Raspberry Flanders Red

My first year raspberry plants unexpectedly ended up producing enough fruit for two batches of beer (22 lb).  This will give me the opportunity to make up a third blend of Flanders Red this year (in addition to plain and cherry blends).  I've never had a straight raspberry Flanders Red but I strongly suspect that beer and fruit flavors will get along well.

For this batch I am choosing to blend two beers I haven't used yet:

Flanders Red 1.6.1.B:

• Brewed:
• 1/15/16
• Overview:
• Sixth pitch onto Roeselare yeast cake
• Cereal Mashed with Corn Grits
• Used Maltodextrine to give yeast a bit more to work on
• Primary fermented with Belgian yeast
• Soured a portion of the batch with lacto during primary
• Aged on the yeast cake for the entire period
• Aged in a bucket fermenter
• Tasting Notes:
• Earthy funk and a bit of fruit in the aroma.  Rich.
• Orange/red and a bit cloudy
• Light sourness.  Earthy funk with a little fruitiness.  Finish has some bready malt.
• Nice full flavor with a  fair bit of complexity

Flanders Red 3.1.1.A:

• Brewed:
• 1/24/16
• Overview:
• Batch fermented with a culture built up from Rodenbach Foederbier
• Cereal Mashed with Corn Grits
• Used Maltodextrine to give yeast a bit more to work on
• Primary fermented with Belgian yeast
• Soured a portion of the batch with lacto during primary
• Aged in a glass carboy
• This is half of a split batch - the other half is aging in a bucket fermenter.
• Tasting Notes:
• 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.  Doesn't taste particularly like Rodenbach unfortunately.

I will be mixing together 2.5 gal of each of these beers.  Each beer brings some unique flavors to the table which I hope will be complimentary.  Both ended up with a fairly mild level of sourness which I'm thinking will leave some room for the acidity the fruit are going to impart.  I'll combine the remained beer back into the 6.1.1.B fermenter (this will get me down to 6 glass carboy of Flanders Red).

I'll be using 10 lbs of fruit for this batch.  This amount of fruit ended up giving a very strong character to the Black Raspberry Tart I brewed a couple years ago.  The raspberries have been kept frozen solid in the freezer for the last couple months - this should allow the juices to be released more easily.

I plan to give this beer 3-6 months on the raspberries to ensure all the flavors are well incorporated.

Blending Notes:

• 12/17/17
• Transferred 2.5 gal of Flanders Red 3.1.1.A to a bucket fermenter

• Transferred 2.5 gal of Flanders Red 1.6.1.B to the bucket fermenter
• Added 10 lbs of raspberries and stirred them in
• Racked the remainder of Flanders Red 3.1.1.A into the 1.6.1.B fermenter

• Set this up with a 3 piece airlock
• 5/6/18 - Bottled the beer today
• Made some Invert #3 syrup to back sweeten and carb the beer.  Used 1.75 lbs Dimarara sugar, 1/4 tsp of Citric acid and 2 cups of water.  Heated at medium low until it was 290 F and a nice red color.  Added a cup of boiling water after it had cooled down to 200 F to make sure it stayed a liquid
• Re hydrated some red star wine yeast
• The beer has a funky looking pellicle with the fruit floating on the surface

• Measured the gravity as 1.004
• Transferred to the bottling bucket with the Invert #3 and yeast.  Ended up with 5.5 gal.  Had quite a bit of the fruit flesh make it to the bottling bucket.

• Got 54 bottles of beer out of this batch.  Bottling was a bit more painful than normal due to fruit getting stuck in the bottling wand spring
• The beer is a really lovely red color with an intense raspberry aroma - it is almost candy like.  It is quite sour and, before the sugar addition, was very dry.  I think the sugar will balance the beer nicely and let the fruit come through a bit better.
• I will open a bottle of this every few days to check on carbonation levels.  Will pasteurize these when the carbonation is where I want it.
• 5/17/18 - I've had a couple bottles of this over the last few days.  They have reached a nice level of carbonation now.  Pasteurized the bottles in a 150-160 F water bath for 15 min.  I had two bottles explode on me in the process.
• 9/30/18 - Tasting Notes - I really enjoy the Raspberry character of this beer.  The complex base beer has been almost completely overwhelmed by the 10 lbs of fruit but still comes through enough to provide some balance.  The acidity a bit more intense than I would preferred but is still easily within the range that I can enjoy.  The slight sweetness from the backsweetening really helped this one a lot I think.

