English Barleywine - 2014 Tasting

I'm excited to finally get the chance to do the first (of many I hope) tasting of the English Barleywine I brewed back on Memorial Day 2014.  I brewed it with the specific intention of drinking one or two a year for the next 10 years or so and monitoring it's progress.  I split the batch into two and aged one plain and one with brandy soaked oak cubes.

The fermentation was vigorous (lots of blowoff) but it seemed to be fairly clean.  It attenuated quite a bit further than I was hoping.  The samples I took were hot from the high alcohol but they didn't seem to have any fusel chracter.  This is probably to be expected with a young beer that is 11% ABV.  I figured the long aging would do the beer well.

I feel like I've come a long way since this batch (in terms of understanding of fermentability and of the many yeast varieties).  Brewing this beer was a nice learning experience for trying my own recipes and brewing a big beer.  I think it could be a nice jumping off point for the next Barleywine I brew (Memorial Day 2015).

Plain Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Dark fruit, alcohol, and estery fruitiness are the primary smells.  No hops or malt coming through.  Very fruity.
• Appearance:
• Muddy and cloudy brown.  Not sure why it's so muddy - the Strong Brown I made next had the same issue.  I bottled both of these with a wine yeast - suspect that might have contributed.  I used a different wine yeast with my Berliner Wiesse and it cleared pretty nicely.  Will use that yeast next time.
• Flavor:
• Fruity ester character and alcohol dominate.  There is some bready malt in there as well.  As it warms the flavor rounds out a lot and becomes much fuller - the alcohol fades and the fruitiness and some caramel come to the fore.  Nothing I could pick out as hop bitterness - I used quite a bit of low alpha acid hops on this batch.  Could use a bit of bitterness.  The alcohol flavor lingers on the finish.
• Mount-feel:
• It's a pretty sharp/firm drink.  Hot from the alcohol.  Pretty thin - would have been better if it had finished at a bit higher FG.
• Overall:
• Pretty boozy at this point.  Even at 7 months old it seems like it needs more time to mellow.  Much better on the warmer side but still pretty harsh.  It will be interesting to see how this tastes with another year on it.

Brandy/Oaked Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Very similar to the plain half but this one also has a distinct oak/vanilla aroma to it.  There is nothing I could pick out as the brandy.
• Appearance:
• Identical to the plain half.
• Flavor:
• Pronounced oak flavor mingles nicely with the fruitiness.  Reminds me of the oak levels in a red wine.  No extra booziness from the brandy which is nice - can't really pick out any contribution from the brandy though.  Vanilla from the oak lingers in the finish more than the alcohol.
• Mouth-feel:
• Same as the plain
• Overall:
• The oak really serves to soften the beer quite a bit.  It is much less harsh and is easier drinking than the plain half somehow.  Has a very nice level of complexity at this point.  Still pretty boozy but that is expected with an 11% beer.  The oak half is quite a bit better at this point.

Dark Lager

The difference between an ale and a lager is that a lager uses bottom fermenting yeast that perform well at colder temperatures than ale yeasts.  A lager yeast can ferment down in the high 40s to low 50s where an ale yeast can only really get down to the low 60s.  Fermenting at this lower temperature range allows the yeast to produce a cleaner flavor profile than is found in ale.  This clean yeast profile lends itself to use in light refreshing beers like a pilsner (which the American Light Lagers are a variety of).  The trade off with the clean profile is that any flaws in the beer are more noticeable due to the yeast not hiding anything as might be the case in an ale.

To brew a lager requires a number of extra steps.  Since you ferment at such a low temperature the yeast need more help getting started so an extra large yeast starter needs to be built.  The yeast have some trouble cleaning up after themselves at lager temperatures so you need to raise the temperature up to the 60s towards the end of fermentation to allow the yeast to take care of diacetyl which is a butter/butterscotch flavored yeast byproduct (some people can't taste it apparently - not sure if I'm one of those people because I have never noticed it in any of my beers).  Finally, lager is typically given a long secondary storage time at near freezing temperature which is apparently critical for getting a clean, clear, and crisp beer.  These steps serve to make a lager a more challenging beer to brew than most ales.

I have decided to see if I'm up to the challenge of brewing a decent lager.

In Arizona brewing a lager could have prevented me from brewing any ale as the room temperatures were just a little too warm for ale fermentation.  Here in Pennsylvania, with my basement being in the low 60s during the winter, I can use the fermentation chamber for the long lager fermentation and storage time and still brew more ales while I wait.

I found a recipe in Craft Beer & Brewing magazine from Ron Pattinson called "1926 Barclay Perkins Dark Lager" that seemed like as good a recipe to start lager brewing on as any - I really like a dunkel lager.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 10 lbs 12 oz Pilsner
• 2 lbs 4 oz Crystal 60L
• 4 oz Roasted Barley
• Hops:
• 0.5 oz Saaz (Pellet, 3.0% AA) at 60 min
• 0.5 oz Saaz (Pellet, 3.0% AA) at 30 min
• 1.25 oz Saaz (Pellet, 3.0% AA) at 10 min
• 0.75 oz Saaz (Pellet, 3.0% AA) at 0 min
• Yeast:
• White Labs 838 Southern German Lager Yeast
• Water:
• 10 gal Spring Water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal
• Mash:
• 157 F for 60 min (Target 154 F)
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• Primary at 48 F
• Diacetyl Cleanup at 61 F
• Lager at 36 F
• Primary Duration:
• 2 Weeks
• Diacetyl Cleanup Duration:
• 1 Week
• Secondary/Lager Duration:
• 6 Weeks

Results:

• OG:
• 1.054 (Target 1.057)
• Efficiency:
• 67% (Target 71%)
• FG:
• 1.020 (Target 1.016)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 62% (Target 71%)
• ABV:
• 4.46% (Target 5.38%)

Brewing Notes:

• 12/6/14 - I did some research and found that pitching a large amount of yeast at lager fermentation temperatures was probably the way to go.  My vial of yeast was 3 months old so I determined (using this tool) that I would need to build about 4 liters of yeast starter (assuming 1.5 million cells/ml/degree plato).  My flask is only 2 liters so I would have to do a two stage starter.  I added 7.5 oz of DME to 2 liters of tap water and boiled it in the flask.  Let it chill to the low 60s over night.
• 12/7/14 - Pitched the yeast into the starter and put onto the stir plate.  By the evening thick krausen developed.  At some point a bit of it overflowed the top (you can see the dried beer in the picture above).  The starter smells a lot like a budweiser - there is also a slight sulfur smell that I had heard could develop with a lager yeast.  Not a real pleasant smelling fermentation - hope this is largely a product of the warmer temps
•  12/10/14 - Fermentation appeared to have completed so I mixed up another 2 liter starter with 7.5 oz of DME in a pot and chilled the flask in the fridge to drop the yeast.
• 12/11/14 - Decanted off the spent wort and added the new 2 liters of fresh wort and put it back onto the stir plate.  By the evening the starter had popped on me and I lost about a cup of wort onto the floor (big mess)
• 12/12/14 Brew Day - 1:00 PM to 5:15 PM including setup and cleanup
• Heated 10 gal of spring water to 184 F - took 40 min
• Added gypsum and CaCl to the mash tun
• Added 15 qt to the mash tun (I've given up on the 1.25 qt of water to lbs of grain ratio).  Continued to heat the kettle in case the temps came up low
• Let mash tun temps settle for 5 min - ended up at 172 F (was shooting for 169 F) - close enough
• Added grain - stirred to eliminate dough balls.  Ended up at 152 to 154 F
• Added 3 qt of boiling water which initially brought the temperature to between 154 F and 157 F.  Decided not to attempt any further course correction.
• After 30 min the mash temperature was between 157 F and 160 F which was quite a bit higher than the target of 154 F.  Will be interesting to see how this impacts the FG.
• At the end of 60 min the mash temp was at 157 throughout most of the mash
• Stirred in 5.5 gal of mashout water at 210 F - mash temp ended up at 172 F.  This was high enough to stop conversion but not so hot as to pull tannins (hopefully).

