Flanders Red 1.5.1

This will be my fifth batch of Flanders Red from my original yeast cake.  It will be pitched onto the cake previously used for Flanders Red 1.4.1.  This beer will be undergoing a primary fermentation with brewers yeast and lacto for a month prior to going onto the Roeselare cake.  I'd really like to get this primary first approach down to a science as I think this pre-fermented beer would be better for topping off my existing batches as well as for blending purposes.  It would also give me a bit more control of the amount of sugar going to the souring microbes if I could be confident about hitting a particular SG after primary.  My first couple attempts fermented down a bit further than I was hoping (would like to see it at ~1.015 after primary).  I am going to keep attempting this.

I tried a modified malt bill with Flanders Red 2.1.1 that I am going to further tweak for this batch.  I'm going with the cereal mash of Corn Grits again to try to get a starchier wort.  This time I am going to do the cereal mash in my kettle while doing the mash so that I can be on hand to stir it and so that I don't make another mess of the kitchen.  I am also going to increase the mash temperature to 175 F prior to adding the cereal mash to the main mash to try to prevent conversion of the corn starches.  Once again, I am going to assume no gravity contribution from the cereal mash which I'm sure will not be the case.  I am going to use rice hulls again as the corn grits are kind of a slimy gummy mess that could hurt the flow through the grain bed.

For the last batch I tried to approximate the malt complexity I'd been getting from the Munich and Vienna using Victory malt.  From the few tastes I had of the wort it seemed a little too crackery with this in the mix.  For this batch I've decided to go back to using a bit of Munich instead.

The malt bill, overall, has been cut back quite a bit.  I'd been targeting an OG of 1.062 which, if I'd ever hit it, would have produced a beer of nearly 8% ABV given the super high attenuation I've been getting.  This is a bit higher than I'd like.  So, I'm going to try to bring this been in around 1.045.  Additionally, I will be getting 5 of those gravity points from Maltodextrin which is a carbohydrate powder that yeast can not break down but the lactic acid bacteria can.  This feels a bit like cheating so I may not make this a permanent part of my process.  I was too curious to see what it would do to hold off on it though - will be very interesting to see how this impact the attenuation of the primary yeast.

I had planned on re-using the primary yeast from 1.4.1 but decided against it as it had the lacto and possibly some other microbes in it.  I was worried that this could impact the attenuation of the primary.  I picked up another Belgian yeast (Wyeast Abbey Ale 2) to do primary for this round.  I am going to try hard to maintain this as a clean strain for later re-use.

I am also going to primary ferment a gallon of the batch with lacto as I did with Flanders Red 1.4.2 (which I'd saved the lacto from).  This lacto strain (Brevis) produces a wonderful fruity (apple juice like) sourness that I think is assertive enough for 1 of 6 gal to contribute a reasonable level of sourness to the overall batch.  I will give this a couple weeks by itself before adding to the main batch.  I really like this approach to the lacto souring as it seems like it will give a lot more control than you'd get by pitching the lacto into the main batch and then waiting a couple days to pitch the primary yeast.  This also allows me to ferment the lacto up in the bedrooms where it's a bit warmer than the basement.

Finally, I am going to add more oak cubes to the beer when I transfer over to the Roeselare cake.  This will up it to 2 oz of cubes.  I have been soaking the cubes in Port wine for about 3 months now for this beer.  The port wine has a nice sweetness than I think will compliment the beer nicely.  I am going to continue to add oak over the next few batches with the goal of inoculating enough to perform the long term aging/souring without the Roeselare cake to more closely match the Rodenbach process.  Probably want to have at least 6 oz of cubes for this so it's going to be a few more batches before I can try it.

Recipe Details

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 4 lbs 2 Row
• 3 lbs Dark Munich
• 12 oz Caramunich III
• 12 oz Aromatic Malt
• 12 oz Special B
• 12 oz Maltodextrin (Not Factored into Efficiency Calculations - 5 gravity points)
• Cereal Mash (Not Factored into Efficiency Calculations):
• 1 lb 8 oz Corn Grits
• 6 oz 2 Row
• Hops:
• None
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II
• WLP 672 Lactobacillus Brevis (Second Pitch)
• Wyeast 3763 Roeselare Ale Blend (Fifth Pitch)
• Water:
• 10 gal Spring Water
• 5 gal tap water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• Extras:
• 1 oz Oak Cubes (from previous batch)
• 1 oz Port Soaked Oak Cubes
• 8 oz Rice Hulls in Mash

Batch Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6.25 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• Step 1:  160 F for 45 min (Target 160 F for 45 min)
• Step 2:  Ramp up to 175 F over 20 min (Target Ramped up to 175 F in 15 min) 
• Boil:
• 60 min(Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• 60 F to 75 F (Ambient Basement Temps)
• Primary Duration:
• With Yeast and Lacto:
• 1 Month
• With Roeselare:
• 3 Months
• Secondary Duration:
• TBD (15 to 33 Months)

Results:

• OG:
• 1.049 (Target 1.045 - with 5 points from Maltodextrin)
• Efficiency:
• 85% (Target 72% - Does not factor in the Cereal mash which I don't want converted)
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.004)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 91%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 5.38)

Brewing Notes:

• 9/17/15 - Prepared a yeast starter with 5.75 oz of DME in 1.2 liters of water.  Included 1/8 tsp of yeast nutrient.  Set it up on a stir plate to propagate.  Also took my jar of lacto out of the fridge to warm up - I had crashed this jar part way through fermentation so there is probably a bit more food for it once it warms up.

