Ordinary Bitter - Tasting

I bottled up this Ordinary Bitter about two months ago.  I was hoping for a nicely balanced and easy drinking beer for the summer.  I believe it hit both of those objectives nicely.

I drank quite a few of these in England and I think this beer is very much what I remember from the trip.  I wish I'd brewed 10 gal of it as it isn't going to last too long.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Spicy hops are the primary aroma.  There is also a bit of sweet malt in there and maybe some fruity character from the yeast.
• Appearance:
• Light copper color.  This bottle poured with a lot of head (although all of them are not like this).  Head quickly dissipated to a thin layer.  Very clear beer.  Low carbonation after the big head on the pour.
• Flavor:
• Up front I get a lot of biscuity and bready malt.  It finishes with moderate bitterness with a bit of malt.  The balance is slightly tipped towards the hops.  There may be a little yeast character in the finish but it's pretty minor.
• Mouthfeel:
• Light bodied and smooth.  Very low carbonation.
• Overall:
• A very easy drinking beer.  It is difficult to find this style of beer in bottles and, when you do, it's typically a lot more expensive than it should be - especially since it's a beer that's meant to be consumed in quantity.  I think this is a very good beer - I'm going to have to revisit this recipe.

Flanders Red 1.4.2

This (along with 1.4.1) will by my fourth pitch onto my first Roeselare yeast cake - I'm getting a lot of value of this one pack of yeast.  I'm wondering if/when the character of the yeast will start to shift for me.

I will be using the same grain bill for this batch (as with my previous batch - and all others) but may want to start playing around with that to really determine the impacts the grain used has on the product - I suspect it may not be a huge impact.  This grain bill is pretty expensive with the pils/munich/vienna base - I might want to try a cheaper base malt for this one.

As with 1.4.1, I will be skipping the hops with this batch.  I have another vial of Lacto Brevis to use for this batch so I have decided to hold off a gal of wort at the start to sour for a week prior to pitching back with the other beer.  This will add a bit of fresh lacto to the mix and help the beer along a bit in it's souring.

I will be skipping the 15 min high temp mash for this batch - it seemed like it was messing with my efficiency too much.  Once I get a way to measure and correct my pH I may come back to this method.

I will also be oaking this batch - hopefully that will add another interesting dimension. 

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 4 lbs Pilsner
• 4 lbs Munich
• 3 lbs 8 oz Vienna
• 1 lb 8 oz Flaked Wheat
• 12 oz Caramunich II
• 12 oz Aeromatic
• 12 oz Special B
• Hops:
• None
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 3763 Roeselare Ale Blend (Fourth Pitch)
• WLP 672 Lactobacillus Brevis
• Water:
• 13.5 gal spring water
• 3 gal tap water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min
• Extras:
• 1 oz Medium Toast Hungarian Oak cubes

Batch Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6.5 (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 155 F for 90 min (160 F for 60 min)
• Boil:
• 90 min (60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• 60 F to 75 F (Ambient basement temps)
• Primary Duration:
• 3 months (1 gal will get 1 week with lacto)
• Secondary Duration:
• TBD (15 to 33 months)

Results:

• OG:
• 1.063 (Target 1.062)
• Efficiency:
• 76% (Target 70%)
• FG:
• 1.003 (Target 1.012)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 95% (Target 80%)
• ABV:
• 7.88% (Target 6.83%)

Brewing Notes:

• 7/12/15 - Brew day - 9:00 AM to ~3:00 PM - Including setup and cleanup (Did yard work while brewing which extended the brewday)
•  Heated 13.5 gal - cycled water through the mash tun until it was raised up to 165 F.  I balanced out to 5 gal in the tun above the false bottom
• Added the grain - temp settled to 160 F after 10 min.  I forgot my BIAB so cleanup is going to be a pain.  Kicking myself
• Cycled the wort through the system.  Ran without the RIMS as we've been having the breaker flip on us.  I'll need to figure out how to resolve this issue.  Cycled for about 10 min and then let it go.
• Mashed for 90 min - by the end the mash was about 155 F
• Brought an 8 gal sparge up to 190 F
• Fly sparged for about 35 min.  After 15 min I had collected 3.5 to 4 gal and had a gravity (at the grant) of 13.4 brix which is 1.053.  After collecting 8 gal the runnings were at 6 brix and after collecting 9 gal it was down to 4 brix.  I stopped collecting at 3 brix which is about 1.011.