• Stirred, vorlaufed, and drained slowly - ended up taking 50 min

• After collecting a couple gal I turned on the heat
• Boil had started by the time 4 gal were collected (after 20 min)
• Added the 60 min hops after collecting 6 gal of wort (after 40 min)
• Ended up collecting 7.25 gal of wort
• Added the 30 min hops once the volume boiled down to 7 gal
• Added the irish moss at 6.5 gal
• Added the 10 min hops at 6.25 gal
• Once the volume got near 6 gal I killed the flame and added the chiller to sanitize and the 0 min hops
• Let the hops steep for ~10 min
• Chilled to ground water temps (~55 F) - took 15 min
• Collected 6 gal of wort.  Avoided transferring most of the hops but got most of the cold break
• Poured back and fourth between two buckets to aerate
• Moved the fermentor to the chest freezer to chill down to 48 F
• Measured the gravity of a sample as 1.054.  It is a nice brown color and fairly clear after sitting for half an hour or so

• Once the fermentor got down to 48 F I put the starter in the chamber to chill down to pitching temps.  I then decanted off most of the starter wort and pitched the yeast

• 12/13/14 - No fermentation activity the next morning - I understand that the lag time for a lager is longer than for an ale due to the cooler temps
• 12/15/14 - Switched from a blow off tube to a 3 piece airlock.  Beer is now bubbling slowly
• 12/27/14 - Increased the fermentation chamber temperature to allow the beer to rise to 65 F for the D rest (this is 1 week earlier than initially planned)
• 1/2/15 - The temperature had risen to 61 F after a week of D-rest time.  Pulled a sample and measured the gravity as 1.020 - expect it to drop a little bit more with the lagering.  It is a pretty nice mahogany color and fairly clear at this point.  The flavor is very clean at this point - no butter/butterscotch or sulpher off-flavors - I'm calling the D-rest complete.  It has a nice balance between sweet malt and hops.  I will lower the temperature by 5 F a day until it is down to lagering temps to try to avoid shocking the yeast.  I will wait to rack to secondary until it is at lagering temp.  Lowered it to 56 F today.

• 1/3/15 - Lowered it to 51 F
• 1/4/15 - Lowered it to 46 F
• 1/5/15 - Lowered it to 41 F
• 1/6/15 - Lowered it to 36 F
• 1/7/15 - Transferred the beer to a better bottle for the secondary lagering period
• 2/18/15 - The beer has spent 6 weeks lagering.  The gravity is still at 1.020 - this is probably due to the slightly hotter than targeted mash temp.  The beer is very clear already but I'm going to fine with gelatin just to make sure (1 tsp dissolved in 1 cup of 160 F tap water).  I will bottle next week.  The beer has a nice clean malty flavor - no off flavors I can detect.
• 2/26/15 - Bottled tonight.  Ended up with 5.25 gal.  Bottled with 6 oz of priming sugar to get ~3.2 vol of carbonation.  Got 54 12 oz bottles from this batch.
• 4/15/15 - Tasting notes - Malty/sweet but still easy drinking beer

Lessons Learned:

1. Putting more than 2 L of wort in a 2 L flask is not a good idea.  I got away with it on the first step of the starter for the most part but for the second step it resulted in a big mess.  Probably would have been better off with a 1.5 L starter of slightly higher gravity for the second step.
2. I had a pretty good time savings from boiling while collecting wort for this batch.  The flow was actually similar to a fly sparge process.
3. I liked that I was able to get decent efficiency from just 10 gal of water.  This made sure that the boil only took 60 min.  I've spent a lot of extra time boiling in my last few batches due to the large sparge volumes.  This extra cost of propane and my time is something that I'd like to analyze more going forward.
4. The more I've brewed here in PA I'm thinking a setup where I can have all my hot side equipment in the garage would save me a lot of time - getting very tired of bringing my stuff up and down the stairs to/from the basement.
5. I think I could get big time savings in the mash from a RIMS setup with a grant and a refractometer to determine if conversion has completed.  I'm mashing for 60 min and not checking conversion - it could be that it's actually complete long before the 60 min.  I also think a refactometer would be really cool for sparging (with a fly sparging setup) as I could stop collecting wort for the boil once I both have sufficient volume and I have collected the correct amount of sugar to meet my OG - this would reduce the boil time and fuel usage.  I really need to move forward with this sort of setup.

Brown Porter - Tasting

There is nothing that hits the spot quite like a dark beer when it gets cold out.  I would choose the coffee and chocolate flavors of a stout or porter over a spiked eggnog or apple cider any day of the week.  With that in mind I chose to brew a Brown Porter a couple months back and I have really been enjoying it with the cold weather here in Pennsylvania.

The recipe included a fairly large percentage (25%) of brown malt.  I am finding that it produces a really nice subtle set of roast flavors (a mix of toasted bread and coffee with a bit of chocolate mixed in).  I really like it a lot and will plan on using it again.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Aroma is of sweet roast malt.  The description of the Brown Malt mentions Graham Cracker which is definitely accurate.  I think I also get coffee and chocolate.  It is a really pleasant smell.  No hops, yeast, or alcohol make it through.
• Appearance:
• Black with some dark brown around the edges when held to the light.  Pretty much opaque.  Pretty thin head with an average pour.  Head doesn't linger long.  No lacing.
• Flavor:
• The roast flavor dominates but it's subdued.  I get chocolate, coffee and toasted bread from it.  The finish is a little bit sweet with the nice roast character along with a bit of alcohol and maybe a small bit of hop bitterness.  There might be some yeast character mixed in with the alcohol somewhere.
• Mouth-feel:
• It is fairly light bodied and it finishes with a very slight sweetness.  It's very easy drinking (had three of them for this tasting and I wouldn't mind having a fourth).
• Overall:
• Really nice dark beer.  Much better than my Oatmeal Stout turned out.  The mild level of roast really makes it an easier drinking beer than most stouts I've had.  Nice combo of drinkability and flavor.

Rye Pale Ale - Tasting

I've been drinking this Rye Pale Ale for the last few weeks.  It's a very nice drinking beer - goes down very smooth.  It has a really nice balance between hop and malt.

I have had quite a few commercial beers with rye and I've liked most of them.  This beer has enough rye (20%) to get a good strong rye flavor into the beer but is also little enough to not be overwhelming (and also not enough to cause a stuck sparge).

I think I'll have to try another beer with rye not too far down the road.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Mostly hops in the nose.  It is a spicy and earthy hop aroma.  The hops have gotten a bit more subdued over the last month I've been drinking the beer - this current level is very nice though.  Not able to pick out anything that I'd characterize as malt in the smell but the spicy rye and hops could just be blending aroma.
• Appearance:
• Dark gold (picture doesn't do it justice) - very pretty.  Good head with an average pour - lasts for a few minutes then falls down to a thin layer of foam.  This is the first beer I've made that has left lacing on the glass - imagine this is due to the rye.
• Flavor:
• The flavor is a nice balance of the hop flavor and the spicy rye malt.  The flavors meld together very nicely - I'm not sure I can say where the hops end and the malt begins really (I'd really have to try this hop bill without the rye to say for sure).  The finish sports a pretty firm bitterness with the spicy character which is an interesting combo.  No alcohol presence and no yeast character to speak of.
• Mouth-feel:
• Beer finishes very dry - really good gulper of a beer.  It has decent body (also probably due to the rye).  
• Overall:
• It's a really good beer.  Very nice flavor, easy drinking, good appearance.  I'm very pleasantly surprised by the level of balance in this beer after a month.  At bottling it was drinking a bit more like an IPA but it has really mellowed out nicely.  I think this one could continue to be good for several more months.

