Wed May 14, 2008 7:13 am
I wanted to brew something Belgian style; I was thinking something like a Belgian pale. I was certain I wanted to use the Unibroue yeast for whatever I decided on. Since Wyeast only offers the Unibroue strain (3864) as part of their VSS collection and it's not available currently, I decided I try to grow up my own stock of Unibroue yeast from the sludge at the bottom of one of their beers. I've never done a bottle harvest before, so this in itself was an experiment. Coincidentally, I happened to have a Don de Dieu sitting in my fridge. I started off with a pint of wort and added the bottom 3/4" of the bottle to my starter. The yeast was slow to take off but then, wow, did it go. I couldn't believe the krausen and yeast cake that resulted from a mere pint starter. Oddly though there seems to be a lot of acidity in the aromas it's producing. I didn't notice this before when I used the Wyeast 3864, just LOTS of phenols. Does Unibroue use a couple of different strains? Is this acidity a sign of something else? Are these aromas a byproduct of the yeast growth from such a small population? The wort is very clear now that the yeast have flocculated out and there isn't anything floating on top of the wort. So I'm thinking it isn't contaminated, atleast not with Brett or acetobacter. But I tasted the wort and it's dry, tart, with an slight edge of sourness. I'm actually thinking of trying to make a saison with this yeast considering the sorts of flavors it seems to have made. Anyone have experience culturing from Unibroue bottles? If so, what Unibroue beers have you cultured from? Any difference between them?
