Dark Lager - Tasting

It has been four months since I brewed up this dark lager - my first attempt at a lager.  This was comprised of a 3 week primary fermentation, 6 week lagering period and than a good month and a half to allow it to bottle condition as I chose not to add any more yeast at bottling.  I was starting to wonder if it would ever carb given the 6 weeks at 35 F during the lager but this beer proves that yeast are a pretty hardy organism.

I was hoping this would turn out to be a flavorable malt forward beer.  It has turned out to meet that objective.  I am also enjoying the very clean lager yeast character in this beer - it really does allow the other ingredients to shine through.  The beer finished up a bit higher than expected (1.020 vs 1.016) but I think that helps sell the malt character a bit and it still has really good drinkability - I'd take a bit sweeter over a bit drier than desired with this beer.

I'm pretty happy that I managed to produce a lager without any off flavors.  I've enjoyed the process and will look to brew some more of these beers.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Clean aroma.  Sweet malt.  Very light grassy hop smell.
• Appearance:
• Pours with a two finger head that quickly settles down to a thin layer that lasts for the entire glass.  Leaves slight lacing.  Dark brown color.  Very clear but it has hop particles in suspension even after spending several days in the fridge.
• Flavor:
• Very crisp and clean flavor up front.  Some cool alcohol in the middle.  The finish is slightly sweet and bready malt with a bit of hop bitterness.  I'm not detecting anything I can identify as flavoring hops
• Mouth-feel:
• It's medium bodied but pretty easy drinking.  Carbonation is light.  The flavor coats my mouth and lingers.
• Overall:
• It's a nice malt forward beer.  I really like the sweetness in the finish.  The slight bitterness is enough to balance the sweetness.  It has the clean, lager, taste I was expecting - not really sure how to describe it except that it's very much like commercial lagers.  It would be interesting to brew this beer with a flavorful English yeast for comparison.

Flanders Red 1.3.2

This is a second beer to split my third pitch of Roeselare yeast cake onto.  For the first beer (1.3.1), I pitched a primary yeast and let it ferment out for two weeks.  This second beer is sort of a control version using the same direct pitch method I used for my first two batches of Flanders Red (1.1.1 and 1.2.1).  It will be interesting to see how these two beers using the third pitch vary in character.

I have kept pretty much everything else the same from the previous batches.  Same grain bill and hopping and the same target mash temperature in the high 150 to low 160s range.  I think this is a pretty good recipe but I might have to start playing around with some slight grain bill changes for the next round.

I am accumulating quite a stockpile of these Flanders Red beers.  I'm excited that I'll quite a few blending options next year.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 4 lbs Pilsner
• 4 lbs Munich
• 3 lbs 8 oz Vienna
• 1 lb 8 oz Flaked Wheat
• 12 oz CaraMunich
• 12 oz Aromatic
• 12 oz Special B
• Hops:
• 1 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 3.8% AA) at 60 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 3763 Roeselare Ale Blend (Third Pitch)
• Water:
• 10 gal Spring Water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 161 F for 60 min (Target 162 F for 60 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• 60 F to 75 F (Ambient Basement Temps)
• Primary Duration:
• 3 months
• Secondary Duration:
• TBD (15 to 33 months)

Results:

• OG:
• 1.052 (Target 1.062)
• Efficiency:
• 60% (Target 70%)
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.012)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 80%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 6.83%)

Brewing Notes:

• 4/11/15 - Brew day - 7:10 AM to 10:50 AM - Including setup and cleanup:
• Brought 7 gal of strike water up to 190 F - Took 35 min
• Added CaCl and gypsum to the kettle as it was heating
• Moved 5 gal of strike water to the Mash Tun and let settle for 10 min - ended up at 178 F
• Added the grain and stirred to eliminate any clumps
• After 10 min the mash was at 161 F - pretty much right on target
• Gave the mash a good stir after 30 min to help conversion - was still at 161 F
• Brought 5 gal of batch sparge water up to 190 F - Took 25 min
• After 60 min the mash was between 156 and 158 F

• Stirred, vorlaufed, and drained the mash (slow at first and then up to full speed)
• Added 5 gal of sparge water to the mash (raised it to 180 F).  Stirred, vorlaufed, and drained
• Collected 8 gal of wort
• Brought up to a boil - took 20 min

• Added the 60 min hops after the hot break subsided
• Added Irish Moss once the beer had boiled down to 6.5 gal
• Put the chiller in to sanitize at flameout
• Chilled down to 60 F which took 12 min
• Transferred to the (unwashed) fermentor.  I allowed most of the cold break to go over but kept most of the hops behind in the kettle
• Moved down to the basement to ferment
• 7/12/15 - Transferred off the yeast cake into a glass carboy to make way for my next batch (1.4.2).  Measured the gravity as 1.002.  The beer has the same fruity smell that the others have had.  There is a light pellicle over the beer.  It is pretty sour - the most sour of all the batches so far (haven't tasted the others recently though).  I'm wondering if the higher temperature (it's been 70 F in the basement for the last month) could be responsible for this.  It's a nice tasting beer although it may have a bit less of the fruity complexity that some of the others had at this point.  I'm really happy that I've finally managed to get a sour one.

• 7/23/17 - Status Report:
• Earthy funk dominates.  A bit of fruity character mixed in.  Has a rich smell
• Red/orange and slightly cloudy
• Light sourness.  Brett earthiness fairly assertive.  Good level of malt flavor in the finish
• Fairly mild in terms of flavor but has a nice level of complexity
• 9/4/17 - Used 3 gal of this batch for a blend of Cherry Flanders Red along with Flanders Red 1.1.1.  I moved the remainder of 1.3.2 into the fermenter with the remaining 1.1.1 beer.
• 12/16/18 - See 2018 Status Report

Lessons Learned:

1. I'm getting fairly consistent number on these beers now.  Efficiency isn't too good though.  In another month I should have my RIMS setup that I'll use for fly sparging.  This should allow me to apply the process a bit more consistently.  I'm sure it will lengthen my brew day though.
2. We are getting into the warmer months now.  I'll have to keep an eye on the basement temperature - will be interesting to see the effect warmer temps down in the basement have on the character of these beers.