Flanders Red 4.1.1

I have accumulated dregs from two bottles of Jolly Pumpkin's La Roja, one bottle of Lost Abbey's Red Poppy, and one bottle of Russian River Consecration.  I collected the dregs in about 1 L of DME and Maltodextrine based wort over the last couple months.  It formed a pellicle after some time and is smelling very nice.  I've decided to brew up a new Flanders Red using these microbes.

This will be a 6 gal batch rather than the 12 gal I did for the last couple Flanders Reds.  I am going to try a few different things for this batch:

1. The first batches I made that used a mix of Pilsner, Vienna, and Munich malts have a really lovely red color.  I lost that somehow when I started using Maris Otter for these beers.  I'd like to get back to that color without switching back to the old grainbill (which was rather expensive).  The color in the last couple batches has been more golden brown than red (see Flanders Red 3.1.1).  I'm going to try to fix that by swapping CaraMunich III for CaraMunich II to see if that does the trick.
2. I have been using corn grits for the last several batches of beer.  I had been taking the approach of boiling them (without any conversion step with base malt) and then adding the starchy liquid into the main mash at the very end.  This was done under the theory that this starch would give the microbes a lot of extra food during the long secondary.  Even with this practice I've seen these beers ferment all the way down to the low 1.00s (see Flanders Red 1.5.1).  With the Belgian Wit I made a couple months back I did a proper cereal mash which included a conversion rest step.  This avoided a lot of the sticking that I had been experiencing with my previous approach with the corn.  I've decided to try this for this Flanders Red.  Additionally, I'm going to put these in at the start of the mash rather than at the end to allow conversion to occur.  Hopefully this will still leave some starches but also leave a bit clearer product.  It will be interesting to see if this has much impact on the activity of the microbes
3. I decided to use hops on this batch.  Half an ounce of Fuggle at 4.1% AA which should get me about 7 IBU.  I have been reusing Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II for primary in the last several batches of sour beer without the use of hops.  I plan on a Fifth pitch for this batch.  I've started to detect some development of sourness after primary in these like maybe some lacto has crept in.  I feel like the sourness level in the beers has started to get a bit out of hand (see Flanders Red 1.6.1).  Hopefully these hops will kill any of the lacto in the primary yeast.
4. I am going to skip the step of setting aside part of the beer to sour with lacto for this batch.  I would expect that these commercial microbes are going to get me plenty of sourness on their own.  I've read that the Jolly Pumpkin microbes, in particular, are very aggressive.
5. Will target a slightly higher gravity of 1.055 for this batch so upping the base malt a bit.  This will be nice for blending purposes

I plan on giving this beer 2-4 weeks in primary and then transferring it to a bucket fermenter with a silicon bung with the commercial microbes for long term secondary.  I will throw in an ounce of oak cubes for this secondary period.

Will be interesting to see how a beer made entirely from commercial microbes turns out compared with the strains from the yeast labs.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 5 lb Maris Otter
• 3 lb Munich
• 12 oz CaraMunich III
• 12 oz Aromatic Malt
• 12 oz Special B
• 12 oz Maltodextrine
• Cereal Mash:
• 1 lb 8 oz Corn Grits
• 8 oz Maris Otter
• Hops:
• 0.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.1% AA) at 60 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II (Fifth Pitch)
• Commercial Microbes from:
• 2 bottles Jolly Pumpkin's La Roja
• 1 bottle Lost Abbey's Red Poppy
• 1 bottle Russian River's Consecration
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 7.5 gal tap water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• Extras:
• 1 lb rice hulls
• 1 oz medium toast Hungarian oak cubes

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• Main Mash:
• Step 1:  152 F for 5 min (Prior to adding cereal mash)
• Step 2:  160 F for 60 min (Target 160 F for 60 min)
• Step 3:  Ramped up to 170 F in 25 min (Target ramp up to 175 in 25 min)
• Cereal Mash:
• Step 1:  115 F for 15 min (Target 122 F for 15 min)
• Step 2:  150 F for 15 min (Target 115 F for 15 min)
• Step 3:  Boil for 15 min (Target boil for 15 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temps:
• 70 to 75 F
• Primary Duration:
• 2 to 4 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• TBD - 18 to 36 months

Results:

• OG:
• 1.052 (Target 1.055)
• Efficiency:
• 64% (Target 68%)
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.004)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 92%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 6.69%)

Brewing Notes:

• 4/8/16 - Brewday - 1:30 PM to 6:15 PM including setup and cleanup
• Cereal mash
• Filled a 5 gal pot halfway with hot tap water - was about 120 F
• Added corn grits and milled barley into it by hand
• This lowered the temp down to about 115 F
• Let sit for 15 min.  This should allow the corn to start to rehydrate and maybe serve as a protein rest

