Flanders Red 3.1.1

I have decided to make yet another Flanders Red Ale. 

Back in November I was amazed to see that a local brewpub had gotten ahold of some Rodenbach Foederbier which is unfiltered and unpasteurized Flanders Red.  I figured I would have to go to Belgium to ever try it.  It was very good.  Maybe a bit less sour than the Grand Cru but probably a bit more complex.

Normal Rodenbach is filtered so harvesting their dregs is a no go.  Having access to this unfiltered Foederbier provided a rare opportunity to potentially get ahold of Rodenbach's real microbes (Roeselare is an attempt to recreate Rodenbach's culture).  I brought along a small Gatorade bottle filled with DME based wort and managed to transfer ~4 oz of Foederbier into it for transit back home.  I then transferred this whole thing into a flask with about 1.6 litres of wort and let it age at 70 F.  After a couple weeks it started to develop a thin stringy pellicle:

I have now been aging this culture for almost two months.  I haven't tasted it yet but it smells very nice (fruity and very tart).  It is high time to give it more to eat (this time in the form of a rich starchy batch of beer).

I will brew up another 12 gal batch of this beer following the same basic process and same grainbill I did last time.  I will be aging half of the beer in a glass carboy (version A) and the other half in a bucket (version B).

I've debated with myself on this but I have decided to throw in some of the oak cubes that have been aging with the Roeselare blend.  I am thinking 5 cubes per 6 gal .  This will likely reduce the contribution from the Rodenbach microbes a bit, which is an argument against this action, but I'm a little worried that the relatively small number of microbes I have available to me might not get the job done.  The oak will give me a bit of biodiversity and ensure that there is some known good culture in the mix.

This will be the first batch to have its souring performed by a relatively small portions of microbes.  With my previous batches (excluding Flanders Red 1.1.1) I have gotten large gravity drops in the first three months with the souring microbes.  I've wondered if this quick drop might not be giving all the microbes a chance to proliferate and still have food supply.  As I continue to pitch onto the same yeast cakes it could be that I am causing the balance of microbes to shift more and more in a certain direction.  With this relatively small number of microbes (compared with pitching onto a yeast cake) I would expect the pace of the fermentation to slow down and that I might get some different flavors than I have been achieving with my Flanders 1.x.x beers.

Ultimately, I would like to get to a cycle where I am topping off existing good beers with more fresh beer and allowing those good microbes to stay well fed and happy.  This seems like it could give me more control over the results than I currently have (assuming that the beer topped up on a good batch will continue to display those pleasing characteristics).  More and more, pitching onto the same cake repeatedly seems like a bit of a crap shoot (not that any of the results have been bad so far).  This beer, with the oak based microbes, seems like the first step down the path of getting a better handle on the process.

Some minor process changes: 

I brewed up a 12 gal batch of this beer last week (Flanders Red 1.6.1) and the 6 hr brewday killed me.  I decided to try to shorten it by adding a couple pounds of base malt and skipping the normal fly sparge - basically doing a full volume mash.  This was a rough estimate without my normal efficiency calculations to guide me.

To try to avoid the full kettle/hot break problem I decided to collect less volume of wort and then top off up to 12 gal once the boil completed.  I didn't do any calculation for grain absorption so this was going to be a bit of a guessing game.

So, in essence, I decided I didn't really care about the gravity numbers for this batch and would just let it ride.

We had a ferocious snowstorm the day before the brewday and I was strongly debating waiting until next week as I had a lot of shoveling to do (and some football to watch) but my excitement at the chance of using the Rodenbach dregs compelled me to press on with it.  I may need a few weeks off from brewing after this.  We will see.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 10 lb Maris Otter
• 6 lb Munich
• 1 lb 8 oz CaraMunich II
• 1 lb 8 oz Aromatic Malt
• 1 lb 8 oz Special B
• 2 oz Acid Malt
• 1 lb 8 oz Maltodextrine (Not factored into efficiency calculations)
• 3 lb Corn Grits (Cereal Mashed - Not factored into efficiency calculations)
• Hops:
• None
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II (Fourth Pitch)
• WLP 672 Lactobacillus Brevis (Seventh Pitch)
• Rodenbach Culture
• Oak Cubes with Roeselare Culture
• Water:
• 11 gal Spring Water
• 4 gal melted snow
• 5 gal tap water
• 2 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 2 tsp Gypsum
• Extras:
• 1 lb rice hulls

Batch Details:

• Batch Size:
• 12.5 gal (Target 12 gal)
• Mash:
• Step 1:  165 F for 45 min (Target 160 F for 45 min)
• Step 2:  Ramped up to 175 F in 15 min (Target Ramp up to 175 F in 45 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• Primary:  70 F
• Secondary:  60 to 70 F (Ambient Basement Temps)
• Primary Duration:
• With Yeast:  4 weeks
• Lacto Portion:  2 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• TBD (18 to 36 months)

Results:

• OG:
• 1.045 (Target 1.045) - with 5 points from Maltodextrine
• Efficiency:
• 66% (Target 62%)
• FG:
• TBD (1.004)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 91%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 5.38%)

Brewing Notes:

• Rodenbach Culture:
• 11/21/15 - Captured 4 oz of Rodenbach Foederbier in 1.6 litres of DME based wort and added to a temperature controlled fermentation chamber set to 70 F
• 12/4/15 - The culture was mostly still for a while but it has now developed a very thin pellicle
• 1/2/16 - The pellicle has thickened up significantly and has a stringy appearance.  The beer has developed a very nice fruity and tart aroma.  Switched from a foil cover to a stopper and airlock.  I have moved it out of the temp controlled fermentation chamber.
• 1/23/16 - The pellicle has developed some big bubbles over time and started to break up a little bit.
• 2/14/16 - The pellicle has thinned a bit and now has some big bubbles.  I tasted a tiny bit.  It was very tart and seemed a bit viscus like it might be going through the ropy phase due to the pedio (something I haven't experienced so far).  May have also had a bit of buttery diacetyl flavor.