Valentine Arm and Grant

• Collected about 10 gal
• Brought it to a boil which took about 20 min
• Boiled for about 90 min
• Added irish moss with about 10 min to go
• Added the wort chiller at flameout to sanitize
• Chilled down to 80 F
• Measured the final gravity as 15.4 brix which is 1.063 - First time I've hit my target
• Pulled off 1 gal to ferment with lacto
• Drained the remaining wort onto the old yeast cake.  Collected a total of about 6.5 gal

• Added oak to the fermentor without boiling as I'd like all the tannins in this beer
• Moved the fermentor down to the basement and the lacto part upstairs to ferment in the warm bedrooms
• 7/14/15 - The beer didn't start bubbling until this afternoon.  It seems like the lag time has been increasing after every re-pitch.
• 7/21/15 - Sampled the gallon that has been souring with lacto.  It has developed a pretty good level of sourness in the last week.  There is still quite a bit of sweetness to the wort - may be sugars the lacto can't eat.  I am going to give it until the end of the week before adding to the main batch.
• 7/24/15 - Measured the gravity of the gallon of souring beer as 1.050.  Added the remaining beer to the main batch.  Put the sample into a jar of DME based wort and put it into the fridge for re-use on a future batch.
• 10/19/15 - Transferred to a glass carboy to free the yeast cake up for Flanders Red 1.5.2.  Measured the gravity as 1.000.  The beer has a nice fruity and slightly funky aroma.  It has developed a pretty strong sourness in the last 3 months.  It is as sour as 1.3.2 was.  I think this must be from the warmer basement.  It's really good.  Set it up with a vented silicone bung rather than the 3 piece airlock that I've used for the other batches to allow a bit more oxygen exposure.

• 7/23/16 - Decided to use this beer in my first attempt at blending Flanders Red.  This will be the young component with Flanders Red 1.2.1 being the old.  I am going to use half of each batch in the blend and then let it age on 10 lbs of sour cherries for a few months prior to bottling.  Hopefully I'll get something like Rodenbach Alexander.  I took a sample and measured the gravity as 1.003.  The beer has a firm sourness with a nice malt backbone.  It's pretty potent at near 8%.  It think this will be a good blending component as it's got a really nice level of complexity and the blend will cut down the alcohol levels a bit.  Both of the blending components are very nice.  I'm feeling pretty confident about using these cherries with these batches.
• 7/28/16 - Blended half the batch with half of 1.2.1 onto the sour cherries

• 7/30/16 - Topped up the batch with half of Flanders Red 1.4.1 (half of which I'd blended with the other half of 1.2.1)
• 7/23/17 - Status Report:
• Rich fruity and funky aroma
• Orange/red and clear
• Medium level of sourness with a good level of fruitiness.  Nice earthy flavor in the finish.  This one also has a leathery flavor.
• Bold flavor profile and nicely complex
• 12/16/18 - See 2018 Status

Lessons Learned:

1. Fly sparging does work for me.  I finally did a good one - it made the process much less labor intensive and got me good efficiency as well.

Berliner Weisse Take II

I was slightly disappointed in the lack of sourness in my first Berliner Weisse.  The WLP677 Lacto Delbrueckii didn't deliver the goods for me.  For this round I'm going to try WLP630 Berliner Weisse Blend along with the sour worting technique.

The WLP630 I picked up had a use by date back in March so I decided to build a starter.  The blend apparently has a balance more towards lacto than brewers yeast that, in theory, gives the lacto a head start prior to the brewers yeast eating all the sugar.  Not sure what the extra age on the vile will do to this balance but the starter would likely change it as well.

Regardless of how sour the WLP630 will get the beer, the sour worting should ensure that the final beer is at least a bit sour.  Sour worting involves souring part of the wort with lacto prior to exposing it to the brewers yeast.  I am going to try souring it with the lacto that is naturally found on grain.  There are a number of other organisms found on grain that will produce disgusting flavors that will need to be kept in check.  Reportedly, pH and temperature are two variables that can be used to accomplish this as will reducing the amount of oxygen exposure (as oxygen is used to produce the off flavors).