• Heated up to 150 F on the turkey fryer
• Let sit at 150 F for 15 min
• Brought to a boil and boiled for 15 min.  The mash foamed up a lot but settled down after a bit without any intervention.  I actually didn't need to any stirring during the boil - the corn grits seemed to stay in suspension very well
• Milled the grain by hand which wasn't too bad.  I mixed in the rice hulls with the grain during this process
• Heated 10 gal of strike water to 160 F
• Added strike water to the mash tun until I had 3 gal above the false bottom.  Also let some drain backwards into the RIMS and grant to sit
• Added the grain to the mash tun and stirred to eliminate doughballs.  The grain was much less prone to doughballs with the rice hulls in it.
• The grain settled to 152 F after a few minutes
• Added the cereal mash to the main mash.  Added it gradually, stirring as I went, to avoid overheating the mash.  This ended up settling at 160 F which was right on target
• Let sit for 15 min undisturbed
• After 15 min I turned on the RIMS to cycle at ~2 qt per min set at 163 F
• Mashed for 60 min
• After 60 min I set the RIMS to 185 F to ramp up.  Let it ramp up for 25 min
• Added 5 gal of tap water to the HLT (for a total of 7.5) and heated this up to 210 F
• Fly sparged.  Ended up taking 22 min to get to 8 gal

• Started heating the kettle after collecting about 4 gal.  Had it at a boil prior to the end of the sparge
• Measured the gravity at the grant at the end of the sparge.  Was 5 brix which is about 1.02.  Left a lot of uncollected sugar behind apparently.
• Added my hops as soon as the hot break cleared
• Added the Maltodextrine with about 10 min in the boil
• Added the wort chiller just before flameout to sanitize
• Chilled down to 75 F
• Drained to bucket fermentor
• Pitch one jar of yeast slurry.  I had previously decanted off the spent beer and let it sit at room temperature for a couple hours.

• Moved to the heated fermentation chamber.  Beer was 72 F.  I will let it rise up to 75 F
• 4/9/16 - Fermentation started off slowly for this pitch.  It starting bubbling by the late morning.
• 4/22/16 - Cold crashing down to 35 F for a couple days to drop the yeast.
• 4/23/16 - Added gelatin to fine the beer
• 4/24/16 - Transferred the beer to a new bucket.  It is a really nice dark red color.  I think this is a good grainbill.  Collected almost 6 gal.  Measured the gravity as 1.016.  I had been getting 1.020 with my previous handling of the corn grits.  The wort is slightly more fermentable with a true cereal mash I guess.  I'm still pretty happy that it stopped this high.  The beer has a really nice fruity and slightly tart flavor.  Also has a pretty nice malty profile.  Setup the bucket with a vented silicone stopper (had to drill out the airlock hole to 1.25 in to fit that in.  Checked to make sure it was fairly air tight by pushing on the top of lid and then opening the vents slightly.  Could hear a hiss of air flow when I did this.  Will leave this at basement temps overnight before pitching the culture to avoid shocking the bacteria.
• 4/25/16 - Added 1 oz of oak (un-boiled and unwashed) to the beer.  Taste tested the bacteria starter.  It is thick and viscus.  I'd always heard that this could happen but this is the first time I've seen it.  The beer has a pretty nice bit of sourness.  It smells slightly of vinegar but there really isn't any in the flavor.  I'm really excited about this project.  I'm going to let this one sit for a year before opening.

• 7/23/17 - Status Report:
• Dark fruit mixed with a little earthiness
• Redish orange and very clear
• Light sourness.  It has a fruity flavor and earthiness on the finish.  Has a chocolate like finish as well (maybe from the dark malt?)
• Pretty strong flavors in this beer and a pretty complex profile

Lesson Learned:

1. Mixing rice hulls with the grain before doughing in is a good process change.  It made dough-in quite a bit easier
2. Going with a set time for temp ramp up (of 25 min) got the grain outside of the conversion range.  Saved a bit of time over going all the way up to 175 F
3. A proper cerial mash was a lot cleaner than my previous method of handling the corn.  Didn't require any stirring and I got no scorched corn.
4. Mashing with the cereal mash for 60 min produced a very clear wort and there was no point where it seemed like the mash was getting stuck.  Only time will tell if this wort is as good as the wort I produced via the other method.  In the last several batches, where I've had to stir the mash to avoid getting stuck, it seems like I've had a lot of slimy gunk get into the primary fermentor.  This could have been due to a lot of unconverted starches.  The stuff was so slimy that it was very difficult to actually transfer into the secondary.  I hope to avoid that going forward.  I think that this process change could help with that.
5. This grainbill looks to have provided a really great red color to the beer.  I think this is a winner.