• 1/24/16 - Brewday - 8:20 AM to 1:00 PM - Including setup and partial cleanup
• Brought 5 gal of spring water and 4 gal of melted snow based water to a boil
• Added all 9 gal to the mash tun - ended up with 5.5 gal above the false bottom
• Added the rice hulls, CaCl and Gypsum
• Added the grain and stirred well to eliminate dough balls - it was a very thick mash
• Set the RIMS at 165 F and circulated at about 2 qt per minute
• Added 3 lb of corn grits to about 4 gal of tap water and brought to a boil for the cereal mash.  Stirred frequently but still managed to scorch the corn onto the bottom of the pot.  Once it reached a boil I put the lid on and let sit until the end of the mash
• Brought another 8 gal of spring water up to around a boil
• After 45 min I added 3 more gal of near boiling spring water to the mash and then upped the RIMS temp to 185 F in order to raise the mash to 175 F.  The boiling spring water helped a lot - got up to 175 in about 15 min this time.
• Added the cereal mash.  Had to do it in stages as I drained the mash as it was on the verge of overflowing
• Drained to the boil kettle quickly - did not end up fly sparging as I normally would
• Started heating the kettle during the drain.  With the corn grits the mash turned to cement on me again (even with the lb of rice hulls).  Had to stir a few times to free it up.  Was just about to a boil once I'd finished collecting wort
• The gravity at the grant was 9 brix (1.035) so there was likely a lot of sugar left in the mash
• Collected about 12 gal of pre-boil volume.
• Boiled for 60 min.  Got a few minor boil overs during this period

• With 5 min left I added the Maltodextrine.  Had a pretty vicious boil over after this.
• Ended up with about 10 gal post boil.  Added 2 more gal of near boiling spring water to get back to the target volume.  Overshot and ended up with 12.5 gal
• Added the wort chiller at flameout to sanitize
• Pulled off some yeast cake from my Flanders 1.6.1 batches with an auto siphon

• Chilled down to 90 F before pulling off a couple gal for the lacto to sour.  Wrapped these in a towel down in the basement to maintain their temps.
• Chilled down to 80 F before transferring onto the yeast cakes.  Transferred a little bit a time into each fermentor to try to get equivalent amounts of trub.

• Measured the gravity as 1.045
• Moved the fermenters to a 70 F to ferment out.
• 1/25/16 - Had good activity from both the main fermenters as well as the lacto portions by the next morning.
• 2/7/16 - Moved this beer out of the fermentation chamber into ambient basement temps
• 2/10/16 - Transferred the lacto souring gals of beer into the bucket fermenters.  The beer in one of the bucket fermenters had started to form a pellicle.  Both had slightly sour aromas.
• 2/19/16 - Transferred half the batch to a glass carboy with a vented silicon stopper - this is the "A" portion.  Measured the gravity as 1.020.  The beer had a bubbly pellicle.  It is a muddy brown and very cloudy.  The sample is really sour.  Added 5 oak cubes from Flanders 1.5.1 and about 0.8 litres of my Rodenbach culture to the glass carboy.

• 2/20/16 - Transferred the other half of the batch (portion "B") into a bucket fermenter with the airlock hole drilled out to hold a vented silicone stopper.  The gravity of this half was also at 1.020.  This half smells and tastes very sour like the other half.  This beer is already a bit too sour to bottle by itself but I'm hoping that it can eventually be put to good use in a blend.  I added 5 oak cubes from Flanders 1.5.2 to this batch as well as the remaining 0.8 L of Rodenbach culture.  I am going to let this go a full year before sampling to try to limit the oxygen exposure as much as possible.

• 2/23/16 - The lid of the bucket portion is bulging so significantly that I'm worried it might burst.  I'm going to find out whether the vents on the bug release pressure at a higher or lower level than the lid itself is capable of handling - hopefully this turns out okay.
• 7/23/17 - Status Report:
• Part A:
• Funky and earthy aroma.  Dark fruit mixed in as well
• Orangish red and cloudy
• Light sourness with an interesting Brett funk (band aid like)
• Mild flavor with a fair bit of complexity
• Part B:
• Funky and earthy aroma
• Redish orange and cloudy
• Light sourness.  Light bready funk with a bit of malt character
• Mild flavor and not terribly complex
• 12/17/17 - Used 2.5 gal of the "A" Portion of the beer in a Raspberry Flanders Red blend along with Flanders Red 1.6.1.B.  I transferred the remainder of the beer into the 1.6.1.B fermenter.  I made sure to take quite a bit of the yeast cake with the beer during the transfer to allow the resulting blend to be a good mix of both yeasts.

Lessons Learned:

1. The no-sparge approach with extra grain actually worked out pretty nicely.  I felt a little bad for having terrible efficiency but it probably saved me an hour off the brewday and likely a bit of fuel as well.  Not sure I'll make this an every brew day thing but maybe for larger batches like this one it will make sense.
2. I need to re-think my cereal mash approach.  Adding the corn to the mash tun is causing too many sparge problems.  I'm thinking of trying to separate the corn from the liquid using a mesh bag or something next time and then just adding that to the boil.
3. The winging it approach used for this brewday worked out okay from a numbers perspective but I was a bit troubled throughout the process by the uncertainty.  Didn't help that I was attempting to also shovel a huge amount of snow in parallel to the whole thing.  I ended up not having enough time to do a good cleanup and so I left the mash tun with the grain over night.  Had a stinking mess on my hands the next day which was even stickier and more difficult to cleanup than normal.  Note to self:  Never do that again!