Sour Blonde Top Up Batch & Sour Blonde 5.1.1

In my recent tasting of the Sour Blonde ales I've accumulated so far I was a bit disappointed in the level of complexity that had developed in beers that I'd been aging for 2-3 years.  Many had no sourness and only very light Brett character.  I plan to make a few blends with these in the next month or so and was thinking they would benefit quite a bit from the sourness being raised slightly.  To try to accomplish this I am going to brew up a top up batch that I'll acidify in primary using Lactobacillus and blend that into the older beer.

I left 1-1.5 gal of headspace in all my sour blonde fermenters.  This will give me an opportunity to add some fresh beer with some additional fermentables as well as a good amount of acidity.  Hopefully this will make for a more interesting beer as it goes through a final bulk aging post blending.  I'll make 5 gal of beer for this purpose.

I'll also use this top up batch to make some acid beer using the Omega Lacto blend I pitched with Sour Blonde 4.1.1 a couple weeks ago.  I'll split this cake into two 1 gal carboy.  I'll use this during blending to add a bit more acidity if needed.  This will be 2 more gal of top up beer.

Finally, I've decided to attempt a spontaneous fermentation with 3 gal of this beer.  It has been between freezing and 50 F for the last couple weeks so I believe this should be an optimal time to capture the right kinds of bugs.  I'll be trying to capture microbes from my raspberry plants using a the air exposed cooling technique leveraged by the Belgian Lambic brewers.  I am going to hop this portion of the batch to try to inhibit molds and other nasties in the air.  I'll use some Apollo hops I've been keeping in the fridge for the last couple years for this.  I'll plan to age this portion for 1-3 years  in the original fermenter.  This should be an interesting experiment - hopefully fermentation is vigorous enough to out compete the spoilage microbes I'll undoubtedly also be inviting into the beer.  If it works out well I'll try it again next year

I'll be sticking with basically the same cereal mashed raw wheat and pilsner malt grain bill I've used for the last few of these beers.  Should give me a nice starchy wort for the microbes to work with.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 8 lb Pilsner
• 1.5 lb Munich
• 5 oz Acid Malt
• 10.75 oz Maltodextrine
• Cereal Mash:
• 6 lb Raw Wheat
• 1.5 lb Pilsner
• Hops:
• Top Up Batch:
• None
• Sour Blonde 5.1.1
• 0.25 oz Apollo (Pellet, 18.5% AA) at 15 min
• Yeast:
• Top Up Batch:
• Main Portion:
• Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II
• WLP 672 Lactobacillus Brevis
• Laco Top Up:
• Omega Yeast OYL-605 Lactobacillus Blend (L. Plantarum and L. Brevis)
• Sour Blonde 5.1.1:
• Spontaneously Collected
• Water:
• 11.5 gal spring water
• ~4 gal Tap water
• 2 tsp CaCl

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 10 gal
• Mash:
• Main Mash:
• 161 F - 158 F over 60 min
• Cereal Mash:
• Step 1:  120 F for 15 min
• Step 2:  150 F for 15 min
• Step 3:  Boil for 15 min
• Boil:
• 60 min (15 more min for 5.1.1)
• Fermentation Temperature:
• Primary:  75 F
• Secondary:  Ambient Basement Temps
• Primary Duration:
• 2 Weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• Top Up:  1-3 months
• Sour Blonde 5.1.1:  1-3 years

Results:

• OG:
• 1.048
• Efficiency:
• 74%
• FG:
• TBD
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD
• ABV:
• TBD

Brewing Notes:

• 11/19/17 - Brewday - 7 AM to 5 PM included Cereal Mash, Setup, Cleanup, and Yeast Capture
• Cereal Mash:
• Milled cereal grain and added to 2 gal of tap water and 1.5 gal of spring water
• Heated this to 120 F and let sit for 15 min
• Heated the cereal mash to 150 F and let sit for 15 more min
• Brought to a boil for 15 min
• Let this cool for a few hours - formed an interesting jelly-like layer on the surface in this period - I assume this is gelatinized starches

• Heated 10 gal of strike water to 175 F
• Milled my grain - added the CaCl to the milled grain
• Added the cereal mash to the mash tun first - this was about 4 gal of liquid.  The temperature settled to 168 F with this
• Added 3 gal of strike water.  Stirred this a bit and then let the temperature settle.  Was still at 168 F
• Added the main mash grain and stirred well to eliminate dough balls.  The temperature settled to 161 F after 10 min

• After 60 min mash the temperature was 158 F
• Heated remaining 7 gal of sparge water to 185 F
• Vorlaufed until the wort ran clear
• Fly sparged with all 7 gal of the sparge water.  Used a new toy for fly sparging:  SS Brewtech Sparge Arm.  It worked pretty nicely.  I had some flow rate problems out of the HLT where the line was getting steam bubbles - need to find a solution to this.Drained into my grant and then pumped the wort into the boil kettle.

