month (in plastic bucket to let in some O2), then racking to BB carboy to leave at room temp (mid 70s here) for about a year (to taste).

Anyway... Thanks for the feedback! Any other comments on this, or the rest of my process?

 

[FatsSchindee]

I've read (no experience) that the way to handle the lambic and West Flanders strains from White Labs and Wyeast is to pitch without a starter and add maltodextrin to your grist. I don't recall if it was supposed to be 1/2lb or 1lb. This will give the bugs a food source that will be available after saccharomyces is finished and right about when the microbes really start working. Unless the WLP655 (665?) is expired, it seems like this could still be good advice.

Thanks... That's what I had read as well (but I've read the opposite as well, which is why I'm asking. This is one of those styles that seems like there are "more than one way to skin a cat"... As Chris Colby starts his post about his lambic recipe - linked above - "If you ask 10 sour beer brewers how to brew a sour beer, you’ll get 11 answers. Here is mine...").

Like I just said above, it expires 5/23, so I've still got about 2.5 months. And for my 001 in the fridge, I could just pitch more slurry to make up for the reduced viability. I am lazy, so if starters for either aren't needed for either, cool. But, on that note, I also don't want to skimp on a relatively easy step on a beer that I'll be investing so much time in... so I'll step them up if needed. Just looking to get some HBT opinions from those that have done something similar! Thanks, everyone...

 

[TNGabe]

From what I've been reading, don't most lambics have a combination of sacc, brett, pedio and lacto (which is what is in the 655)?

http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/317.html?utm_source=feedly&utm_reader=feedly&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=rss

 

[FatsSchindee]

http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/317...reader=feedly&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=rss

Maybe not, then! Interesting article. Yeah, I'm definitely not doing the whole spontaneous fermentation thing (and am not in Belgium, if I did do it), so maybe I should defer to the style/appellation police and call it a pLambic or an American Lambic or just American Sour. But all the research I've been doing looking into process and recipe have been for Lambic, so that's the info I've been using... I can't be that far off, am I? (Again, making the change to actual lambic/gueuze dregs to pitch, and not the red or JP)

What combo of yeast/bugs do you use for your Lambic, TNGabe? Thanks...

 

[TNGabe]

Yeah, it's going to be pretty far off. You can call you beer whatever you want, but you can also call a cow an elephant and it won't grow a trunk.

I've tried making lambic like beers with ECY blends and even with lambic dregs added, they lacked the complexity and depth of the real thing. I feel like this is because of the sacc primary rather than the slow bacterial ferment from the real thing.

I filled a barrel last year that was only fermented with lambic dregs. I let the wort cool in the kettle since I don't have another vessel, hoping that some local bacteria would do the job of the bacteria that aren't in the dregs. For that barrel I'd made 5 gallon batch that I pitched the dregs into and then added that with the wort in the barrel about 6 months later.

I just got done filling this years barrel and I skipped the 5 gallon 'starter' and just pitched the dregs with the wort. Maybe next time, I'll wait a few months, but the first barrel is doing so well I may not change what I'm doing. In theory, once the barrel has been innoculated in the fashion, it will have all the microbes it needs and won't need dregs for future batches. Time will tell.