So, this is one of may favorite beers so far (second maybe to the Fortunate Islands Clone).  It's also one of the few beers I've made so far that I'd be confident sharing with people as something that I think is basically without any flaws.

Russian Imperial Stout with Brettanomyces

I was inspired to brew this batch by The Mad Fermentationist's version of Courage Russian Imperial Stout which is a big Russian Imperial Stout with Brettanomyces yeast and oak in secondary.  The original Courage Russian Imperial Stout, which was discontinued in the 1980s, was reputed to have a leather character from the brett which sounds very intriguing to me.  Add to that the fact that I had the primary yeast strain lined up from the Brown Porter I was just about to bottle and the brett strain from my Berliner Weisse I decided to try it out.

From reading the tasting notes you get the impression that the Mad Fermentationist's version never really developed the leather of the original and that the brett contributed a lot more to the aroma than the flavor.  I am going to try an alternate approach with this beer that will hopefully allow me to a get more brett character.

Brett has the potential to take the final gravity very low (my Berliner Weisse finished at 1.002).  This could leave the beer with a watery/boozy/harsh/astringent flavor if I'm not careful.  Ideally, I think this beer would finish around 1.025 but I'd be okay with it down to 1.018 or so.  In the Mad Fermentationist's clone the brett managed to chew the beer down from 1.030 to 1.020 in about two months so he had to kill it with campden tablets to preserve that much residual sugar.  It seems likely that this 2 months spent with the brett wasn't enough to allow the complex flavors to fully develop - I am thinking that a more extended aging period (10 months maybe) would go a long way towards allowing the brett flavors to come to fruition.  The trick will be to let the brett work but also leave the beer with a reasonable final gravity.  With that goal in mind I am going to attempt to control the brett behavior by doing the following:

1. Using a very high mash temperature - I am thinking 162 F will be a good one to help ensure that the primary yeast leaves the beer at a fairly high gravity.  My hope is that it also creates some sugars that the Brett isn't able to handle (not holding my breath on this one).  At the least it will give me some extra margin if the brett is able to crew through a lot of the sugar.  I am thinking if primary fermentation stops in the mid 1.03 range then that's a fairly good sign.
2. Try to limit the oxygen content and exposure of the beer in secondary - the thought here is that less oxygen will mean that the brett has a harder time building up it's ranks and that it will be more likely to stall out earlier.  To do this I will give the primary yeast 1 month to ferment out and then I will give the beer an additional month in a better bottle secondary prior to pitching the brett.  I will fill the better bottle up to the neck to try to limit oxygen exposure.
3. Low pitch rate for the brett - I am going to build up a brett "starter" using 2 liters of my brown porter and some bottle dregs from my berliner weisse which contains brett C (as well as wine yeast and lacto which I'm assuming will not like their environment too much).  I will let this grow for a couple months and add oak cubes to it at some point.  Depending on the flavor and the gravity drop I may pitch the whole thing or I might just drop in the inoculated oak cubes

Hopefully a combination of these three actions will give me a good chance of both having a reasonably strong contribution from the brett and a good level of residual sugar in the finished product.  Ultimately I think I will lean more towards the brett flavor if I have to choose so I'll likely let it age all the way out even if it over attenuates.

I really like a big stout but I was also thinking that 10% alcohol (as was the case for the original) might be a bit on the high side for me if I plan on drinking an entire bottle.  So, I've planned for it to come in around 8.5% at my normal efficiency.  If it turns out to be a bit higher or lower that doesn't hurt my head much.

I am thinking of giving this beer about a year to finish out - should be bottling in winter 2015!

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjuncts:
• 13 lbs Marris Otter
• 4 lbs Amber Malt
• 1 lb Brown Malt
• 8 oz Black Malt
• 2 lbs Dark Candi Sugar
• Hops:
• 2 oz Target (Pellet, 9.5% AA) at 120 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1028 London Ale
• 6 cups Slurry from Brown Porter (Target 8.5 cups)
• White Labs 645 Brettanomyces Claussenii in Secondary
• Harvested from Berliner Weisse Bottle Dregs
• Red Star Premier Cuvee Wine Yeast (at bottling)
• Water:
• 13 gal Spring Water
• 2 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min
• Extras:
• 1 oz Medium Toast Hungarian Oak Cubes

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal
• Mash:
• 162 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 120 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• Start at 60 F allowed to raise to 64 F
• Primary Duration:
• 5 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• 47 weeks
• Brett added after 4 weeks in Secondary

Results:

• OG:
• 1.100 (Target 1.090)
• Efficiency:
• 79% (Target 70%)
• FG:
• 1.022 (Target 1.025)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 77% (Target 71%)
• ABV:
• 10.24% (Target 8.53%)

Brewing Notes:

• 11/16/14 Brew Day - 2:15 PM to 9:00 Including setup and a lengthy break for dinner
• Saved off 2 liters of Brown Porter from my previous batch in a flask to try to culture some Brett.  Poured in the dregs from two bottles of Berliner Weisse.  Added 1 tsp of the Brown Porter yeast cake to the flask to give the Brett some additional food

• Brought 10 gal of Spring Water up to 194 F - took 35 min
• Added 23 qt to the mash tun (kept the kettle running after this)
• Added Calcium Chloride and Gypsum to the mash tun
• Let the temperature settle for 10 min - temp ended up at 181 F
• Added the grain, stirring well to eliminate doughballs.  Temperature ended up a bit high at 165 F.  Stirred more until it got down to about 162 F
• After 30 min I stirred the mash and measured the temperature as just about 162 F
• Added 3 more gal of spring water to the kettle and brought it up to a boil
• After 60 min the mash was about 160 F
• Added 14 qt of near boiling mashout water to bring the mash up to 170 F
• Saved 4 gal of hot water for the batch sparge in two small pots
• Stirred the mash then vorlaufed and drained slowly into the kettle - took 40 min to collect 7 gal
• Added 4 gal of sparge water - ended up at 150 F.  Stirred, vorlaufed, and drained slowly - took 20 min

• Brought the 7 gal of wort to a boil while doing the batch sparge - took 30 min
• Ended up with 10 gal of wort
• Had a pretty nasty hot break on this batch - a bit got over the edge of the pot
• Added the hops after the hot break had cleared
• Once the kettle had gotten down to 6.75 gal I added the irish moss
• Once the kettle was down to 6.5 gal I added the candi sugar.  Stirred vigorously to help it dissolve

• Added the wort chiller at flameout to sanitize.  Chilled down to ground water temps (mid 50s) in about 30 min
• Transferred to the fermentor.  Poured the beer back and fourth between the fermentor and bottling bucket to aerate
• Put the fermentor in the chest freezer and ladled the yeast cake from the Brown porter into the RIS.  Set it up with a blowoff tube as this will likely be a very vigorous fermentation.  The beer was at 58 F at this point.
• Collected about 6 gal of wort.  Measured the original gravity as 1.100 at 64 F which is 10 points higher than planned.  This is 79% efficiency - not sure what I did to get that.
• 11/17/14 - No bubbling in the airlock yet after 24 hrs.  The beer is now up to 61 F.  I think the lid on this fermentor may not seal perfectly either so I might not get any airlock bubbling.
• 11/18/14 - The fermentor was bubbling and blowing off at very good pace this afternoon and some beer had been pushed out the lid.  Probably lost a quarter of a cup due to this.

• 11/19/14 - Added another bottle of BW dregs to the brett starter.  The fermentor had stopped bubbling so I checked the lid and found that it had opened a bit where the beer was leaking out - re-seated the lid.
• 11/22/14 -  Beer is still bubbling.  The brett starter has started develop a thin pellicle - good sign as I wasn't sure there would be much viable brett or lacto in the bottle dregs.  Now the question is whether the lacto will contribute anything in the ~25 IBU Brown Porter - I doubt it will.  It didn't really produce any real sourness in the Berliner so I'm not too worried that it will add anything offensive in this beer.  No aroma contributions from the brett or lacto yet as far as I can tell.

