Roselare?????

[brewinhard]

I would oxygenate the beer (60 sec or so) as that will really help the yeast to get going a bit. The brett will also benefit from the oxygen provided, but take much longer to be active. The bacteria in this blend typically is not a huge fan of O2, but will "survive" the aeration process and help to sour your beer over the long haul. Just be patient if you pitch an older packet into the primary as it may take some time to get rolling. Last summer I brewed a pale flanders and pitched a several month old Roselare into my primary. No visible fermentation for 48 hrs, and got a bit worried, so I pitched some T-58 (what I had on hand), to get things going. A few days later the beer was down to 1.020 and I racked it into a carboy at the 6 day mark with some oak. 1 yr. later, the beer has a nice pellicle on it and seems to be souring well. I will give this one a couple more mos of summer heat before tasting it.

[JimL]

Typically, a starter should not be made with this yeast blend b/c it will offset the populations of the wild yeast and bacteria.

Shitty.

I'll let you guys know how it goes w/a starter because I can't source roeselare that quickly and I'm brewing this dude tomorrow.

[brewinhard]

Not to worry brother! RAHAH! My last flanders red I brewed with a 1qt starter from a mixed strain fermentation a generous brewer sent me. The beer almost blew out of my carboy! It is now happily souring away. This is my first flanders red that I did not rack off the primary yeast just to see the results.

[JimL]

I want to brew another 15g batch of Flanders Red in early August and I'm curious if it's recommended to just purchase new yeast/bugs for the new batch or if I could just rack off these carboys and pitch the cakes into the new batch? What kind of benefits/issues should I consider?

[brewinhard]

You can definitely reuse the cakes from the previous batch. Just be prepared for a more sour beer, but then again, why would you be brewing these if you didn't like sours to begin with?

[JimL]

My two carboys of Flanders Red are fermenting well. After I pulled it from my temp controlled freezer (7 days at 65F) I placed it on my basement floor where the temps are averaging 70F-75F. The ferment got much more aggressive and the bugs are creating a gigantic bubbly krausen. I mean these bubbles are at least 1-1.5" diameter. Is this the start of the pellicle formation?

Also, one of my carboys is a little more full than the other and the airlock is filling up with yeast. Everytime I clean it out I look inside and the krausen is a good 2 or 3 inches below the orange carboy cap. I haven't witnessed the krausen rise that far up to actually get in the airlock but there is evidence of it creeping up there.

Do you suppose it would be the potential temp swings that would happen overnight which would cause these flare ups of activity? It's hard to think that it's the case since this happens overnight when it cools down- you'd think the activity would slow not ramp up erratically.

[brewinhard]

If you are getting large diameter bubbles, then your Roselare blend is working well for you. I have definitely seen large bubbles like this (golf ball size diameter and larger) in my sour beers during early secondary fermentation esp. when the temps started to rise. Sounds like you are on the right track for getting some good sourness going. Keep the patience rollling along, and smile often at your new found friends working away for you!

[PhillyBrewer]

brewinhard: where are you located if you don't mind me asking?