• Ended up a couple gal short so I sparged with a bit more tap water
• Started heating the boil kettle after collecting 3-4 gal of wort.  Had the wort to a boil shortly after completing the sparge.
• Boiled for 60 min
• Added Maltodextrine during the boil
• Moved my Yeast and Lacto culture out of the fridge to warm up during the brew day
• Split the Omega lacto culture from Sour Blonde 4.1.1 into two 1 gal glass jugs
• Added the wort chiller to sanitize with 5 min left in the boil

• Chilled down to 90 F and drained off wort into the two 1 gal lacto jugs

• Chilled the remaining wort to 80 F and drained 5 gal off to a bucket fermenter - let this fall a couple feet for aeration.  Added the yeast/lacto culture during the transfer.  Moved these to the fermentation chamber with a reptile heating pad to maintain a 75 F fermentation temperature
• Measured the gravity as 1.048.  I dropped the sample and broke my measuring container.  Somehow the hydrometer survived.
• Brought the remaining 3.5 gal of wort back to a boil
• Added my hops and boiled for 15 min

• Moved the Boil Kettle outside to collect some wild yeast.  I set it up between my raspberry plants.  I covered the kettle with some cheese cloth to keep out bugs and leaves
• Left this to cool for a few hours

• Once it was down to 80 F I transferred the beer to a 3 gal better bottle.  Moved this into the fermentation chamber
• 11/20/17:

Spontaneous Fermentation Day 1:  No activity

• 11/21/17:

Spontaneous Fermentation Day 2:  Light Krausen Forms

• 11/22/17:

Spontaneous Fermentation Day 3:  Vigorous Fermentation

• 11/23/17:

Spontaneous Fermentation Day 4:  Fermentation Slows

• 11/26/17:

Spontaneous Fermentation Day 7:  Fermentation About Done

• 12/2/17 - Transferred the main portion of the top up batch onto Sour Blonde 1.1.1 (1.25 gal), 1.2.1 (1 gal), 1.3.1 (0.5 gal), 1.4.1 (1.25 gal), and 1.5.1 (1 gal).  Measured the gravity of the top up beer as 1.020 - it has a nice level of sourness along with a pretty rich wheat flavor.  The beer had formed a bubbly pellicle over the last two weeks.
• 12/3/17 - Added a dozen or so Chardonnay soaked oak cubes to Sour Blonde 5.1.1.  Moved the fermenter out of the chest freezer.  Also moved the acid beer out of the chest freezer

• 12/10/17 - There is a bit of foam in the beers I topped up indicating fermentation is kicking up again.

• 2/17/18 - Found that the spontaneously fermented beer (Sour Blonde 5.1.1) has started to form a pellicle.  The beer had just had a bit of krausen left on the surface previously.  Had some mold growing in the airlock from when fermentation pushed krausen up into it.  I cleaned that out really well.  Still haven't tried this beer.

• 8/24/19 - Status Report:
• Aroma:  Lightly fruity aroma with a bit of musty and earthy smell
• Appearance:  Light gold and pretty murky
• Flavor:  No sourness has developed.  Has a pretty firm bitterness in the finish and a bit of fruity Belgian like yeast character
• Mouthfeel:  Light and very dry.  Pretty smooth drinking
• Overall:  Not very interesting or very tasty unfortunately.  Interesting that it's so bitter after almost 2 years of aging.

Lessons Learned:

1. Doing the cereal mash a few hours before the beer worked out nicely as it gave it time to cool to a more manageable temperature.  This made it easier to handle and prevented it from having such a significant impact on the overall mash temperature.  I think I'll do this again
2. The fly sparge arm was nice.  I need to figure out a better way to get the water to gravity feed down to the pump from the HLT.  I get steam bubbles which interrupt the flow pretty frequently  I have a couple elbow (one for the water pickup and one at the disconnect) which I suspect could be contributing to this.  I will eliminate both of them.
3. I was really happy that my spontaneous fermentation took off as quickly as it did and led to some fairly vigorous activity.  I'm going to try this again next fall with a larger batch.

Sour Blonde 4.1.1

After my recent tasting of my Sour Blonde ales I've decided that I'm not happy with the flavors being achieved using the Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend.  I think using some other blends should help me get better blending options over the next couple years.

