Sour Blonde 1.5.1

It's been a bit over three months since I brewed my last Sour Blonde (1.4.1).  That beer quickly fermented down to 1.004 and had a pretty strong alcohol bite.  I've decided to try an new recipe using this yeast cake with lower ABV and with an attempt to put some barriers in place to prevents such quick fermentation.

Like with my recent Flanders Reds I will be doing a primary first with ale yeast with a gallon pulled off for lacto fermentation.  I will also be doing a Cereal Mash that I will try to prevent from converting by raising the main mash temps out of the conversion range (to 175 F) prior to adding the cereal.  As is traditional with the Belgian Lambic, I will be using raw wheat for this Cereal mash.  Finally, I am going to add 5 points of Maltodextrine to give the LAB and Brett a bit more food in secondary.  Hopefully this will allow me to finish primary in the high teens to low 20s.

I have scaled down the grain bill to give me an OG of about 1.045.  If the beer ends up attenuating down to the low 1.000s I should still end up with a 5% beer.  I think this will be nice to cut down the alcohol from my bigger earlier beers when blending.

My previous recipes all used hops.  I am doing away with them for this beer as the bitterness would all age out anyway and I think they likely inhibited some of the souring microbes in my earlier beers (they would certainly inhibit the lacto portion).  I'm not going to try to capture any wild microbes for the main batch this time (even though it's cold enough out to keep undesirable microbes at bay) so I wont need the hops to protect the beer.

Finally, I am going to oak this batch which is something I hadn't done for the previous Sour Blonds.  I had held off in the past as oak character isn't traditional in Belgian Lambic as the oak barrels they use are typically pretty much spent of oak character.  I think a bit of oak in a few of the batches could add a nice dimension to the flavor though so I'm going to give this a shot.

Raw Wheat

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 5 lbs Pilsner Malt
• 3 lbs White Wheat
• 12 oz Maltodextrine
• 4 oz Acid Malt
• Cereal Mash (Not factored into efficiency calculations)
• 2 lbs Raw Wheat
• 6 oz Maris Otter
• Hops:
• None
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II (Second Pitch)
• WLP 672 Lactobacillus Brevis (Fifth Pitch)
• Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend (Fifth Pitch)
• Water:
• 10 gal Spring Water
• 6.5 gal Tap Water
• Extras:
• 5 handfulls of rice hulls
• 1 oz Medium Toast Hungarian Oak Cubes

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• Step 1:  163 F for 45 min (Target 160 F for 45 min)
• Step 2:  Ramped up to 175 F in 25 min (Target ramp up to 175 in 25 min)
• Boil:
• 2 hrs (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• Primary:  70 F
• Secondary:  60 F to 70 F (Ambient Basement temps)
• Primary Duration:
• With Yeast:  4 weeks
• With Lactobacillus:  2 Weeks
• With Lambic Blend:  3 Months
• Secondary Duration:
• TBD (15 to 33 months)

Results:

• OG:
• 1.045 (Target 1.045 - with 5 points from Maltodextrine)
• Efficiency:
• 77% (Target 77% - Not including cereal mash)
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.002)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 95%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 5.64%)

Brewing Notes:

• 11/22/15 - Brewday - 12:15 PM to 5:30 PM Including Setup and Cleanup:
• Adjusted my grain mill a bit finer than normal to crush the raw wheat.  Ran it twice to get a good crush.
• Heated 10 gal up in the HLT and cycled through the Mash Tun and RIMs until the system was at 175 F - took 45 min
• Ended up with 3 gal above the false bottom and 6.0 gal in the system
• Added rice hulls, CaCl, Gypsum, and Acid Malt to the mash tun
• Doughed in the grain and stirred to eliminate doughballs
• Cycled at 2 qt per min with the RIMS set to 165 F
• Checked the mash temp as 161 F after 10 min - close enough
• Heated up 2.5 gal of Cereal Mash tap water water to 175 F
• Added the Cereal Grain, stirred in, and let sit for 10 min
• Cereal mash was 160 F after 10 min.  Heated to a boil.  Stirred frequently.  Killed the flame once it was to a boil and let it sit covered

• Added 4 gal of water for sparge and brought 6 gal up to 200 F
• After 45 min the main mash was 163 F.  Raised the RIMS to 175 F for mash out - took 25 min
• Cereal mash was down to 185 F.  Brought it to a boil.
• Added the cereal mash to the main mash tun and cycled for 5 more min.  This raised the mash tun to 190 F.  I ended up getting a stuck mash during the 5 min cycle.

