Sour Blonde 1.3.1

It's been three months since brewing my previous sour blonde (1.2.1) so it's time to move it off the yeast cake and replace it with new beer.

I'll be keeping the same grain bill for this this round which is 2/3 Pilsner and 1/3 Flaked Wheat and shooting for an OG of 1.055.  I haven't managed to hit that mark so far but I'm okay with that.

I will be trying a new mash schedule on this batch to, hopefully, better approximate the wort produced in a turbid mash.  This will be a 15 min mash at 160 F following by a mash out with boiling water to halt conversion.  Hopefully this will leave me with a really starchy wort which will leave a lot of food for the brett over the long aging period.  The previous two beers are too young to give me that much insight into the impacts of these various process choices so I'm just going to try a variety of techniques and see what produces the best beer down the road.

It's getting pretty warm here so I'm going to skip the attempt to collect wild microbes.  I'm also going to sparge with less water this time - I don't think I am getting that much value from the long boil for this beer.

This will be my first beer with a new false bottom cooler mash tun.  This mash tun will be part of a RIMS/fly sparge system which I'm getting pretty close to finishing.  I'm excited to try out the false bottom.  Hoping it works well for me.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 9 lbs Pilsner Malt
• 4 lbs 8 oz Flaked Wheat
• 5 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 0.5 Kent Golding (Pellet, 6.3% AA) at 60 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend (Third Pitch)
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6.25 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 161 F for 15 min (Target 160 F for 15 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• Ambient Basement Temps (62 F to 75 F)
• Primary Duration:
• 3 months
• Secondary Duration:
• TBD (15 to 33 months)

Results:

• OG:
• 1.032 (Target 1.055)
• Efficiency:
• 43% (Target 68%)
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.006)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 89%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 4.43%)

Brewing Notes:

• 5/10/15 - Brew day - 12:30 PM to 3:30 PM- Including setup and cleanup
• Heated entire 10 gal of water up to boiling - Took 40 min
• Added CaCl to the mash tun
• Once the water got up to strike water temp of 180 F transferred 22 qt to the mash tun
• Let the mash tun settle for 10 min - ended up at 160 F.  I drained the water back into the kettle and heated up to 195 F and then transferred again.  Settled at 180 F this time.  I stirred until it got to 175 F
• Added the grain and stirred to eliminate dough balls
• After 5 min the temp was at 161 F
• After 15 min added the remaining 4.5 gal of boiling water to the mash - brought temp up to 185 F
• Stirred and drained mash tun without a vorlauf - drained at full speed

• Collected 8 gal of wort
• Brought to a boil - took 15 min
• Added the hops after the hot break cleared
• Added the irish moss at 6.5 gal
• Stopped the boil at 6.25 gal to account for expansion of the hot liquid
• Added the chiller to sanitize at flameout
• Chilled which took 12 min
• Transferred onto the yeast cake.  Allowed the break material to transfer but left most of the hops.  Ended up filling the fermentor very close to the top.  I could be in trouble if this is a vigorous fermentation.
• Collected 6.25 gal
• Moved down to the basement to ferment
• 5/16/15 - The beer started bubbling the day after and kept going for a couple days.  I ended up having to pull the airlock out of the fermentor once as foam was being pushed into it a bit.  It wasn't a very vigorous fermentation fortunately and now I'm in the clear hopefully.
• 8/8/15 - Transferred this beer to a glass carboy for long term aging and to reuse the cake for Sour Blonde 1.4.1.  I took more of the yeast cake on the transfer than I usually do to try to give Brett a bit more dead yeast to chew on.  No pellicle.  Measured the gravity as 1.002.  It's interesting that it dropped so much lower than the previous two - I wonder if this is due to the heat or to some change in the yeast cake.  Only time will tell.   The beer had a very funky smell and a bready and fruity flavor.  No real sourness has developed so far with this one.  I'm going to try aging this one with a vented silicone bung rather than the three piece airlock I have been using with my other sours.

• 10/10/15 - The beer quickly formed a fairly substantial pellicle which is still hanging out.  I'm thinking this is due to my use of the silicone bung rather than an airlock.  I will try this beer after 3 months to see if there is any corresponding flavor impact associated with it as well.

• 10/20/17 - Status Report:
• Pronounced sulfur aroma both in fermenter and glass.  Also get overripe fruit.  Get a bit of spicy yeast as well as some malt
• Light gold and very clear
• Light tartness along with a bit of fruit - citrus maybe.  Also get a bit of earthy funk.  Bready malt comes through on the finish
• Nice range of flavors give the beer reasonable complexity.  Fairly mild taste
• 12/2/17 - Topped off with 0.5 gal of lacto soured 1.020 beer.  I will use this beer for blending - I'm hoping that this extra beer increases the tartness and complexity somewhat to increase its interest as a blending component.
• 5/25/18 - Status Report:
• Funky/musty brett character dominates the aroma. Has a bit of cider character and some sulfur smell as well.
• Straw yellow and a bit murky.
• A bit of a musty flavor initially and finishes with a slight tartness. Get sort of a mineral flavor as well.
• Light bodied and pretty dry. Smooth drinking
• Very mild in flavor and not very complex
• 6/3/18 -  Used 1 gal of this beer in a Cherry Sour Blonde blend
• 10/13/18 - Added a 1 oz oak stick that had aged in Chardonnay and then my Plain Sour blond blend.
• 8/24/19 - Status Report:
• Aroma:  Light, cheesy, funk and a bit of overripe fruit.  Also some mineral
• Appearance:  Straw colored and very clear
• Flavor:  Only the faintest sourness has developed.  Light malt flavor with a bit of funk.  It has a slight bitterness.
• Mouthfeel:  Light bodied and pretty dry.  Smooth drinking
• Overall:  Light flavors with little complexity

Lessons Learned:

1. This mashing plan didn't work out so well for me.  I must not have gotten the unconverted starches into suspension.  Doing the single batch probably was a major contributor to this.  I think the RIMS setup could have made this a bit easier as I could raise the mash temp up to a good mashout temperature using this which could have helped get the starches into suspension due to the higher heat.
2. The mash tun absorbed a lot more heat than expected due to having a large number of glass marbles filling the dead space under the false bottom.  My projected heat loss was way off.  The RIMS setup would have made this much easier too as I could just cycle it until the temperature of everything evens out.