For this Sour Blonde I will be using a couple blends from Omega Yeast Labs.  First, I'll be using their Brett Blend #3 (Bring on Da Funk) which will hopefully provide a complex set of flavors.  Additionally, I'll be trying to assure myself at least a bit of sourness for this one by using their Lacto blend on 1 gal of the beer which I'll add back.  I'll be fermenting both portions of the beer at 75 F using a heating pad which I'm hoping will ensure some bold flavors initially. 

I'll blend these together after a couple weeks and then let them sit on the cake at ambient basement temps for a few months before sampling.  If I like what I'm getting out of it I'll do another beer on the cake.  I'm not sure at this point where this beer will do it's long term aging (1-3 years).

I plan to save off the lacto dregs, split them into two jugs, and feed them a couple more gal of fresh wort once they are done with this beer to give me some extra acid beer to help with the blending I'm planning.

The grainbill is basically the same on this one as the last couple (60% malted barley to 40% unmalted wheat).  I'll execute a proper cereal mash for this beer.  One new experiment will be to added a cup of whole wheat flour at the end of mash which I'm hoping might simulate the effects (high levels of unconverted starches) of the turbid mash approach the Lambic producers use.

No hops in this batch to avoid impacting the lacto.

Finally, I'll be using a new Mash Tun for this Brew - SS Brewtech 10 gal mash tun.  It is a very nice looking product with a bottom drain and a very nicely fitting false bottom with a gasket.  One look at it and a I immediately threw my cooler mash tun in the garbage.  Sometimes DIY works great and saves you some money and sometimes it takes you off into the weeds and wastes money.  I think my previous false bottom mash tun was the later.  Wish I'd just bought this thing a couple years ago.  I had to re-work my stand slightly  as part of the setup for the new mash tun so I'm still figuring out how I'm going to use my RIMS going forward.  As a result, I'll be doing a batch sparge on this beer and will be moving the water and wort by hand.  Hopefully will have everything setup better for my next batch.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 4 lb Pilsner
• 1 lb Munich
• 3 oz Acid Malt
• 12 oz Maltodextrine
• 1 cup Whole wheat flour
• Cereal Mash
• 4 lb Unmalted Wheat
• 1 lb Pilsner
• Hops:
• None
• Yeast:
• Omega Yeast OYL-212 Brett Blend #3:  Bring on Da Funk
• Omega Yeast OYL-605 Lactobacillus Blend (L. Plantarum and L. Brevis)
• Water:
• ~9 gal spring water
• 2 gal tap water
• 1 tsp CaCl

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal
• Mash:
• Main Mash:
• 162 F - 154 F (Target 158 F)
• Cereal Mash:
• Step 1:  115 for 15 min
• Step 2:  155 for 15 min
• Step 3.  Boil for 15 min
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• Primary: 
• First 2 weeks:  75 F
• Secondary:  Ambient Basement Temp
• Primary Duration:
• 3 months
• Secondary Duration:
• 1-3 years

Results:

• OG:
• 1.048 (Target 1.045)
• Efficiency:
• 71% (Target 66%) - Doesn't include Maltodextrine or flour
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.004)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 91%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 5.78%)

Brewing Notes:

• 11/5/17 - Brewday - 12:45 PM to 5:45 PM - Including setup and cleanup
• Performed Cereal Mash on raw wheat:
• Double milled my cereal mash grain into my 5 gal pot
• Added 2 gal of hot tap water and stirred well.  This settled to about 110 F.  Let this rehydrate for 15 min
• Heated to 155 F, stirring frequently to avoid scorching.  Let this sit for 15 more min
• Brought to a boil.  Let boil for 15 min.  The boil kept all the grain in movement so no stirring was necessary
• Killed the heat after 15 min and let sit until I was ready to add to the main mash

• Heated 10 gal of spring water to 185 F
• Milled the grain for the main mash.  Added the CaCl to the grain
• Transferred 3 gal of spring water to the mash tun using a measuring cup
• Added the grain and stirred in.  Temperatures of the main mash settled to 161 F after 10 min

• Added the cereal mash to the main mash.  This spiked the mash temp to 170 F.  Stirred vigorously and added half a gal of cool water to get it down to 162 F
• Mashed for 60 min.  Stirred every 15 min.  The mash temp had dropped down to 154 F by the end with all my stirring
• With 10 min left I added the wheat flour
• Prior to the first sparge I ran off a few quarts of liquid until it ran fairly clear.