• 11/29/14 - Fermentor is no longer bubbling.  The pellicle on the starter has thickened up a bit and there's a bit of a cheesy smell to it.
• 12/18/14 - It has been about a month since brewday.  It was a very vigorous fermentation.  Pulled a sample and measured the gravity as 1.036.  The high mash temperature had the desired effect - I was hoping primary would stop in this neighborhood.  The beer is a very dark red rather than black - probably due to all that amber malt.  It has a really complex malty flavor with chocolate and coffee mixed in.  Also has a very firm bitterness at this point.  No fusel alcohol.  Even with the high gravity it doesn't really taste overly sweet - I wont be upset if the Brett doesn't take the gravity too much further.  Poured most of the sample into the brett starter to give it some more to munch on.  I will transfer to secondary this weekend. 

• 12/20/14 - Transferred to a better bottle for secondary.  Had enough beer to fill up to the neck.  Boiled 1 oz of oak cubes to extract some of the oak flavor and then transferred half the cubes to the secondary and half to the Brett Starter.  Tasted a sample of the Brett starter - no real brett flavor has developed so far.
• 12/21/14 - Tasted a bit of the starter - no funk yet (which isn't unexpected given the short amount of time it's had).  I added a couple more bottles of Berliner Weisse dregs.
• 1/5/15 - Added two more bottles of Berliner Weisse dregs to the starter
• 1/16/15 - It has been about a month since I added oak cubes and transferred to secondary - the brett starter has developed a bubbly pellicle in that time.  I have decided to transfer to a different secondary (6 gal glass carboy) along with the entire brett starter for the remainder of the aging.  The better bottle is filled up to the neck and I have a bit more than 2 liters of brett starter so I would have to throw away some beer to add the brett.  Additionally, if the brett happens to kick off any strong fermentation I would end up with a pretty big mess with such little head space.  The carboy will give me quite a bit more head space and I can use the entire starter without dumping any beer.  Transferred the beer  and oak over and then swirled the remaining cup the siphon didn't get to also transfer the small amount of yeast at the bottom of the better bottle.  Did the same thing with the flask of brett starter.  I pulled a sample prior to the transfer and measured the gravity as 1.036 which is what it was after primary.  It's very rich with roast and chocolate.  It doesn't taste overly sweet even at this high gravity.  The oak doesn't have a major presence in the flavor which is a little surprising.  The alcohol is well blended which is nice.  I would be happy to bottle and drink it as is but I still like the plan with the brett.  I will check on the gravity in a month to see how the brett is doing.   

Brett Starter

• 1/25/15 - Checked the fermentor after a week and found small patches of bubbles on the surface.  Looks like there's something doing a bit of work in there but not too vigorously.

• 2/18/15 - It has been about a month since I pitched the brett into this beer.  Measured the gravity as 1.030.  So, it is down about 6 points.  It is a very rich, flavorful, beer.  Roast, chocolate, coffee, and alcohol are the dominant flavors I'm getting.  I'm not tasting anything that I can pin-point as the oak but it could just be well integrated.  Also not sure if I would say there are any brett flavors that stand out yet - maybe a slight mustiness on the nose.  I am going to give this two more months to mature at this point before taking another sample.  I'm happy that the brett is eating but not going hog wild on this beer.  Will be interesting to see how low it can take it.
• 4/20/15 - It has been two months since the last gravity sample and three months since pitching brett into the beer.  For this sample I'm measuring gravity as 1.032 - there's a bit of carbonation to the beer so this might be a bit higher than actual.  In any event the brett has not made any dent on the gravity.  The beer tastes pretty much like it did 2 months ago - good roast, coffee, and chocolate - still no brett flavor but maybe a bit of mustiness on the nose.  May be getting a bit of vanilla from the oak on the nose as well.  It's a really nice complex beer as is and it hides the 9% alcohol extremely well.  I'm hoping the brett starts to contribute a bit more flavor over the next 6 months but even if it doesn't I'll still have a pretty great beer.  I'll check on this beer again in 3 months.

• 7/30/15 - Pulled another sample which measured at 1.032 still.  The main flavors are still roast/coffee/chocolate.  Oak and maybe a small bit of brett character are in there but much less prominent.  The finish is a bit sweet with a bit of alcohol burn - not much in the way of bittering hop flavor left.  I'll give this beer 3 more months before bottling.
• 10/11/15 - I plan on bottling this next month so I've taken another sample.  It is down to 1.022 somehow - it was holding steady at 1.032 for several months in secondary and I hadn't expected a further drop.  I'm curious to see if it will drop any more in the next month - I may have to hold off on my bottling plans.  It is still a very smooth beer at this gravity with nice refined roast flavors.  It also seems to have mellowed and smoothed out over the last couple months.  At this point I'm not really getting much in the way of flavor contribution from the brett - may be a slight earthiness to the beer from it but it could also just be age.
• 12/13/15 - Bottled with re-hydrated dry wine yeast and 2.5 oz of priming sugar.  Collected about 5.75 gal of beer which got me 56 12 oz bottles.  I left about a quart at the bottom of the carboy to help get RIS with Brett II started.  The beer still measures at 1.022 SG so it is sitting at 10.24%.  You would never guess that it's that high in alcohol.

• 3/19/16 - Tasting Notes - This beer had a great level of complexity after primary fermentation and it has gotten significantly more interesting with age.  I really like the coffee/chocolate/roast flavors and aroma along with the dark fruit character.  The Brett seems to be getting to be a more significant player in the flavor profile with some time in the bottle and it is creating some really nice aged beer sort of flavors.  Hops have fallen off but they aren't missed.  Will do another tasting of this beer next year around this time to see how further age treats it.

Lessons Learned:

1. I was reading about mash thickness while brewing.  From what I read a thinner mash can help ensure that there are fewer fermentable sugars in the wort.  I have been sticking with the 1.25 ratio of water to grain and raising the temperature to try to get some residual sugars left over (including for this batch).  I may have to try playing around with this a bit
2. I'm really leaning strongly towards putting together a new brew stand with a RIMS setup here in the near future.  I am getting very tired of only having one pot and having to lift stuff.  Also don't like the guessing game with the mash temp
3. I had a significant efficiency bump on this batch that I don't understand.  One theory is that the hot sparge water may have been more efficient about rinsing the sugar.  Another reason for a second large pot.
4. The warm summer basement temps have had a pretty strong influence on this beer.  It has somehow dropped 10 gravity points after having not moved at all for 5 months in a cold basement.  Vary interesting.  I'm wondering if it's wise to bottle this beer at 1.022 in the winter temps.  Am I setting myself up for gushers and bottlebombs?

Sour Blonde 1.1.1

There is no time like the present to start a long lead time project so I have decided to brew another sour beer that wont be ready to drink until some time in 2016.  I would like to build up a pipeline of these beers building off the previous beer's yeast cake.  I am thinking that I might brew a new one with slightly different techniques every 3 months or so.  This will hopefully make a bad batch a bit less demotivating and will also give me some blending options.

For this batch I decided to try my hands at something similar to a lambic.  The lambic brewing process is pretty involved and I didn't feel quite up to the challenge of duplicating it so I have tried to match the results using shortcuts.  For future batches I might try to be a bit truer to style.

Lambic wort is created using Pilsner malt and unmalted wheat.  To get a starchy wort and to deal with the unmalted wheat the Lambic brewers have developed a mashing technique called Turbid mashing which involves stepping the mash temperature up and pulling off starchy wort at the various steps and heating it to stop the enzymes from converting.  The Mad Fermentationist created a great walk through of the process which can be found here.  The theory with this process is that it creates a wort with a lot of fermentables that brewers yeast can't touch but that Brett and Lactic Bacteria will be able to break down and eat over the 2-3 year brewing process.  I did some research and decided to use flaked wheat, which is unmalted wheat that has been treated in a way that allows it's starch to be more readily accessible, and perform a high temperature single infusion mash (was planning on 160 F but missed my mash temps and had to improvise a bit).  This will hopefully create a similarly starchy wort.