• Fly sparged at ~1 gal per 5 min or so.  Ended up having to stir frequently to avoid stuck sparge.
• Sparge ended after 30 min
• Ended up collecting 9.5 gal of very cloudy wort.  Gravity at the grant was 1 brix (1.009)
• Started heating up the kettle after collecting 3 gal.  The beer was at a boil about 10 min after the fly sparge.
• Took my yeast out of the fridge half way through the boil and decanted out the spent beer.
• With about 5 min left into the boil I added the Maltodextrine and stirred it into the wort
• Added the chiller at flameout to sanitize.
• Cooled down the beer to 90 F and then pulled 1 gal for the lacto
• Chilled down to 70 F and transferred into the fermentor.

• Collected 6 gal of beer.  Measured the gravity as 1.045 which was right on target.  The wort is very mellow.  It is barely sweet at all but it is very thick.  I think it should give a lot of food for the Brett and LAB.
• Moved the wort to the fermentation chamber to keep it around 70 F.
• Added the yeast once it warmed up to about 70 F.
• 11/23/15 - Both the main fermentor and the lacto portion were bubbling this morning.
• 11/26/15 - Moved the beer out of the temperature controlled fermentation chamber
• 12/19/15 - The beer has developed a slight pellicle somehow - I've used this fermenter for sour batches previously - probably didn't clean it well enough.  There is a slight sourness to the beer.  Measured the gravity as 1.026 which is pretty much what I was hoping for.  Added the 1 gal of beer soured with lacto (it is very sour).  Added a couple litres of malt extract wort to the remaining lacto to keep the culture going.

• 1/2/16 - Transferred onto the yeast cake from the previous batch (1.4.1).  Added the 1 oz of oak during the transfer (didn't do anything to rinse or sanitize the oak cubes).  Measured the gravity as 1.020 which is down a bit from last time.  It still has the film from when I transferred before.  The fermenter had a sulphur smell to it which I don't recall smelling any of these beers so far.  The beer has a pretty assertive level of sourness - lacto must have been able to do a bit more work since adding it to the main batch.  The wort is very cloudy still - I think the Brett and LAB will have a lot to work with on this batch.  I will check on it again in 3 months
• 10/20/17 - Status Report:
• Overripe fruit along with earthy and cheesy funk.  Very pungent aroma.  Also get a good amount of vanilla and oak.  By far the best smelling of the group
• Gold and a bit cloudy
• Quite sour.  Light fruit flavor.  Bready malt in the finish.  Also get a slight bit of earthy funk.  Maybe also gat a bit of oak in the finish
• Fair amount of complexity and some nice bold flavors
• 12/2/17 - Added 1 gal of 1.020 lacto soured beer to this batch to give the microbes a bit more to work on
• 5/25/18 - Status Report:
• Strong funky and earthy aroma.  Quite musty actually.  Has kind of an overripe fruit smell.  Get a bit of malt coming through faintly.
• Orange and quite cloudy
• Fruity with a pretty pronounced sourness.  Fruit is overripe peach maybe.  Finishes with quite a bit of bready malt.  There is a bit of funk mixed in
• Medium-light bodied and pretty dry.  The acidity in the beer is prickling
• Bold flavor and a pretty satisfying sourness.  The malt in the finish is interesting but the beer isn't all that complex really.
• 6/3/18
• Used 0.5 gal of this beer in a Sour Blond Blend with Raspberries.
• Decided to transfer this beer into a glass carboy (Fermenter #1) along with 1 gal of Sour Blonde 1.1.1 - left most of the yeast cake behind.  This will free the cake to be used to age Sour Blonde 1.6.1.  I am going to add another piece of oak to the bucket fermenter (I'm now calling this Fermenter #7) as well as to the glass carboy.

• 8/24/19 - Status Report:
• Aroma:  Earthy with a mineral character.  Slightly wine like aroma as well
• Appearance:  Light gold and slightly hazy
• Flavor:  Lightly sour with a lemon-like character.  Also get a bit of mineral flavor and bit of earthy funk
• Mouthfeel:  Light-medium bodied.  Fairly dry.  Pretty smooth - no real prickliness.
• Overall:  The flavors are pretty bold - particularly the lemon like sourness.  Not all that complex as the supporting flavors are fairly far in the background.

Lessons Learned:

1. I've gotten a pretty bad stuck mash with the starchy wort for my Flanders and now the Sour Blond.  I think the BIAB I've been using with the Mash Tun might be a little two fine.  I'm thinking I might try just using the false bottom without any extra filtration.  I'm currently using marble to fill the dead space under the false bottom (~2 gal).  This makes cleanup a nightmare as the grain sticks to the marbles.  I need to find an alternate way of filling up the dead space.