The bad organisms do not like a low pH so I will use acid malt to get reduce it to 4.4.  A good rule of thumb is that 1% acid malt will lower the pH by 0.1 - based on this I will add 10% acid malt to the wort to lower the pH.  I am thinking of adding 2% for the entire mash to help conversion and then add 10% more at the end of the mash to get the pH down.

My RIMS setup seems like a great fit for controlling temperature of the sour wort.  I will be doing the sour worting in flasks and maybe a growler.  I will set these up in a water bath in my mash tun.  Lacto works best between 113 F and 120 F so I will setup the RIMS to keep it in that range.

I will try to keep oxygen exposure at bay by filling the containers all the way to the neck and covering them with foil.  I'll also be very mindful of splashing when filling the containers.  Hopefully there will be some CO2 generation during fermentation to provide some additional protection.

I am going to sour 2 gal of wort this way.  I'll probably let it go for 3 days (maybe longer if it isn't sour enough).  I'll then boil to pasteurize prior to adding to the remainder of the beer.  Hopefully 2/6 gal soured will be enough to give the entire batch a suitably sour flavor.  I am also thinking of trying a few rounds of sour mashing with the dregs from this first round to see if I can isolate the lacto from the bad organisms.  It would be nice to have a pure culture that I could pitch into some of my other sour beers without having to do the pH and temperature manipulation.

For the main batch I will be mashing in my old tun with all the sparge water.  Additionally, I will be doing the no-boil method.  So, this should be a pretty quick brew day.

Depending on how the beer turns out, I have picked and frozen some sour cherries from a local pick your own farm that could be good with the beer.  I think I would split the batch so half would be with ~6 lbs of cherries and the other half would be bottled plain.

Trying a number of new things with this beer - hopefully it doesn't turn out badly for me.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 3 lbs 8 oz Pilsner Malt
• 3 lbs 8 oz White Wheat Malt
• 13 oz Acid Malt
• 2 oz at start of mash
• 11 oz at end of mash
• Hops:
• None
• Yeast:
• WLP630 Berliner Weisse Blend
• Lacto cultured from Grain
• Water:
• 7 gal Spring Water
• 1 oz Calcium Chloride
• Extras:
• 5.7 lbs Sour Cherries

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 150 F for 90 min (Target 150 F for 60 min)
• Boil:
• None - Temp raised to 200 F to pasteurize
• Fermentation Temp:
• 75 F to 80 F
• Primary Duration:
• 4 Weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• 1 Month

Results:

• OG:
• 1.033 (Target 1.035)
• Efficiency:
• 73% (Target 78%)
• FG:
• 1.00 (Target 1.004)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 100% (Target 88%)
• ABV:
• 4.33% (Target 4.07%)

Brewing Notes:

• 7/2/15 - Built a starter for the WLP630 with 1.5 L of water and about 4 oz of DME and 1/8 tsp of yeast nutrient
• The starter started producing fizzy bubbles after a couple days in my 75-80 F bedroom
• Tasted it after 5 days.  Hasn't developed any real sourness.  The sour wort technique is definitely needed.  It has a fruity smell that is very similar to my first Berliner.
• 7/5/15 - Brew day - 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM including setup and cleanup
• Brought 7 gal up to 165 F - Took 20 min
• Added CaCl to mash tun
• Added all 7 gal to the mash tun - after 10 min the temp had settled to 160 F
• Added the grain - stirred to eliminate dough balls
• After 10 min the temp has settled to 152-154 F
• Stirred after 30 min - temp was at 152 F
• Measured the gravity at 45 min as 4.2 brix which is only 1.016.  Decided to mash for 90 min rather than 60
• Temp was 150 F after 60 min
• Measured gravity again after 75 min - was 5.6 briz which is 1.022

• After 90 min the temp was down to 144 F.  Measured the gravity as 6.0 brix which is 1.023
• Added the additional 11 oz of acid malt - stirred the mash for 15 min
• Drained the mash tun into the boil kettle with no vorlauf - measured the gravity after this as 8.0 which is 1.031
• Brought the kettle up to 200 F - took 15 min min
• Added the wort chiller to sanitize at flameout
• Chilled down to 120 F
• Added a hand full of unmilled pale malt to 4 2 L containers
• Heated a water bath in my mash tun to 115 F
• Gently, to avoid splashing and oxygenation, drained off wort into the 4 containers and put them into the water bath.  Covered the tops with foil to try to further protect them from oxygen.