• Ran off the first running which got me about 3-4 gal.  Did this via gravity.
• Added 3 gal of 170 F sparge water, stirred, let settle for a few min, vorlaufed, and then drained.  Had about 7 gal of wort after this
• Added another 1.5 gal of sparge water and did a second batch sparge.  This got me between 8 and 9 gal.
• Boiled for 60 min
• Added the Maltodextrine a bit at a time after it got to a boil
• With 5 min left I added my wort chiller to sanitize
• Chilled the beer to 90 F and pulled off a gal into a glass jug to sour with the lacto
• Chilled the remainder to 80 F and then drained off into the fermenter.  Added the Brett blend during this transfer.  Let it fall a couple feet to aerate.

• Moved the beer into the fermentation chamber with a heating pad.  Temp was set to 75 F.  Wrapped the lacto in a towel to allow it to stay a bit warmer
• Got 6 gal of beer.  Measured the gravity as 1.048 F
• 11/6/17 - Airlock activity was observed by the next afternoon.  No activity on the lacto
• 11/11/17 - Airlock no longer bubbling but the lacto portion is bubbling quite a bit
• 11/19/17 - Added the lacto soured portion and moved the beer out of the fermentation chamber.  I'll be feeding the lacto 2 gal of beer from a Top Up batch.

• 5/25/18 - Status Report:
• Slightly fruity and a little musty smelling beer.  Also a bit cheesy.
• Light gold with a slight haze
• A bit of fruity flavor with a slight bit of earthy funk.  Very slightly tart.  Has kind of a mineral flavor as well.  A bit of bready malt comes through in the finish.
• Medium-light bodied and pretty dry.  Drinks smooth.
• Pretty mild in flavor and not much complexity
• 8/24/19 - Status Report:
• Aroma:  Fruity with a bit of cheesy funk.  Has a sort of wine like aroma.
• Appearance:  Light gold and a bit cloudy
• Flavor:  Fairly firm sourness.  Citrus fruit fairly bold followed by a bit of earthy brett.
• Mouthfeel:  Light and dry.  Slight prickling
• Overall:  This one is pretty boldly flavored but not really that complex

Lessons Learned:

1. I used some bread flour for this batch.  It didn't complicate the mash in any noticeable way.  Also seemed like I got a more turbid wort than usual which, I think, could be a good thing.  I'm going to repeat this for my next few beers
2. The cleaning process for the new mash tun was a lot nicer than with my previous cooler mash tun.  Being about to remove that from the stand to drain out the water by gravity was very nice.
3. Not having the RIMS to adjust the temperature was quite annoying.  I did a poor job in determining how the cereal mash would impact the mash temperature as well.  Need to get the system setup to use the RIMS again for next time.

Sour Blonde Status Report - 2017

I have now been brewing Sour Blonde ales for about three years.  I have accumulated 7 batches of beer of 1 year or older in this period.  Now that I have quite a bit of aged beer I would like to start bottling some.  I have plans to create plain, cherry (Kriek), and raspberry (Framboise) blends of this beer.  It has been quite some time since I tasted any of these beers - I need to take stock of what options I have for blending.

5 of my 7 beers used Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend and a couple have used blends by East Coast Yeast.  I wasn't too impressed by anything Wyeast 3278 brought to the table in my early tastings of the beer - hopefully that has changed with some age.  I plan to explore some other yeast blends as well as some wild yeast in the next year to give myself more variety going forward.

In the long term I'd like to get up to having 12 batches of this Sour Blonde beer of various ages to allow for a yearly blending.  I'm thinking I'd have 6 batches aging in glass and 6 in bucket fermenters to explore how different levels of oxygen exposure impact the beers (buckets are thought to allow a bit of oxygen to permeate into the beer.  Lambic producers use oak barrels which allow oxygen into the beer in small amounts.  It would seem that this oxygen exposure is likely a key component to giving these beers their complexity.

It is exciting to be trying these after so long.