• 9/18/15 - Brewday - 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM - Including setup and Cleanup
• Heated 10 gal of spring water up to 165 F.  Cycled through the Mash Tun and RIMS until everything was up to temp - took 45 min
• Ended up with 4 gal above the false bottom and 6.5 gal in the system total
• Set the RIMS up on a cycle of ~2 qt per minute at 165 F
• Added the CaCl and Gypsum to the Tun
• Added the grain and rice hulls and stirred to eliminate dough balls
• Added 2 gal of 200 F water to the kettle for the cereal mash
• Added the corn grits to the kettle - this dropped the temperature to 168 F
• Added the 2 row which brought the temp down to 160 F
• Let the cereal mash sit for 10 min to start conversion
• Checked the main mash after 10 min - temp ranged from 157 F to 162 F.  Gave the mash a stir to help even out
• Brought the cereal mash up to a boil - took 5 min
• Stirred the cereal mash every 5 min or so to prevent scorching.  A white gelatinous membrane formed about halfway through the ~45 min mash.
• Brought 6.5 gal of sparge water to a boil
• Stirred the main mash after 30 min - temp was 163 F.  Lowered the RIMS to 162 F
• Gave the mash a final stir at 45 min - was about 160 F at that point.  Raised the RIMS to 185 F to help ramp the mash up to 175 F - Ended up taking 25 min
• Drained the grant to the main mash and added 1 gal of sparge water up front to provide a layer of water over the grain bed.
• Poured the cereal mash into the main mash and stirred it in.  It was very starchy and slimy - probably had about a gal of cereal mash due to absorption and evaporation.  It left a lot of residue in the boil kettle which I decided not to clean off as it seems like it would be adding some extra starch to the wort.

• Sparged at about 1 gal every 5 min
• Started heating the kettle after collecting 3 gal of wort
• The wort was running very clear which surprised me given the corn grits.  Stirred the mash a couple times during the sparge to try to get a bit more starch into suspension.  The wort was very cloudy as a result of this.
• Gravity was down to 3.8 brix (1.015) after collecting 8 gal.  Sparge ended up taking 30 min.  Wort was right on the verge of a boil the whole time.  Was boiling vigorously after 5 more min.
• Added the Maltodextrin with about 20 min left in the boil.
• Added the wort chiller with about 5 min left in the boil
• Chilled down to 70 F
• Drained off ~0.75 gal onto the lacto once the wort was down to 80 F
• Drained the remainder to the fermentor once it was at 70 F.  Wort dropped a couple feet to aerate.  Collected about 5.5 gal in the fermentor for ~6.25 gal total.
• Measured gravity as 12.2 brix which is 1.049
• Moved the fermentor down to the basement and the lacto up to the bedroom
• 9/20/15 - The fermentor had started bubbling pretty vigorously about 6 hrs after pitching the yeast.  It had stopped bubbling a few days later.  The lacto part had also been very active for the first couple days but it seems to have slowed down a lot and maybe stopped by this afternoon.
• 10/3/15 - Combined the 1 gal portion with lacto into the main primary fermentor.  Both portions have fermented down to 1.020.  The lacto portion has developed a nice clean sourness.  The clean portion has a slight fruitiness from the yeast.  Neither portion is sweet and they are both medium bodied.  They're a really muddy brown - this is a really starchy wort.  I will give these two weeks more before transferring them onto the Roeselare cake.  I added half a gal of DME based wort to the dregs of the lacto half and I pulled off some yeasty wort from the clean half into two mason jars to keep the yeast going for re-use on my next batch.
• 10/25/15 - Transferred this beer onto the yeast cake freed by Flanders 1.4.1.  I tried to transfer very gently with my auto-siphon to minimize introduction of oxygen.  The beer has developed a thick layer of krausen since adding the lacto soured gal back into the mix.  Measured the gravity of the beer as 1.020 which is good.  I don't really detect any sourness to the beer even though the 1 gal of lacto portion was fairly sour - just too diluted by the other 5 gal.  It is a muddy brown still.  I added 1 oz of Port Soaked oak cubes to the mix during the transfer.

• 2/19/16 - Finally got around to transferring this beer to a glass carboy with a vented silicon stopper for long term aging.  The beer had a bubbly pellicle and a fairly pungent and funky aroma.  I measured the gravity as 1.004 so even the corn and Maltodextrine can't stop these microbes from taking a beer low.  The beer is still very cloudy and it is a light brown color rather than red.  It has very firm sourness and a fairly assertive brett funk character.  It is missing the fruity complexity that most of the other beers aged on this cake have ended up with at this stage.  That was one of the most pleasant aspects of these beers and I'm disappointed that it's missing from this one.  It will be interesting to see if those flavors come through during the aging period.  Can't say I really get any oak or port character from the cubes I added to this batch which is a bit surprising.  This yeast cake will be used for the "A" half of Flanders 1.6.1 and I will also be pulling some of the inoculated oak cubes to age with Flanders 3.1.1.

• 7/23/17 - Status Report:
• Funky aroma - pretty rich - with a bit of fruit
• Orange/red in color and a bit cloudy
• Light sourness.  A bit of earth flavor.  Also get a bit of malt on the finish.
• Mild flavored with a fair bit of complexity.  Pleasant but not that exciting

Lessons Learned:

1. Cereal mashing was messy in the boil kettle.  May be worth getting a 5 gal pot to use with my turkey fryer.  This would probably help with the scorching a bit as well as the big pot had a lot of surface area with such a small volume.
2. I am tired of my immersion chiller.  It's in the way out in the garage and lifting it out of the wort sucks.  I'm thinking a plate chiller should be my next purchase.  This will, of course, create it's own extra work due to extra items to sanitize but I'm thinking it will be a net benefit.