Wyeast Roeselare tips

[Fritz Eye]

Hi All,
Hoping you had a great holiday and where spollied rotten.
I will be brewing an Oud Bruin from Northern Brewer utilizing Wyeast 3763.
I plan on doing a primary fermentation for 3-4 weeks and then transfer to secondary. I know these beers take a while to get full sourness. Is there a big difference if I bottle after a few months in secondary and then let the bottles condition for a year or should I keep in the secondary until I get the desired sourness and then bottle?
Any words of wisdom or tips are greatly appreciated.
Cheers.
Fritz

[Chupa LaHomebrew]

Fritzy! What's up dawg.
I just heard a presentation from the Wyeast guys on Roselaire recently. Most important tip: do not make a starter and use it as the primary yeast. The lacto in it is very "weak" and needs to work before the ABV goes up, so don't throw off the bug mix wit a starter, which would favor sachromyces, and leave you with a less sour beer. I think that is what I have done wrong with it in the past. Also keep the IBU's super low, about 8-10 MAX, because it's also very sensitive to hops.

I think it would be better to give it longer in the carboy, even if you have to buy an extra crappy used carboy or whatever. It's hard to get a carboy sour sour enough as it is, So I think going into the bottle early might give you a beer with decent brett funk but probably not too much sourness,even over time. If that's what you want though, you should probably brew a pretty fermentable beer so there will not be too much residual sugar and bottle condition to low carbonation, expecting it to increase with time.

P.S. Carboy sours are hard to get sour enough, but they seem to always get a good kick in the pants from throwing in some strong commercial dregs. So when it's in secondary, start buying bottles of cantillon, Drei Fonteinen, RR, jolly pumpkin, or whatever you can get your hands on and if you like the flavor, throw the dregs in too!

Luck!

[brewinhard]

I agree with Chupa! The Wyeast Roselare and Lambic blend have a pretty weak lacto/pedio in them which wont sour the beer as much as you want. I have even let them go for 18 mos in secondary before sampling and not much in the way of sourness. But lo and behold within 3 mos after pitching a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin and Cantillon, the beer was quite sour for style.

Definitely don't make a starter and dont worry if the fermentation takes longer than usual to get going as there is a smaller pitch of saccharomyces in that blend and it will take a bit to get started. Just be patient and give them some time. Now if you are looking for a more sour beer quicker, then you should try repitching the blend into another beer on the same day you rack your oud bruin into a carboy for aging. This second (and even third) repitch will become more sour more quickly than the first by far.

[Fritz Eye]

Lovin' the BN Forum.
Thanks Sean and Brewinhard. Great info.
Sean, all the best in your new endeavors andglad you are getting a closer to the east coast.
Happy New Years all.
Fritz

[darkalex]

In my case I pitched Roeselare blend in secondary after the Flanders and Belgian Specialty had primary fermented on a single vial of WLP001. It’s really interesting that one carboy is excessively soured and the other didn’t sour at all. They were sitting next to each other, same temp controlled fridge, same amount of head space, both had a plastic carboy cap, both aged for 11 months…Obviously the bugs were looking at different grain bills, so this may have had something to do with it. Otherwise, I can not explain my result.

Head space in the carboy (i.e. oxygen exposure) and temperature (in my case 68F) will affect how quickly they sour and how much they sour. For the next go around, I plan on using an airlock, filling the carboy into neck, and lowering the fermentation temp to around 65F.
I was told to simply forget about the carboys and leave them alone, but next time I'll taste the beer on a regular basis, say every 2 months. In my case, one could have been packaged earlier, the other could have used more time in the fermenter. Hope this helps!!

This is an area of study that is really difficult to predict the outcome, a worthy endeavor for the homebrewer.

Brew Strong!