Sour Blonde 1.1.1:

• Brewed:
• 11/1/14
• Overview:
• First pitch of Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
• Left to cool outside over night to let it capture some wild yeast
• Grainbill of 2/3 pilsner and 1/3 flaked wheat
• 1 oz of hops
• Status Notes:
• Had been using a 3 piece airlock on this.  Ran dry a few times.  Switched to a vented silicone bung a few months ago
• Tasting Notes:
• Fruity yeast character.  Cider-like.  Slight mustiness
• Light gold and clear.  Some pellicle chunks floating
• Mild fruity flavor along with a subtle spicy yeast character.  Maybe a little malt.  No sourness or funk have developed
• Flavors are rather muted and it lacks the complexity you'd expect in a beer this age

Sour Blonde 1.2.1:

• Brewed:
• 2/7/15
• Overview:
• Second pitch of Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
• Left to cool outside over night to let it capture some wild yeast
• Grainbill of 2/3 pilsner and 1/3 flaked wheat
• 1 oz of hops
• Status Notes:
• Had a 3 piece airlock that ran dry on several occasions.  Replaced with a vented silicone bung
• Tasting Notes:
• A bit of earthy funk along with a bit of fruit
• Lightly gold and slightly hazy
• Beer has a bit of earthy funk.  Also get some alcohol flavor.  Maybe a slight bit of fruity ester mixed in as well.  No sourness has developed
• Pretty mild flavored and not very complex

Sour Blonde 1.3.1:

• Brewed:
• 5/10/15
• Overview:
• Third pitch of Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
• Grainbill of 2/3 pilsner and 1/3 flaked wheat
• Cut hops back to 1/2 oz
• Decided to only mash for 15 min to get a less converted wort.  Ended up with abysmal 43% efficiency
• Status Notes:
• NSTR
• Tasting Notes:
• Pronounced sulfur aroma both in fermenter and glass.  Also get overripe fruit.  Get a bit of spicy yeast as well as some malt
• Light gold and very clear
• Light tartness along with a bit of fruit - citrus maybe.  Also get a bit of earthy funk.  Bready malt comes through on the finish
• Nice range of flavors give the beer reasonable complexity.  Fairly mild taste

Sour Blonde 1.4.1:

• Brewed:
• 8/8/15
• Overview:
• Fourth pitch of Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
• Grainbill of 2/3 pilsner and 1/3 flaked wheat
• Moved to a lower AA hop
• Did a normal mash
• Status Notes:
• NSTR
• Tasting Notes:
• Cider Aroma with a bit of sulphur.  Also get a bit of spicy yeast ester
• Clear and light gold
• Strong funk with fruity yeast character.  No sourness.  Has a bit of alcohol burn.  A bit of bread in the finish with a sort of mineral character
• Strong flavor but not all together pleasant.  Pretty much one note

Sour Blonde 1.5.1:

• Brewed:
• 11/22/15
• Overview:
• Primaried with Belgian yeast
• Fifth pitch of Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
• Added 1 gal of wort soured with lacto
• Changed the malt bill to 2/3 pilsner 1/3 raw wheat
• Used a sort of cereal mash on the raw wheat.  Added this right before sparging to get a starchy worth
• Used Maltodextrine to increase food for bacteria
• No hops in this batch
• Aged on 1 oz of oak
• Status Notes:
• Beer has sat on yeast cake since 1/2/16
• Tasting Notes:
• Overripe fruit along with earthy and cheesy funk.  Very pungent aroma.  Also get a good amount of vanilla and oak.  By far the best smelling of the group
• Gold and a bit cloudy
• Quite sour.  Light fruit flavor.  Bready malt in the finish.  Also get a slight bit of earthy funk.  Maybe also gat a bit of oak in the finish
• Fair amount of complexity and some nice bold flavors

Sour Blonde 2.1.1:

• Brewed:
• 4/10/16
• Overview:
• First pitch of ECY01 Bug Farm
• Changed malt bill to include 1 lb of Munich replacing 1 lb of pilsner.  Also did a proper cereal mash with raw wheat.
• Added Maltodextrine to give the bacteria and brett a bit more food
• Used 1/2 oz of hops
• Status Notes:
• Had intended to brew a new batch to go onto this yeast cake last year.  Finally got around to brewing this new batch
• Transferred this to our new house
• Tasting Notes:
• Earthy and leathery funk.  Kind of reminds me of tobacco.  Also get a bit of fruit - tough to pin down.  Peach maybe.
• Golden and quite cloudy
• Big diacetyl butter popcorn flavor.  Has a bit of fruit mingled in.  A little acidity.  Brett funk is fairly firm and also get some bandaid flavor.  Finishes with a bit of bready malt
• Work in progress.  I think this has the potential for bold flavors but needs time

Sour Blonde 3.1.1:

• Brewed:
• 5/8/16
• Overview:
• First pitch of ECY 34 Dirty Dozen
• Went with a malt bill of Pilsner and Malted and Flaked wheat
• Added Maltodextrine to give the bugs more food
• No hops in this batch
• Status Notes:
• Left this beer on the yeast cake longer than intended.  Finally transferred into a glass carboy and moved a new beer onto this cake
• Tasting Notes:
• Earthy and leather funk dominates.  Get a bit of spicy and fruity ester character as well
• Golden and clear
• Lightly sour.  Has a bit of leathery funk flavor in the background along with some wheat and bready malt
• Fairly complex with some strong flavors