Flaked Wheat

With my Flanders Red I tried to mash high and control the pH of the mash using chemical additions to optimize for Alpha Amylase enzymes which resulted in great frustration.  It turned out that I left starch in the wort due to my failure to optimize for the enzymes which is probably preferable to my original plan.  I have been thinking about that experience and have decided that with the unknown variable of yeast/bugs quality/health it makes it so that obsessing too much about the fermentability of the wort might be a bit futile at this point.  With that in mind I wont bother with attempting to optimize pH (just adding CaCl and my normal amount of acid malt) and wont check for starch conversion or gravity after sparging.  If this batch doesn't get sour enough due to not producing wort with enough food for the bacteria and brett then maybe I'll have better luck with the next batch pitched on to the yeast cake and will be able to blend them to get a more acceptable beer.  So, it's all on the bugs which is really what this style of beer is all about - hopefully I'll figure out how to make them happy over time rather than just having it be a crap-shoot but I'm not holding my breath for that.

Another shortcut I used was to hop this using ~16 IBU of normal (Fresh) German Hallertau hops.  Real lambic uses a huge amount of aged hops which have lost much of their bitterness but still have their normal preservative properties.  This high hopping rate keeps spoilage microbes and lactobacillus from taking over the beer when they capture microbes out of the air for their spontaneous fermentation.  I will need to look into this step a bit more in the future because I would really like to try a purely spontaneous fermentation at some point.

This spontaneous fermentation is probably the most critical aspect of Lambic as far as how the finished product turns out.  The Belgian Lambic brewers take the wort after the boil, put it into a large shallow troth called a coolship, open the windows, and then let nature take its course as organisms blow into the wort.  That's the theory anyway but in practice things are actually a bit more controlled.  It turns out that the old buildings these breweries are housed in are infested with the organisms that create the lambic beer so a lot of these organisms are likely falling into the beer from the rafters rather than from outside.  Additionally, lambic brewers reuse their oak barrels (ones that have produced good results for the previous batches) to ferment their beer so they're essentially pitching their spontaneously inoculated wort onto a known good culture of yeast/bugs living in the wood.

I don't have the benefit of either of these sources of lambic organisms so I'm using Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend.  I am brewing in the evening so I have decided to let the wort chill naturally overnight rather than completing the beer in one shot.  It is scheduled to be a cool (low 40s high 30s) night with quite a bit of wind.  I will leave the beer on the covered front porch partially covered by the lid and hope that something interesting blows in.  Pitching onto an established yeast will probably prevent the spontaneous organisms from doing anything too dramatic - we'll just have to wait and see.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 8 lbs Pilsner Malt
• 4 lbs Flaked Wheat
• 4 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Hallertau (Pellet, 4.1% AA) at 120 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
• Water:
• 13 gal of Spring water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 5.5 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• Step Mash (Target Single Infusion at 160 F for 60 min)
• Step 1 - 155 F for 30 min
• Step 2 - 162 F for 30 min
• Boil:
• 120 min
• Fermentation Temp:
• Ambient Basement Temps (62 F to 75 F)
• Primary Duration:
• 3 months
• Secondary Duration:
• TBD (Target 15 to 33 months)

Results:

• OG:
• 1.050 (Target 1.050)
• Efficiency:
• 64% (Target 69%)
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.006)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 88%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 5.78%)

Brewing Notes:

• 11/1/14 Brew Day Part I - 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM including setup and boil
• Brought 5 gal of spring water up to 190 F - took 20 min - turned off the burner when I was done
• Added Calcium Chloride to the kettle
• Added 12 qt of strike water to the mash tun and let it settle for 5 min (this is 1 qt per pound of grain which I thought would give me room to course correct if the mash temp was low) - ended up as 175 F
• Poured in all of the flaked wheat at once and stirred in - brought the temp down to 165 F

• Doughed in with the pilsner malt - ended up at 155 F after stirring in
• Added 4 more qt from the kettle to heat the mash up to the target of 160 F and get to the 1.25 water to grain ratio.  Unfortunately the kettle water had cooled to 175 F by this point and this didn't raise the overall mash temp
• Added water to the kettle (up to 6 gal) and brought it to a boil - took 25 min
• At about 30 min into the mash I added 8 qt of boiling water to the mash which brought it up to ~162 F
• Mashed for another 30 min - at the end the mash was still ~162 F
• Added 4 gal of mashout water at 190 F - this brought the mash up to 168 F to stop conversion
• Stirred the mash, let it settle for 5 min, and then drained without vorlaufing.  Drained slowly - took about 35 min - got very cloudy wort
• Once I had collected 5 gal (which took about 20 min) I started to heat - took 20 min to get to a boil.  Had an unusually high hot break on this batch
• Added 3 gal of cool spring water to the mash, stirred, and then drained slowly - took 15 min
• Ended up collecting 11 gal of wort
• Almost ran out of propane.  The propane tank started to accumulate ice around the bottom which seemed to slow down the flow rate and reduce the flame.  Switched back and fourth between two tanks which allowed me to thaw out the other.  As a result the boil took a bit more than 2 hrs.

• At 10 gal I added the hops
• At 6.5 gal I added the Irish Moss
• Once I got down to  6.25 gal on the sight glass I turned off the heat and moved the kettle to the front porch with the lid partially covering it to chill over night and hopefully pick up some wild yeast.  Ended up with 6 gal
• Captured a sample of the wort and let it chill over night in the house
• 11/2/14 Brew Day Part II - 6:00 AM to 6:45 AM not including cleanup
• Started the slap pack of yeast
• Transferred from the kettle to the fermentor.  Ended up with only 5.5 gal.  The wind and cold air may have increased the amount of evaporation loss post flameout.  Interesting
• Measured gravity as 1.050 at 64 F.  This was the target gravity but I was planning for 6 gal so I was a little under my target efficiency
• It was just too cold this morning to clean up
• 11/3/14 - No airlock activity this morning but it was bubbling fairly vigorously this afternoon.  Not really much in the way of aroma from the fermentor.
• 12/6/14 - It has been just over a month since brewday.  Pulled a sample and measured gravity as 1.014 which gives the bacteria quite a bit of room to sour the beer up.  The aroma from the fermentor is quite funky/sour.  A bit of film has started to form.  It's a pretty nice gold color.  The sample tastes basically like a full bodied blonde ale at this point - very feint acidity on the finish and no brett character yet.  Next check will be in 2 months when I transfer it to secondary.
  

• 12/14/14 - Added the bottle dregs from a Boon Mariage Parfait Geuze.  It's pretty heavy on the funk flavor - not super sour
• 2/8/15 - Transferred the beer to a glass carboy for long term aging.  It had an interesting layer of foam on it.  I pulled up quite a bit of yeast in the transfer to try to help develop a bit more funk from the dead yeast.  Left most for the next batch which I will transfer into the same fermentor.  Measured the SG as 1.014 so no real change to gravity since last time which is a bit surprising.  The beer has a wonderful sour/funky smell and it has also started to develop a definite sourness (similar to the sourness level of an orange juice).  I think this one is going to be pretty good.  I will check on it again in 3 months.

• 3/14/15 The beer has started to develop a bit of a film over the last month:

• 5/9/15 - This beer has been in secondary for 3 months now.  The gravity is down to about 1.012.  Is still has the funky nose.  The flavor is still slightly sour (not quite as sour as orange juice - correction from last time) and it has a bready flavor to the finish.  It hasn't really gained any complexity in the last 3 months which is sort of surprising - lots of time left for that to happen though.  It's starting to get closer to the mid 60s in the basement now so that may spur the bacteria on a bit.  The beer looks basically the same as it did in the last picture.  I'll give it 3 more months before taking another sample.
• 8/9/15 - Decided to give this one until November to take another sample.
• 11/21/15 - It has been over a year since brewing this batch.  Checked the gravity again today and it was 1.012 still - very surprised at this as my Flanders 1.1.1, which is a bit older, had fermented down quite a bit over the warm summer months.  The beer is covered in a spotty pellicle.  The sample is very clear and is a light gold color.  It has a fruity and bready aroma.  The flavor is pretty clean with maybe a slight sourness - there's also a slight fruitiness you'd expect from a Belgian beer.  I plan on aging this batch for a full 3 years so it has a lot of time left to develop.  This is a relatively small batch so I'm going to wait a full 12 months before sampling this again.

