Sour advice

[kaiserben]

I'm hoping for some advice about whether I should top up my 23L glass carboy with some fresh wort or fermented beer?

(see photo showing how full the carboy currently is)



I had fermented out my batch with plain sacch yeast. Then, on Saturday, I racked this on to cherries and pitched some "WLP655 Sour Mix 1" into that.

I guess I'm worried about acetobacter. Should I relax and just trust that a pellicle will form eventually and that is enough protection from oxygen exposure? Or should I take steps to fill the carboy to closer to the neck?

And also, because the silicon bung was wet (from no-rinse santiser) and just wouldn't sit in the carboy, I decided to use glad wrap. I assume this'll be fine for 12 months?

 

[manticle]

Fill as much as you can. Seal as well as you can once the beer has fully fermented.

 

[Reman]

Fill er up! If you decide to add some oak then it can make it easier to keep it submerged below the neck.

The other thing to keep in mind that the first generation may not be that sour/funky, but each subsequent pitch onto the cake should get better and better.

 

[kaiserben]

So I'm still getting around to sorting this out. It's now been 8 days since I filled the glass carboy and pitched the Sour Mix.

Should I be topping up with fresh, unfermented wort? Or fermenting wort before adding?

Just worried about krausen and the lack of a blow off tube.

 

[manticle]

How much does it need to fill?

 

[barls]

bag of marbles work wonders to fill head space

 

[paulyman]

So I'm still getting around to sorting this out. It's now been 8 days since I filled the glass carboy and pitched the Sour Mix.

Should I be topping up with fresh, unfermented wort? Or fermenting wort before adding?

Just worried about krausen and the lack of a blow off tube.

Well I pitched a Wyeast Belgian Lambic blend along with cultured up bottle dregs into my sour keg a fortnight ago and it was climbing out the blow off for over a week, it is starting to slow now in week two. I think the ferm fridge is most definitely the official sour fridge now. Not sure how violent yours is but as you say head space is something to think about until after high krausen I'd say. Once that's done you could probably top it up fine.

edit - Just saw you already did primary and this is secondary. So fill 'er up, if your sanitation is good then aceto is unlikely but a large head space will increase the chances the Brett will produce acetic acid.

 

[kaiserben]

How much does it need to fill?

I reckon 4-5L.

 

[kaiserben]

Erm ... so I've been a bit slack about getting around to this, but I finally made a mini-batch on my stove top 2 nights ago.

I also happened to need to step up a lager starter ahead of another brew day, so I pitched my lager yeast into this mini-batch and it's currently fermenting.

My plan is to, on this Sunday, use the fermented lager wort to top up my main batch of Kriek (save the yeast for my lager batch). Originally that main kriek batch was fermented out with US-05 (for 2 weeks), before racking it on to cherries and adding WLP655 Sour Mix 1 (it's been another 3 weeks since then).

Am I going about this correctly? Does anything stand out as a big no-no?

 

[barls]

there are more ways to skin a cat mate.
its not how i do it but that doesn't matter.

 

[sp0rk]

Well I pitched a Wyeast Belgian Lambic blend along with cultured up bottle dregs into my sour keg a fortnight ago and it was climbing out the blow off for over a week, it is starting to slow now in week two.

Do you go through a primary fermenter first, or just do it all in keg?
Also, corny or 50L?

 

[paulyman]

Do you go through a primary fermenter first, or just do it all in keg?
Also, corny or 50L?

This batch and last were done 100% in the keg. It's just a corny at present, so I can only put a 15L batch into it. I'm going to be running it as a solera, keeping a couple of litres of old beer and putting the new batch on top. I have two brew bucket minis for splitting a batch onto fruits if I want or maybe putting onto oak.

I know on the sour hour they have mentioned that the bacteria and Brett eventually became unbalanced doing it this way, so have switched to DuPont strain primary and bugs after a few weeks or so. I'll see how it goes.

 

[Reman]

.I know on the sour hour they have mentioned that the bacteria and Brett eventually became unbalanced doing it this way, so have switched to DuPont strain primary and bugs after a few weeks or so. I'll see how it goes.

They also mentioned that you can somewhat control the balance with hops. Too sour, use more hops to inhibit the bacteria; not sour enough, use less hops to encourage the bacteria.

 

[kaiserben]

So I needed to transfer my top up wort (now fermented to 1.010) to a secondary vessel to transport it to where my kriek batch is located.

I had a bit of a problem and the tap popped out - the result being, what I did get into my secondary got splashed to buggery so heaps of O2 (which is what I'm trying to avoid in the first place).

I assume I should forget about topping up with this splashed beer?

Should I make more top up wort/beer? Or should I just not worry so much about topping it up?

 

[manticle]

I'd top with something - boiled cooled water if under a litre, wort if more.

Wort will need to ferment out and release co2 obviously - once fg is reached, seal.

 

[kaiserben]

I've been very lazy and haven't done anything to the batch.

Here's a photo of it right now, with a pellicle (hopefully not an aceto pellicle).




Any advice on how I should proceed?