Camembert Cheese

After cutting my teeth with several cheeses meant for fresh consumption (Mozzarella, Cheese Curds, and Queso Fresco a couple times each) I decided I really wanted to take the next step into cheesemaking and attempt some that require aging.  Aging cheese requires a combination of cool temperature (low 50s) and high humidity (85-95%) which is a non-trivial environment to achieve.  Normal fridges and freezers are too cold and, as part of their cooling function, they de-humidify the air.  So, using a fridge as a cheese cave requires these two competing and somewhat contradictory needs (temperature and humidity) to be balanced.

I have setup a cheese cave using a dorm fridge and leveraged a humidifier and temperature & humidity controllers to provide the proper aging environment for cheese.  After monitoring and making some tweaks I finally feel comfortable that I will be able to successfully use this cheese cave to make a simple aged cheese.  Will make a dedicated post on this cave once I feel I've worked out all the kinks.

For my first aged cheese I opted to make a Camembert which requires a couple weeks aging with very high humidity (low-mid 90s).  This will provide a good first test for my cave.  I will be trying the version from cheesemaking.com.

Camembert is a mold ripened cheese. It has a rubbery outer casing (referred to as the "rind") and creamy cheese in the center (Brie is the famous example of a mold ripened cheese).  What I, and probably most folks, didn't realize about this type of cheese is that the rubbery outside is actually mold.  The process of making the cheese is very interesting and quite different from other cheeses: 

• The curds aren't cooked or cut like with many other cheeses.  Once the curd is formed it is scooped directly into molds to slowly drain under it's own weight.
• Once the cheese is formed and salted it goes into the aging space.  The purpose of this is to grow a layer of mold on the outside (mold that is added during the ripening stage in this recipe).  This mold is what will convert the cheese curds into the soft creamy form the style is known for
• Once enough mold has formed, the cheese is moved into a colder space (normal fridge) to allow the mold to do the conversion in a slower and more controllable manner.  The amount of time given will dictate the consistency and flavor of the cheese - it becomes softer and more flavorful, funky, and pungent as time passes.  The point at which it is in an optimal state is a matter of personal taste - I don't believe I'll like it if it gets too ripe.

All said and done, you would expect this cheese to be ready in 4-6 weeks.

I have decided to use 1 gal of milk which will give me 2 cheeses (as I only have 2 forms at this point).  I'm using a milk that I've had very good luck with in the last couple batches of cheese.  Will follow the procedure as closely as possible and hope I don't run into any issues in my first go around.

Ingredients:

• 1 gal of Lucerne Whole Milk (Pasteurized and Homogenized)
• 1/8 tsp CaCl desolved in ~2 Tbs of spring water
• 1/2 Packet of Buttermilk Culture 
• ~1/16 tsp Penicillium Candidum
• "Smidgen" of Geotrichum Candidum (best guess at 1/64 tsp)
• 1/8 tsp Liquid Rennet in ~1 Tbs of spring water
• 2 tsp Kosher Salt

Process/Notes:

• 10/29/17 (Day 1):
• Heated milk to 90 F in a water bath in the sink
• Added CaCl
• Added culture.  Allowed this to rehydrate on the surface for a couple minutes and then stirred in
• Let acidify the milk for 30 min.  The milk was 93-94 degrees at the start of this
• Added the Rennet.  Stirred it in for 1 min or so.
• Let it set for 90 min
• Verified I had a clean break
• Ladled the curds into two cheese molds setup on draining mat

The pieces of curd were large at first

By the end, the remaining curd had broken up into little chunks

Ended up filling the mods all the way to the top (had one or two ladles worth of mostly whey that didn't fit)

• Let the cheese drain for 1 hr and then flipped for the first time.  Did this in the kitchen which is in the low 70s.

• Let drain for another hr (2nd hr) and flipped again.  Moved into onto a plate to drain more

• Let drain for another hr (at 3 hr mark now).  The cheese has started to consolidate now and not putting out as much whey.  Fell as one continuous mass on the flip (although it did stick to the top a bit

• Let drain for another hr (4 hrs in now).  The other side has consolidated as well but the surface is a bit lumpy on both cheeses.