• 10/20/17 - Status Report:
• Fruity yeast character.  Cider-like.  Slight mustiness
• Light gold and clear.  Some pellicle chunks floating
• Mild fruity flavor along with a subtle spicy yeast character.  Maybe a little malt.  No sourness or funk have developed
• Flavors are rather muted and it lacks the complexity you'd expect in a beer this age
• 12/2/17 - Added 1.25 gal of 1.020 lacto soured beer to the fermenter to give it a bit more complexity and maybe give whatever microbes are left a bit to work on.
• 5/25/18 - Status Report:
• Light earthy aroma along with a subtle fruity ester.
• Light gold in color.  Fairly clear.
• A bit of fruit with some earthy flavor.  Finishes with a slight tartness.  Get a hint of bready malt on the finish.
• Medium light bodied with a slight sweetness.  Drinks very smoothly
• Pretty mild in terms of flavor and aroma but has some complexity of flavor that is pleasant.
• 6/3/18 - Used 5 of the 6 gal beer in a couple blends today (Cherry Sour Blonde and Raspberry Sour Blonde).  I added Sour Blonde 1.5.1 to the glass carboy this had been aging in (I'm calling this Fermenter #1 now).

Lessons Learned:

1. I screwed up my mash target by stopping the heat on the boil kettle after mashing in.  It was just so cold out that the heat was lost from the extra strike water too quickly.  I should have kept the kettle going up to a boil.  It's relatively easy to stir the mash to eliminate some heat if I overshoot so I should do things that way.
2. The propane tanks built up a layer of ice once they ran low and at that point the flame was reduced and the boil slowed down a lot.  I was able to unfreeze by sitting the one not in use by the burner but it's pretty risky thing to do.  I need to make sure that I always have a full tank waiting in the wings on brew day.
3. I keep all my equipment down in the basement which adds a good hour to each brewday in setup and cleanup.  I need to build myself a brewstand and setup a place in the garage (where I do my brewing) to keep my stuff.
4. When I do this next time I should start the cool down of the wort with a bit more volume than normal to compensate for the large amount of evaporation that took place.  I lost about 0.75 gal from natural evaporation.

Berliner Weisse - Tasting

I've been enjoying my Berliner Weisse for the last eight weeks or so.  It never really got any more than a little bit tart and the brett didn't really generate any funk the way I used it as a primary strain.  It has a very interesting set of flavors though and I don't really regret that it's not very sour.

It looked disgusting during fermentation but it turned into a very pretty beer.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• It has fruity, almost cider like, smell to it.  There is also maybe a hint of funky/cheezy/dirty sock smell lingering in the background.  No malt, hops, or alcohol to speak of.
• Appearance:
• It has a pretty good head with a strong pour (as seen in the picture) but it doesn't linger for long.  It has settled out to be very clear in the 2 months since bottling.  It's a very light colored beer and it almost has a pink hue to it - very strange looking but pretty.  Not sure how that happened.
• Flavor:
• Up front I get slight tartness mixed in with a bit of grainy/bready flavor.  The middle is a very subdued fruity yeast flavor (gets more pronounced as it warms).  The finish has a little bit of a bite to it with some sourness and maybe a bit of alcohol.  It's a very light beer, somewhat watery, and the flavors are all very subtle.
• Mouth-feel:
• It finishes very dry and is a pretty refreshing beer.  You want to take another sip pretty quickly after the first one.  It's pretty highly carbonated but I think it would have been nice to have been a little more carbonated.
• Overall:
• A very refreshing beer that is easy drinking with a pretty low ABV but that still has a fair amount of complexity.  A bit more sourness would have been nice but that actually could have detracted from that complexity.

I was really looking forward to brewing one of these.  I've gone through about 3/4 of my bottles of this batch so I'm thinking another one may not be many batches away.  I don't think I would use the White Labs 677 again though - it produces interesting flavors but I'm really looking for more lactic acid on the next one.

Brown Porter

I drank my last Oatmeal Stout last month and I've started to crave another dark beer.  I found what looks like a pretty nice recipe for a "Brown Porter" on homebrewtalk - Atonement Brown Porter.

My Oatmeal Stout had a pretty complicated grain bill which I realized sort of made it difficult to use the beer to learn more about the various malts.  This Brown Porter recipe has a very simple grain bill (3 malts) and will give me the opportunity to brew with some new ingredients.  In particular it has about 25% of the malt bill as Brown malt which, based on the descriptions, sounds like it will provide some very nice flavors.

It seems like the kind of grain bill I may want to return to at some point to make some minor tweaks - maybe even to use with Brett to try to duplicate the classic English aged porters.

I decided to try to improve my efficiency on this batch by slowing down the rate of draining the wort from the mash tun.  I would typically drain at the highest possible rate which may be causing channeling in the grain bed which could result in sugar being left behind.  It will be interesting to see if I get an efficiency bump doing to this way and if it will seem worth the extra time on the brewday.

Although it isn't a big beer the roast flavors will make for a nice beer for the cold weather as we move into Autumn.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 8 lbs Marris Otter
• 3 lbs Brown Malt (Briess Carabrown)
• 10 oz Black Malt
• Hops:
• 1.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 5.3% AA) at 60 min
• 0.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 5.3% AA) 0 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1028 London Ale
• Water:
• 12 gal Spring Water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal
• Mash:
• 152 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 90 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 64 F
• Primary Duration:
• 4 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.048 (Target 1.048)
• Efficiency:
• 69% (Target 69%)
• FG:
• 1.012 (Target 1.012)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 74% (Target 74%)
• ABV:
• 4.73% (Target 4.73%)

Brewing Notes:

• 10/16/14 - Built a yeast starter using 1 L of water and 3.6 oz of DME.  Put onto the stir plate and had good activity a few hours later.  Kept the starter in the basement at ~68 F.
• 10/18/14 - Brew day - 11:20 AM to 4:40 PM including setup and cleanup
• Brought 8 gal of spring water up to 187 F - took about 20 min
• Added brewing salts to the kettle
• Transferred 14 quarts of strike water into the mash tun using a measuring cup
• After 10 min the mash tun had settled to 177 F
• Added the grain all at once and then stirred it in - grain settled out at 160 to 165 F so I added 1 gal of cool spring water and stirred vigorously to get close to the target mash temp (the mash varied from 151 to 158 F but most samples seemed to be about 152 F)

• Gave the mash a stir at 15 min and checked the temperature which had mostly settled to 152 F
• Stirred again at 40 min to try to help conversion along
• Added 4 gal of mash out water, stirred, let settle for 5 min, vorlaufed, and then drained
• I drained at a reduced rate to try to improve efficiency - took 45 min to drain the mash tun

• I started to heat the wort after collecting about a gallon and quickly brought it to a boil.  So, I ended up boiling for a majority of the mash out period

• After I had collected 5 gal I added the bittering hops (about 40 min into mash out)
• Added 3 more gal of cool spring water to the mash, stirred, let settle for 5 min, vorlaufed and then drained slowly again - took about 30 min
• Ended up with 8 gal of wort
• Chilled my sample using coffee cups I had placed in the freezer.  I was able to chill the wort down to the 90s within a few minutes using this method

