For the first beer in the batch I'm going to be doing my sixth pitch onto a Wyeast Belgian Lambic blend cake. I last pitched onto this back in January 2016 with Sour Blonde 1.5.1 which has been on it ever since. I haven't been impressed with the blend overall but 1.5.1 turned out to have a nice complexity. As with that batch, I'll be doing a separate primary on a blend of lacto and Trapist Ale yeast. This will ensure that it gets reasonably sour right out of the gate - this primary blend usually halts around 1.020 as well which should give the Lambic blend plenty of leftover sugar and starches to chew on.
For the second beer I'll be using Bootleg Biology Funk Weapon #1. This is reported to be a culture based on a culture from a brewery in the Flanders Region of Belgium. I'm excited to see what the culture is capable of and hope it gives me some additional interesting blending options going forward.
I'll be doing a mix of Pilsner malt and 33% Raw wheat which I'll do a proper cereal mash for. I've been happy with the richness and flavor of the wort produced using this method for the last few beers. Additionally, I'm going to try adding some Whole Wheat flour towards the end of the mash to ensure a good level of starchiness.
Given that my kettle is only 15 gal I'm planning on collecting 12 gal of wort, boiling for 1 hr which should reduce this to 10 gal, and then adding 2 more gal of top up water to get 12 gal of beer. I would normally collect two more gal than needed but I think this starchy wort will be a bit more likely to boil over than a normal beer.
I had been using Maltodextrine for these beers but I've run out and I'm not really convinced that it does much for me that I'm not able to do with the raw wheat and a very high mash (160 F).
I've decided to try temperature controlling the initial parts of fermentation for these beers on the warm side (74 F). This will benefit the lacto in 1.6.1 and it will be interesting to see if it helps Funk Weapon #1.
Anyway, I'm excited for my double brew day - nice to get two batches for the time required to make one.
Recipe Details
- Grain/Adjunct:
- 10 lb Pilsner
- 2 lb Light Munich
- 6 oz Acid Malt
- Cereal Mash
- 7 lb Raw Wheat
- 2 lb Pilsner
- 12 oz Whole Wheat Flour
- Hops:
- None
- Yeast:
- 1.6.1:
- Primary:
- Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II
- WLP 672 Lactobacillus Brevis
- Secondary:
- Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend (Sixth Pitch)
- 6.1.1:
- Bootleg Biology Funk Weapon #1
- Water:
- 18 gal spring water
- 1 oz Gypsum
- 1 oz CaCl
- Extra:
- 2 oz of Chardonnay soaked white oak (toasted at 400 F)
Process Details:
- Batch Size:
- 10 gal topped up to 12 gal
- Mash:
- Main Mash:
- 160 F for 60 min
- Cereal Mash:
- 20 min at 120 F
- 20 min at 160 F
- 20 min boil
- Boil:
- 60 min
- Fermentation Temp:
- 74 F
- Primary Duration:
- 1 Month
- Secondary:
- 1-3 years
Results:
- OG:
- 1.045 (Target 1.045)
- Efficiency:
- 71% (Target 71%)
- FG:
- TBD (Target 1.004)
- Apparent Attenuation:
- TBD (Target 91%)
- ABV:
- TBD (Target 5.38)
Brewing Notes:
- 3/25/18 - Brewday - 9:00 AM to 3:30 PM including cereal mash, setup, and cleanup
- Double milled my cereal mash grain
- Cereal Mashed with 3.5 gal of water. Did rests at 125 F and 160 F for 20-30 min each and then boiled for 20 min. Let the cereal mash cool for a couple hrs while I ran some other errands
- Brought 8 gal of strike water up to 170 F
- Milled my grain. Added the CaCl and Gypsum to the grain
- Cycled 4 gal of wort through my mash tun, grant, and RIMS until everything was at 175 F. Ended up with 3 gal in the mash tun and 4 gal in the system total
- Added the cereal mash which brought the volume up to 7-8 gal
- Added in the remaining grains and stirred well to eliminate doughballs
- Attached a cycling return device. Sunk it down into the grain bed. Cycled the RIMS at 160 F at probably a quart or two a minute. Had to tweak the flow rate a bit during the mash. Wort started to run clear after about 20 min and the flow rate steadied out
- Mashed for 60 min - maintained the desired 160 F mash temp the entire time (measured at the RIMS as well as the mash tun's reading at the bottom of the mash and my thermometer at the top of the mash. Happy to be using the RIMS again.
- Heated 8 gal of sparge water up to 180 F
- Added wheat flour with 10 min left in the mash
- Fly sparged until I'd collected 10 gal. Ended up running out of sparge water and had to add a couple more gal of batch sparge. The wort didn't seem starchy enough so I stirred the mash a bit. This seemed to slow the sparge up quite a bit but did get it to be quite a bit more turbid
- Boiled the wort for 60 min
- Added chiller with 5 min left to sanitize
- Chilled to 70 F
- Transferred into the two fermenters. Collected 5.5 gal of 6.1.1 and 5 gal of 1.6.1. Pitched the culture for 6.1.1 during the transfer.
- Gravity was 1.050
- Topped the beers up until I had 6 gal of each - this brought it to about 1.045 F
- Moved to my fermentation chamber with a reptile heating pad to keep it at 74 F
- 3/26/18 - 1.6.1 was bubbling vigorously by the next day. No airlock activity on 6.1.1
- 3/28/18 - Finally started getting airlock activity in 6.1.1. 1.6.1 seems to be about done.
- 6/3/18
- Transferred Sour Blonde 1.6.1 onto the yeast cake from Sour Blonde 1.5.1 (yeast cake is at least a gal now) - I'm calling this Fermenter #7 now. Added 1 oz of Chardonnay soaked oak to this. The beer is very sour - also has a slight fruity aroma and some funk. My yeast/lacto blend took this one down to 1.010. I'm saving this yeast cake for a later batch.
- Transferred Sour Blonde 6.1.1 into a glass carboy previously used, and containing the dregs of, Sour Blonde 1.2.1 (I'm calling this Fermenter #2 now). Measured the gravity as 1.020 so it has a lot more room to ferment. It has a bit funk in the aroma but not much in the flavor - there is a slight tartness but mostly the flavor is of wheat malt. This one will need some aging - hopefully it will get more interesting over time. Added 1 oz of Chardonnay soaked oak to the fermenter for the aging period.
- 8/24/19 - Status Report:
- Sour Blonde 6.1.1
- Aroma: Fruity (citrus or peach maybe) with a bit of earthy funk. Very pleasant
- Appearance: Light gold and pretty clear
- Flavor: Lightly sour. Earthy funk and a fruity flavor are most prominent
- Mouthfeel: Light bodied and dry. Slight prickling in the back of the throat
- Overall: Bold flavor and aroma on this one. Has a nice amount of complexity which makes for an interesting beer. I really like this one.
- Sour Blonde 1.6.1:
- Aroma: Light fruity and wine like aroma mixed with a bit of earthyness
- Appearance: Straw colored and very murky. Quite a bit of yeast in suspension - I may have drawn from too deep in the fermenter.
- Flavor: Medium sourness with a citrus and fruity character. Has a bit of malt character in the background along with a slight earthy brett character
- Mouthfeel: Light-medium bodied. Dry with a slight prickling.
- Overall: This is a really ugly looking beer but the flavors are pretty bold and quite nice. Not a whole lot of complexity
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