• 10/30/17 (Day 2):
• Let it sit on this side until the next morning (8.5 hrs later - 12.5 hrs of draining time at this point).  They put out a fair bit of whey overnight.  Flipped them and then applied half the salt to the top.

• Let sit for 12 more hours and then flipped again.  Salted the other side.  Left them to absorb the salt and drain overnight
• 1/31/17 (Day 3):
• The next morning I removed the molds and move the cheeses to a ripening box on a piece of egg crate and a bamboo draining mat.  Moved this down into the mid-60s basement to dry

• After 12 hrs the top appeared dry.  I flipped the cheese to let the other side dry out.  Moved them to the unused quadrant of the bamboo mat on this flip
• After 2 more hrs this side was dry as well so I decided to move it to the temperature and humidity controlled cheese cave setup for 11-14 C (51.8 to 57.2 F) and 90-93% RH

• 11/1/17 (Day 4) - Flipped the cheese once in the morning and once in the afternoon.  No moisture on the surface but it is soft and moist.  No sign of mold yet.
• 11/2/17 (Day 5) - Flipped the cheese twice.  No real change in the cheese that I can see.
• 11/3/17 (Day 6) - Flipped the cheese twice more.  Noticed a bit of the white mold had started to form on the side of the cheese in the afternoon flipping.
• 11/4/17 (Day 7) - The mold has covered more of the side of the cheese.  It is a bit fuzzy and compresses a bit when touched.  I'll let it spread some more before doing much patting.  Flipped twice today.

Fuzzy mold forming on the edges

• 11/5/17 (Day 8) - The mold has started to form on the top and bottom of the cheese.  Patted everything down when flipping.  I think I'll give it another day or so before moving into the fridge.  Flipped a second time.
• 11/6/17 (Day 9) - The top and bottom have developed good layers of mold.  Decided to slow things down a bit by reducing the cheese cave temperature to 42-47 F.  I wrapped the cheeses in parchment paper to keep in humidity and shut off the humidifier.  It turns out the normal fridge is too cold at 33 F.
• 11/7/17 (Day 10) - The cheese case was running full time trying to get the temp below 47 F.  I decided to change the temperature range from 47 F to 52 F.  Also found that it was getting down to 70% humidity in the chamber so I decided to keep running the humidifier.
• 11/12/17 (Day 15) - I have flipped the cheeses every day.  I have been squeezing them slightly to see if I can get a sense for how the ripening is progressing.  They are softening up slightly but are still pretty firm.
• 11/19/17 (Day 22) - I decided to leave the humidifier off when I went out of town for a week.
• 11/28/17 (Day 31) - I decided to sample the first cheese.  I tastes just like Camembert should and it has gotten smooth in the middle but the outside edge, just under the rind, has dried out and is quite hard.  The humidity in the cave had dropped to 50-60%.  The second one is continuing to age at in the high 40s.  I'll turn on the humidifier again to see if that helps.

• 12/9/17 (Day 43) - I ate the first wheel.  Took out the second wheel.  This one was a bit dryer even - turning the humidifier on didn't help.  It didn't get any more ripe than the first one in the additional 2 weeks of aging (assume the drying halted any activity from the mold.  Tastes really nice but the texture is very wrong.  Going to have to try this again.
• 3/17/18 - I made another cheese on 2/11/18.  I aged it for 5 weeks between 11 and 14 C and 85%-89% humidity.  It stayed nice an moist the entire time.  It was feeling pretty soft so I cut into it today.  The middle is very smooth but firm still.  Has a really lovely and rich funky flavor.

Lessons Learned:

1. The sink water bath worked very nicely at heating the milk and keeping it at the correct temperature even without circulation I was able to hold the desired 90 F for the ripening and coagulation periods
2. Doing the draining of the whey in the kitchen into containers was a bit messy.  Would be better to have a way to drain the cheese off into a sink.  Will try to rig up something for the basement utility sink
3. The cheese cave pools up water at the bottom and then the water drains out onto the floor (probably half a cup every 12 hrs).  I will need to seal up the bottom of the cave a bit better.  Also, a lot of the steam being injected is being sucked directly into the freezer compartment.  I think a bit more pipe to direct the steam towards the back of the cave would allow me to avoid this happening so much.
4. In an attempt to slow the aging I wrapped the cheese in parchment paper and kept at high 40s with no humidity.  The cheese cave got down to 50-60% humidity in this period.  The cheese dried out quite a bit in the 2 weeks that I left it this way.  Next time I think I'll keep it at the normal aging and humidity levels until it is ready to eat.  I may put the other wheels in the fridge in a Tupperware once I don't want them to ripen more.