• Measured gravity as 1.032 at 90 F which is about 1.038.  This is 73% efficiency so I did not collect another batch sparge
• Once the boil volume got down to 6.5 gal I added the Irish Moss
• Once the volume got down to 6.25 gal (to account for expansion of the hot wort) I ended the boil and added the flameout hops
• Added the wort chiller to sanitize and let sit for 10 min
• Chilled the wort down to ground water temps (66 F) which took 25 min
• Transferred to fermentor - collected 6 gal

• Poured back and forth between fermentor and bottling bucket to aerate
• Pitched the entire starter, put the fermentor in the fermentation chamber at 64 F, and setup a blowoff tube as the fermentor is very full
• Measured gravity as 1.046 at 66 F which is 1.048 per the hydrometer calibration which was the target

• 10/19/14 - I had my previous batch (Rye Pale Ale) cold crashing batch in the fermentation chamber with the new batch and it turned out that it managed to chill the Brown Porter down to 56 F over night.  There wasn't any bubbling so I moved it out of the chamber to the 66 F basement to warm up a bit.  6 hours later the beer was bubbling vigorously.  After I bottled the previous batch I moved the Porter back into the fermentation chamber to keep it under control.
• 10/21/14 - The basement has been in the low 60s the last couple days and it cooled the beer down to 62 F.  The bubbling stopped for a bit.  Basement warmed back up into the high 60s later and the beer has warmed to the target temperature of 64 F and is bubbling slowly.
• 11/1/14 - Switched out the blowoff tube for an airlock.  It's pretty humid down in the basement and quite a bit of condensation has formed in the fermentation chamber.  This has also allowed some more black mold to grow - not so much on the fermentor itself but quite a bit on the chamber floor.  I left the chamber open to allow the beer to rise up to basement temps (65 F - 68 F).
• 11/12/14 - Cold crashed down to 35 F to drop the yeast
• 11/16/14 - Bottled this batch.  Ended up at 1.012 at 58 F which was the target.  I saved off 2 liters to try to culture some Brett for my next batch and ended up with ~5 gal.  I primed with 3.25 oz of dextrose to get 2.1 vol of CO2.  Ended up with 53 12 oz bottles.  The beer has a very nice chocolate/roast flavor and a subdued bitterness that makes for a pleasant balance.  This is the first batch I've hit my target OG and FG - pretty happy about that even though it was probably just dumb luck.
• 12/11/14 - Tasting Notes - Really nice dark beer.  The mild level of roast really makes it an easier drinking beer than most stouts I've had.  Nice combo of drinkability and flavor.
• 4/18/15 - Last one of these was consumed today.

Lessons Learned:

1. The slow sparge method may have improved my efficiency and didn't really increase the length of the brewday as I was able to boil while draining the mash tun.  I am going to do this again next time.

Flanders Red 1.1.1

I have been wanting to brew a Flanders Red ever since I tried Duchesse De Bourgogne which is a wonderfully complex sour beer.  It has a nice fruity flavor with some vinegar and a mild level of sourness.  It's also a pretty expensive beer ($20 per 4 pack) which prevents me from drinking it frequently.

I spent quite a bit of time researching the grain bill and found that many hombrewers end up using Pilsner, Munich, and Vienna along with some flaked wheat or corn and small amount of some Belgian specialty malts.  I believe these are all based on Jamil's Flanders Red.  I decided to go with that grain bill as well.

I am using Wyeast Roeselare Blend which I've heard is relatively low on sourness on the first batch but that it becomes more assertive for successive batches.  This is due to the lactic bacteria and Brett in the blend becoming more dominant and the brewers yeast playing less of a role.  To try to get a better first batch I decided to mash high and try to get the Alpha Amylase enzymes to break down the starches.  I found this nice diagram (from "How to Brew" which can be found here) that shows the optimal temperature and pH ranges for the enzymes:

Based on this chart I decided to mash at 158 F.  The grain bill has a lot of dark malts which would tend to drive the pH down so I used the Brun water spreadsheet to determine the salt additions necessary to get a pH of 5.4 with spring water in order to get better performance out of the Alpha Amylase.  Based on this assessment I determined that I would need to add a small amount of baking soda along with my normal additions of Calcium Chloride and Gypsum.

I plan on doing primary fermentation in a bucket for 3 months down in the basement (unless it gets too cold down there) and then transferring the beer to a better bottle to mature for another 15 months.  I will make another batch with the transfer to primary to continue to use the Roeselare Blend and allow myself some blending options down the road.

It's very exciting to finally be giving one of these a try.  I'm trying some new techniques with this batch - I have my fingers crossed that it turns out okay.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 4 lbs Pilsner (27%)
• 4 lbs Munich (27%)
• 3 lbs 8 oz Vienna (24%)
• 1 lb 8 oz Flaked Wheat (10%)
• 10 oz CaraMunich (4%)
• 10 oz Aromatic (4%)
• 10 oz Special B (4%)
• Hops:
• 1 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 5.0% AA) at 90 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 3763 Roeselare Ale Blend
• Water:
• 13 gal Spring water
• 5 g Calcium Chloride (2.3 Mash & 2.7 Boil)
• 3.5 g Gypsum (1.6 Mash & 1.9 Boil)
• 2.9 g Baking Soda (Mash Only)
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6.25 gal
• Mash:
• 158 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 90 min
• Fermentation Temp:
• 60 F - 75 F
• Primary Duration:
• 3 months
• Secondary Duration:
• TBD (15 to 33 months)

Results:

• OG:
• 1.056 (Target 1.062)
• Efficiency:
• 66% (Target 70%)
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.012)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 80%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 6.83%)

Brewing Notes:

• 10/10/14 Brew Day - 8:40 AM to 2:10 PM including setup and cleanup
• At the start of the day I took the yeast out of the fridge and popped the smack pack
• Heated 10 gal of spring water to 187 F (Assume the grain are at 60 F and a 15 F loss in temperature to the mash tun)
• Added the mash portions of the salts to the mash tun

• Added 18.6 quarts of water to the mash tun for a 1.25 quarts to pounds ratio.  I ran the water out my boil kettle's ball valve this time rather than transferring with my measuring cup.  Had to elevate the kettle and have the mash tun on the ground to do this.  It was a positive change but does require more lifting as I'll need the mash tun higher than the kettle to drain it.

• Let the mash tun temperature settle for 10 min - this time I'm targeting 173 F to plan for 15 degree loss during dough in to hit the 158 F mash temp
• Continued to heat the remaining 5.5 gal of water to allow temperature adjustment post dough in
• Added grain and stirred to eliminate dough balls .  I dumped all the grain in at the same time for this one and then stirred which was a lot quicker than adding a bit and stirring in.  I think I was just as effective in eliminating dough balls as well.
• The mash ended up at 155 F so I added another gal of 190 F water and stirred which brought the temperature up to between 158 F and 162 F depending on where in the mash I measured.  Decided to continue with this.
• Wrapped the mash tun in blankets to help insulate - it was ~50 F for most of the brewday
• Checked temperature after 30 min - still around 158 F to 162 F
• After 50 min I ran the starch conversion test - conversions is not complete

• Checked the pH of a chilled sample of wort using strips - measuring pH at ~5.0.  Was shooting for 5.4.  Added 1/8 tsp (~0.5 g) of baking soda to the mash to increase the pH.
• At 60 min the temperature of the mash was between 156 F and 162 F.
• Checked the pH again at 70 min - measured at 5.0 still
• Added ~1/8 tsp more of baking soda to the mash to try to increase the pH.
• At 90 min I checked the conversion and pH again.  Still 5.0 and conversion still hadn't completed.  I decided to just roll with it as I'm not 100% confident that I would expect to see full starch conversion at the 158 F mash temp.  The wort is sweet so there was some conversion.  The bugs should be able to work on starch so maybe starchy wort won't be a bad thing.  Still a bit disappointing for my first attempt to really understand water adjustments.
• Heated the strike water to 190 F
• Added 3 gal of the 190 F water to the mash tun which brought the mash temperature to 170 F
• Transferred the remaining hot water into another small pot
• Stirred the mash, let settle for 5 min, vorlaufed, and then drained.  
• Added the remaining hot water to the mash along with 3 more gal of spring water, stirred, let settle for 5 min, vorlaufed, and then drained.
• Collected 10 gal of wort.  Pulled a sample and put it into the freezer to chill.  Tried to increase rate of chilling by pouring the sample into several small glasses.  This time it took 15 min to chill to 85 F.  Measured the gravity of the wort as 1.030 at which is actually 1.035 at that temperature.  This is 66% efficiency.  So, I decided to continue without taking corrective action - if my volume measurements were correct then I should have about 1.058 OG which isn't too bad.
• While chilling the sample I brought the wort up to a boil - this took 20 min
• Added the boil portion of the brewing salts
• Let the hot break clear before adding the bittering hops