• Setup the RIMS to cycle the water in the bath at 115 F.  Setup the mash tun to drain directly to the pump (did not route to through the Valentine Arm and Grant)
• Chilled the remaining wort down to 80 F
• Drained the wort onto the yeast starter - let the wort fall the foot or so to allow for aeration
• Moved the fermentor to the upstairs bedroom where it has been in the high 70s to low 80s to ferment out
• Collected a total of 6 gal between the main fermentor and sour wort volume.  Measured the gravity as 1.030 at 75 F which is about 1.033 at 60 F.  The sample tasted noticeably tart from the large amount of acid malt used.
• 7/6/15 - The main fermentor started bubbling the afternoon after brew day and was still bubbling the next morning.  I heated the water bath up to 120 F and then turned off the RIMS for the night.  It had fallen to 109 F by 3:00 AM so I turned it back on and raised everything back up to 115 F.  No bad smell from the sour wort so far which is good.
• 7/8/15 - No real sourness has developed after 3 days of sour worting.  Not sure what's going on.  I've been keeping that at a consistent 115 F for most of that period.  I wonder if the grain I added didn't have much lacto on it.  I added some acid malt to the containers which I'm hoping will contain some more lacto to sour the wort.  I will give it a couple more days.
• 7/9/15 - Still no sourness.  Added enough uncrushed grain to fill all the containers to the brim and let them chill down to ambient temperature naturally.  I'm going to give this one more day and then call it a failure.
• 7/10/15 - The temperature seemed to settle out at 95 F yesterday.  It was very interesting to find that the beer has started to develop some sourness now.  Not sure if was the additional grain that added more bacteria or if it was just too hot before - I suspect the latter.  I am going to give it another day to continue souring.  The sourness is accompanied by a sort of off putting grainy flavor at this point but there isn't any garbage/puke smell so far.
• 7/11/15 - The sour mash seemed to be at about the right level of sourness so I boiled half of it (about 1 gal) for 10 min to pasteurize.  I took a sample of the main fermenting batch and measured the gravity as about 1.003.  It had sort of a saison like flavor - it hadn't really developed any sourness.  Added the 1 gal of sour wort to the main batch.  I think it's at a nice level of sourness with just this 1 gal so I'm going to dump the other gal.
• 8/2/15 - Measured the gravity of the batch as 1.000.  It has a nice light level of sourness with some bready malt flavor.  The batch had started to form a pellicle.  I added the previously frozen, mostly thawed, and slightly muddled sour cherries to a small better bottle with a funnel.  Transferred about half the beer (a bit less than 2.5 gal) to the cherries and then stirred the mix with the auto siphon.  Will plan on bottling the non fruited portion later this week.

8/22/15 - Decided to let both batches age for 1 month.  I'll bottle both in early September.

9/12/15 - Bottled this batch today.  Got 3 gal of the plain batch.  Primed with 4 oz of corn sugar.  The beer has a slight bready flavor a pretty firm bit of acidity.  Filled 24 12 oz bottles of plain.  Left maybe a half gallon behind.  Got about 2.75 gal of the cherry portion.  Primed with 3.5 oz of corn sugar.  The cherry half is probably as tart as the plain but it has pretty distinct cherry flavor that balances it out.  Filled 27 12 oz bottles with the cherry half.  The cherries are all faded and broken down - beer is a pretty pink color.

• 11/19/15 - Tasting Notes - Both halves turned out nicely with a really pleasant level of sourness.  They are both refreshing, easy drinking, and fairly complex.  The plain half may have a bit more subtlety but the cherries added to the second half melded very well and add a really nice dimension.  I really like both of them.

Lessons Learned:

1. It seemed like I freed a lot more sugar after adding the additional acid malt and stirring.  I wonder if the pH during the mash wasn't good for the enzymes.
2. The bacteria on the grain did much better in the 90 F than they did at 110 F.  They developed a strong sourness in a day once I'd lowered it.  I wonder if they were getting killed by the higher temps.
3. I soured 2 gal but 1 gal was enough to get the beer very plenty sour.  I would just sour 1 of 6 gal next time I do this.
4. Not sure souring with grain is really worth the effort.  I have used While Labs Lacto Brevis for some other beers and it's developed a real nice sourness without having to keep it real warm or worrying too much about oxygen exposure.  Even if this beer turns out nice I don't think I'll sour with grain again.