Flanders Red (2017) - Tasting Notes

Here are tasting notes for my second attempt at the Flanders Red Style.  This beer is a blend of two two year old beers which I put together back in September 2017 based on a tasting of 15 different beers.

The beers ended up very dry which really accentuated the complexity but reduced the drinkability a bit.  I decided to backsweeten up to about 1.012 which is about the gravity of Rodenbach Grand Cru (which is also backsweetened).  I let the beer carbonate in my cold basement for about 3 weeks until the bottles seemed carbonated and then pasteurized in a pot of hot water.  It's turned out that they weren't all evenly carbonated this time (doh).

I've been drinking these for the past few months and have really enjoyed them.  Hope to make them last several more years.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Fruity smell dominates - it is reminiscent of cherries or raisin.  I also get a leathery and earthy smell mixed in.  Maybe a bit of spiciness in there as well. 
• Appearance:
• Reddish brown and pretty hazy.  The beer pours with a very wispy head which dissipates almost immediately.
• Flavor:
• It has a fairly mild sourness and a good bit of brett funk (earthy, leathery, bandaidy).  The sourness goes along well with a slight fruity character.  The finish has a very mild bready malt flavor.  It has a slightly sweet flavor in the finish as well which softens the sourness.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium bodied and fairly dry.  It drinks very smooth - no prickliness.
• Overall:
• The beer has really bold aroma and flavor and has a very pleasing complexity.  Compared with my last batch (2016 Flanders Red) this beer is softer and smoother around the edges which makes it a more pleasant beverage.  I think the slight sweetness from the back sweetening is responsible.  Maybe lose a bit of Brett complexity using this method but overall I'd say it is an improvement.

Belgian Tripel

It has been a while since I brewed up a Belgian Trappist style of beer (1.5 years since my Belgian Single) so I've decided to make a Belgian Tripel this week.  I found this nice looking Tripel Karmeliet clone recipe from homebrew talk which I'll use as a basis for this batch.  Tripel Karmeliet has a really nice complex set of flavors derived from the yeast and, maybe, some spices.  This recipe uses Orange Zest, Star Anise, and Coriander to attempt to replicate that complexity.

One interesting thing about the Belgian Trappist beers is their use of sugar to get to the high alcohol levels while still remaining light and crisp.  This recipe calls for 1 lb of sugar which is about 12% of the fermentable sugar.  Spoiler alert - I wasn't paying enough attention when I planned out the grain bill and ended up undershooting my gravity by 8 SG so I've gone with 2 lbs of sugar for 21% of the fermentables.  Pretty disappointing.

I'm sticking with the recipe pretty close otherwise.  The recipe author says he's made the beer 7 times and that it's very close to the real thing.  I'll do my own side by side with this one.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 11 lb Pilsner
• 2 lb Flaked Wheat
• 1 lb Wheat Malt
• 8 oz Oat Malt
• 8 oz Flaked Oats
• 2 lb table sugar
• Hops:
• 1 oz Styrian Goldings (Pellet, 2.6% AA) at 60 min
• 1 oz Saaz (Pellet, 3.3% AA) at 15 min
• 1 oz Saaz (Pellet, 3.3% AA) at 5 min
• Yeast:
• WLP 500 Monastery Ale Yeast
• Water:
• 15 gal Spring Water
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min
• Extras:
• 2 Star Anise Stars at 5 min
• Zest of 2 oranges at 5 min
• 0.5 Tbs Coriander Powder at 5 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal
• Mash:
• Step Mash as follows:
• Protein Rest at 122 F for 15 min
• Beta Rest at 149 F for 30 min
• Alpha Rest at 158 F for 30 min
• Mash Out at 172 F for 10 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 75 F
• Primary Duration:
• 4 Weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.078 (Target 1.078)
• Efficiency:
• 69% (Target 69%)
• FG:
• 1.012 (Target 1.014)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 84% (Target 81%)
• ABV:
• 8.66% (Target 8.40%)

Brewing Notes:

• 7/14/18 - Made a 1.6 L starter at 1.06 gravity out of pilsner malt and set the yeast up an my stir plate to propagate
• 7/15/18 - Brewday - From 11:30 AM to 4:30 PM Including setup and cleanup
• Added flaked grains to the mash tun along with the brewing salts

• Added 2 gal 165 F water to the mash tun
• Milled the grain into the mash tun.  The mash ended up way too dry so I added 1.5 gal of 190 F water
• The mash temp was way too high (160 s) so I added about 1.5 gal of cool water which got me down to 125 F (so, I missed the Acid Rest)
• Cycled the RIMS at 125 F for 15 min
• Ramped the RIMS up to 149 F and added 1.5 gal of 190 F water.  Settled out to 149 F in about 5 min.
• Cycled RIMS at 149 F for 30 min
• Ramped the temp up to 158 F using the RIMS and adding 1 gal of 180 F water.  This took 5 min or so
• Cycled the RIMS at 158 F for 30 min
• Ramped the temperature up to 172 F using the RIMS and by adding 1 gal of 190 F water.  This took 5 min
• Sat for 10 min at 172 F
• Sparged until I had collected a bit more than 80 gal
• Started the boil after collecting 4 gal - had it to a boil by the end of the sparge
• Boiled for 60 min
• Added bittering hops after the hot break cleared
• Added sugar after 30 min
• Added flavoring hops and irish moss with 15 min to go
• Realized I had to boil an extra 15 min at this point to get down to the 6 gal target
• Added the spices with 5 min left along with the final oz of hops
• Added the wort chiller with a couple min left to sanitize
• Chilled down to 80 F
• Transferred to by SS brew bucket and added the yeast.  Ended up with more than 6 gal.  The pickup tube got clogged so I had to pour the beer in - ended up transferring one of the star anise and quite a bit of the orange

• Checked gravity and was shocked to see I'd only gotten 1.070.  I made a mistake in my efficiency calculations and assumed a 5.5 gal.  Added 1 more lb of sugar to the batch to get up to the 1.078 target
• Moved to the fermentation chamber with a blowoff tube.  Set the chamber to 76 F.
• 7/16/18 - The beer was bubbling vigorously the next day
• 7/20/18 - Still a lot of CO2 production going on
• 7/22/18 - Moved the beer out of the fermentation chamber to finish up.  It has a very estery aroma.
• 8/25/18 - Moved the beer back to the fermentation chamber to cold crash at 34 F
• 9/1/18 - Added gelatin to fine the beer
• 9/16/18 - Bottled this beer today.  Used 5 oz of priming sugar for about 6 gal of beer.  This got me 60 12 oz bottles.  The FG is about 1.012.  I'll give it a couple weeks to carb up.  It has a really nice fruity ester character along with quite a bit of spice.
• 11/3/18 - Tasting Notes - A very complex and interesting beer.  Hides it's 8.6% ABV very well which is pretty typical of the style.  I haven't tried this side by side with Tripel Karmeliet yet but I believe it should be very close.

Lessons Learned:

1. I got a little careless with this one.  Missed my initial acid rest and screwed up the calculation for based grain/efficiency.  I left getting new propane until the brew day and got a late start.  I think that sort of wore me out a little bit and I wasn't super excited to be brewing.  I should have gotten the gas the previous day to conserve my energy a bit more.