• Added the Irish moss with ~20 min left to go
• Ended the boil when the volume was at ~6.5 gal per the sight glass (this will hopefully compensate for the expansion in the hot liquid and leave me with 6 gal.
• Added the chiller at flame out.
• Chilled the wort down to 80 F and transferred to the fermentor
• Ended up with 6.25 gal of wort.  Measured the OG as 1.052 at 80 F which is 1.056 per my hydrometer calibration.  This is 66% efficiency.
• Pitched the yeast/bacteria blend and moved the fermenter down to the basement where it has been ~66 F
• It was a very rough brew day and at this point I'm not sure whether the beer is going to have enough easily fermentable sugar for the brewers yeast to bring the gravity down to the range it should or if the lactic bacteria and brett are going to be able to deal with the starch I gave them to eat.  I'm surprised I got the level of efficiency I did with the lack of conversion.  It seems like either starches factor into the gravity reading or that starch conversion test isn't accurate.  I am going to try to forget this beer for the next month until I check the gravity reading - that is going to be the first real evidence about what happened with the mash.  I'm kicking myself for adding that baking soda as well - it didn't increase the pH and it added sodium to the beer - I'm worried I'm going to taste it in the finished product.
• 10/11/14 - Airlock is bubbling vigorously the morning after pitching.  The fermentation is producing a very pleasant cider-like aroma.
• 11/7/14 - It has been about a month since I brewed this beer.  Checked the gravity which is down to 1.018 at 64 F.  This is what I was hoping for after primary.  There are quite a few gravity points left for the Brett and Lactic Acid Bacteria to do their thing. The fermentor is starting to develop a bubbly layer of film which I was careful not to disturb.  The beer has Rodenbach-like aroma at this point which is very pleasing - it has a tart/fruity smell.  It has a nice reddish brown color.  No real sourness has developed yet but I think I'm getting a tiny bit of acidity on the finish (although that could be my imagination).  I also think I may be getting a bit of baking soda flavor on the finish - tough to really say though as some sips I don't really get it.  It's already a fairly complex set of flavors.  Will be interesting to see how it evolves.  Next sample will be in 2 months when I transfer it to secondary.

• 11/8/14 - Airlock is bubbling again.  Not sure why this would be happening.  Some theories:  Off gassing, renewed brewers yeast fermentation due to additional oxygen becoming available or rousing when I was taking off the lid, or Brett fermentation.  Probably wont last too long.
• 11/9/14 - The airlock had stopped bubbling by the next morning.  Some small bugs have gotten into the airlock (ants maybe).  Looks like they crawled in from the outside fortunately as one is floating on top of the water - there are a few others at the bottom.
• 12/7/14 - The airlock is bubbling again - slowly.  I don't think this was any external stimuli that got it going again - I haven't touched that fermentor in a month and the temperature down in the basement is as cool as it's been all year (62 F).  The beer is in a new stage of fermentation I guess.
• 12/15/14 - Still bubbling slowly
• 1/11/15 - It has now been three months since I brewed this batch.  Transferred to a 6 gal glass carboy for secondary - made sure to take some of the cake with the beer during the transfer (not sure if that makes any difference).  Took a gravity sample and measured 1.012 so it has come down a bit (6 points) in the last 2 months but still has some room to come down further.  There was no more film but there were a few islands of white powdery substance which was probably pellicle.  It smells terrific - very fruity - more intense than last time.  It tastes a little funkier than it had been previously but still no real sourness.  I cleaned up the ring of krausen around the top and whirled around the yeast cake to get ready for the next batch.  I have covered the secondary with it's box for it's long aging to protect it from light.  I will plan on taking status on it every 3 months.

• 1/25/15 - Checked on the Flanders red after 2 weeks in the glass carboy.  A nice bubbly pellicle has formed.

• 3/14/15 - The pellicle has gotten a bit more bubbly in the last couple months:

• 4/11/15 - It has been 6 months since brewing this beer and it's spent the last 3 months in the glass carboy.  Measured the gravity as 1.006 so it has come down about 0.006 points in the last 3 months.  Still no real sourness has developed - quite a bit of funk in the flavor though.  It still has the nice fruity aroma from when was younger but I think it's faded a bit  It's still a really young beer from a souring standpoint so it could very well still sour up nicely.  I will check on it again in 3 months.

• 10/10/15 - It has been one year since I brewed this beer and 6 months since I took my last sample.  This has included the hot summer months.  I measured the gravity as 1.002.  Only a light pellicle covers the beer.  The sample is very clear and still has the great reddish brown color.  The aroma is slightly fruity with a musty tinge.  There may be a tiny bit of vinegar to the aroma - I check all my airlocks daily and there have been a few times where almost all the liquid had been sucked into the fermentor allowing free air exchange.  I personally like a bit of vinegar so I'm not too concerned if it goes a bit further in that direction.  The flavor is rich and complex.  It has nice funky fruitiness up front and it has developed a light acidity that lingers in the finish.  I can also definitely detect the baking soda I used to try to control the mash pH - very subtle but there.  I regret using it.  The mouthfeel is nice.  Even with the low gravity it seems to have a reasonably substantial body.  Overall I think this beer is aging nicely.  For now I will continue aging it - I'm thinking for 6 more months at a minimum.  I'm curious to see how the beer matures over time.  Ultimately I intend to blend it with one of my other beers.
• 7/23/17 - Status Report:
• Funky aroma with some fruit
• Orange/red and clear
• Lightly sour with a bit of Brett character.  Light fruit flavor.
• Fairly mild in flavor with not all that much complexity
• 9/4/17 - Used 3 gal of this batch for a blend of Cherry Flanders Red along with Flanders Red 1.3.2.  I moved the remainder of 1.3.2 into the fermenter with the remaining 1.1.1 beer.

• 12/16/18 - See latest Status Report

Lessons Learned:

1. My dry measure scale isn't precise to the fraction of a gram and may not even be accurate to the gram level.  I may have added less baking soda than I'd planned to the mash as a result.  Measuring by volume with a conversion to grams may have been a better approach.  Here is a good link to a table from "How to Brew" with a conversion from volume to grams.
2. Not measuring the mash pH at the start may have been a big mistake.  I may have stopped the Beta Amylase with the high temp mash and prevented the Alpha Amylase from doing it's job because the pH was too low.  This could explain why I didn't get good starch conversion even after mashing for 90 min.  I have test strips but I question their accuracy.  I need to invest in a digital pH meter.
3. I hated adding baking soda to the beer.  I really don't need extra sodium in my diet and the potential impact to the flavor of the beer is not good either.  I may have to try using pickling lime or chalk next time.
4. Hitting my mash temperature is a real pain and the tools I have at my disposal to course correct (especially when trying to hit such a high mash temp) are not very good.  Having more hot water available allowed me to get the mash from 155 F to 158 F but I'm wondering if I might have ended up stopping the enzymes with that 190 F water.  I have been researching the work necessary to put together a RIMS setup - this batch has started to convince me that it would be worth the effort - I don't want a repeat of this brewday.