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’m trying a little experiment in breadmaking over here. I’ve just made a basic starter for sourdough and threw in some dregs from a bottle of Kasteel Tripel. I’m aiming to build it up with some more dregs from sour beers, particularly lambics. I’m wondering if there is any point in throwing in what’s left from a 2002 Drie Fonteinen? Are the little critters still alive at this point?
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Depending on how stable the bottle was stored, there could indeed still be some critters left. I would almost bet on it if the bottle has not been mistreated along the way somewhere.
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You’re wasting your time. Beer yeast is bred to eat maltose. Bread yeast is bred to eat glucose from the gluten in the bread.
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It will ferment a little bit very, very, very slowly. I’ve tried.
You are better off making a more traditional sourdough starter. There are instructions all over the Internet. This is the process I followed when I made mine. It is still alive in my fridge and gets used semi-frequently.
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My starter is following a traditional recipe, I just thought the beer yeasts might kick start the process and add a unique touch. So far, the starter has been growing very healthily. We’ll see what happens!
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It can’t hurt to try. Flour is cheap enough to experiment.
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Have you bought flour lately? It’s 3 times what it used to be.
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Except that sourdough cultures are wild yeast strains in the air not actually bred to eat anything. Most come from fruit and whatever else might be in the area for yeast to eat. I’ve made some good sour beer with the San Francisco sourdough strain. 
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There are 2 ways to make a starter. One is to use whole rye flour and water the other is to use bread flour, water, and fresh fruit(including the peel). Sourdough is based on wild yeast, much like lambics, so each region of the world will have a different tasting bread. The wild yeast is on the outside of grains(thus the organic or whole rye flour), fruits, and vegetables(yes they can be used in the starter). I like to use grapes. As long as you keep feeding the starter it can be kept forever, in theory.
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On a related note, I just made the no knead bread tonight. It turned out great: http://www.breadtopia.com/basic-no-knead-method.
Now, I’m going repeat the process with sourdough: http://www.breadtopia.com/sourdough-no-knead-method/
I started making the starter yesterday with rye flour and water. It has already doubled in size.
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Watch the Nancy Silverton video on sourdough starter, she explains the grape sourdough starter method.
http://pbs-juliachild.onstreammedia.com/cgi-bin/visearch?user
=pbs-juliachild&template=template.html&query=+ClipChef%3ANancy+ClipChef%3
ASilverton+ClipCategory%3ABreads+ClipCategory%3ABaked+ClipCategory%3AGood
s&category=ClipCategory%3ABreads+ClipCategory%3ABaked+ClipCategory%3AGood
s&ingredients=0&chef=ClipChef%3ANancy+ClipChef%3ASilverton&project=0&viKe
yword=
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