Flanders Red 1.8.1 & Top Up Batch

Over the last 4.5 years I've brewed seven batches of beer on the Roeselare Yeast Cake I'll use for this bach.  This approach has repeatedly created some very interesting and complex beers for me.  It has been a bit over 2.5 years since I brewed my last batch using this yeast (Flanders Red 1.7.1) and I'm interested to see if I can get another out of it after all this time.  This will be Flanders Red 1.8.1.

In addition to this, I'll be making some extra wort to use to top off my other fermenters which were partially depleted from some recent blending sessions (see notes).  I'll be using the unfermented wort from this batch to hopefully give the microbes left in my other, older, fermenters a bit more to chew on over the next year.

I'll be using a very similar grainbill to previous batches along with a Cereal Mash using Corn Grits.  In a fit of creativity I decided to move some of the starchy cereal mash liquid directly to the boil kettle for this batch in an attempt to get some additional starches into the wort for the long secondary fermentation period.  Managed to add quite a bit of particulate matter into the boil kettle with it.  I'm sure it wont harm anything but will it help?

I will also be lightly hopping this batch in order to limit the influence of lacto as the beers a getting a bit more acidic than I would prefer.

Finally, it's going to be a cool brew day and a very cool night so I've decided to limit my use of the hose.  I'm going to let the wort air cool down to sub-100 F degrees rather than use my wort chiller.  This might also capture some wild yeast which will help get the primary fermentation done as yeast component of the Roeselare Yeast cake is likely mostly depleted.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct
• 8 lb Pilsner Malt
• 6 lb Munich Malt
• 1.5 lb Aromatic Malt
• 1.5 lb Crystal 60L
• 1.5 lb Special B
• Cereal Mash
• 1.5 lb Pilsner
• 3 lb Corn Grits
• Hops:
• 1 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 3.5% AA) at 60 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 3763 Roeselare Ale Blend (Eighth Pitch)
•  Water:
• 11 gal spring water
• 7 gal tap water
• 2 tsp CaCl
• 2 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Citric Acid

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 10.5 gal
• Mash:
• Cereal Mash:
• 60 F for 30 min
• 120 F for 30 min
• 155 F for 20 min
• Boil for 30 min
• Main Mash:
• 160 F for 75 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• Ambient Basement Temps (~60 F)
• Primary Duration:
• 1 Month
• Secondary Duration:
• 1-3 years

Results:

• OG:
• 1.058
• Efficiency:
• 74%
• FG:
• TBD 
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD
• ABV:
• TBD

Brewing Notes:

• 2/10/19 - Brewday - 12:00 PM to 6:30 PM - Including cereal mash and cleanup
• Cereal Mash

• Soaked cereal mash in cool water (~2.5 gal of spring water) for about 30 min
• Heated the cereal mash to 120 F on the stovetop
• Let it sit at this temperature for about an hr while I ran to the store
• Heated it up to 155 F

• Let it sit for 20 min at this temperature
• Brought it to a boil and boiled for 30 min
• Brought 10 gal of spring water up to 210 F in my HLT
• Milled my grain
• Added half the brewing salts to the grain
• Found that I was out of Acid Malt.  Used 1 tsp of powdered Citric Acid instead
• Added 6 gal of strike water to the mash tun - let it sit for 10 min.  Temperature settled to 190 F at this point
• Rigged up the RIMS and cycled through the grant and RIMS tube.  Added another gal of water to the system as part of this.  Cycled for 5 min after which the temperature seemed to settle to about 175 F
• Added the grain and stirred well to eliminate doughballs.  Temperature settled at 160 F.  Right on target!
• Started cycling the RIMS again at 160 F

• Poured about a gal of the liquid from the cereal mash into the boil kettle.  I'm hopping this gives me a richer, starchier wort
• Added the cereal mash to the mash tun after 15 min
• Mashed with everything together for 60 min
• Added 5 gal of tap water to the HLT and then heated 8.5 gal of sparge water up to 190 F
• Added CaCL and Gypsum to the boil kettle
• Slowly drained the mash tun into the boil kettle.  Did a manual fly sparge where I added hot sparge water to the top of the mash tun when the water dropped below the grain bed level
• Collected 12 gal
• Started the flame on the HLT during the mash.  Had it at a boil a few min after the end of the collection
• Added my hops after the hot break cleared.  Boiled for 60 min
• Had a little over 10 gal at the end of the boil
• Decided to let the beer chill for a few hrs in the cold night air (was about 30 F outside) rather than getting out the hose for the wort chiller
• After 3 hrs the beer was down to 100 F
• I'm down to 9.5 gal after evaporation
• Measured the gravity of the beer as 1.060 at 100 F which is 1.068.  Added 1 gal of cool spring water which should get me to the high 1.05s/low 1.06s.
• Measured the gravity as 1.058 after adding the water.  This knocked it down to 95 F
• I had about 3.5 gal of Flanders Red 1.7.1 left (in Fermenter #12).  I transferred 2 gal of this off into a couple other fermenters (#4 and #6)
• Drained 4 gal into Fermenter #12.  Set this up with a 3 piece airlock
• I got 6 gal of remaining wort which I used to top off other fermenters (#1, #2, #3, #5, #7, #9, and #10)

• 2/16/19 - No krausen has formed on 1.8.1 or any of the other fermenters that I topped up.  All have reformed their pellicles which are looking a little more bubbly than usual.

Lessons Learned:

1. Concurrently with this brewday I baked some bread and made a pot roast.  Everything turned out well which was nice but it was an exhausting day.  I'll try not to be so ambitious again.
2. I have a lot of beer related projects going right now that do not involve actual brewing (last beer made had been in late October).  I enjoyed brewing again - shouldn't leave this much time between batches.

Russian Imperial Stout with Bourbon Soaked Oak - Tasting Notes

A little over a year ago I brewed up a big Russian Imperial Stout which I aged on my own whiskey soaked charred white oak in an attempt to make a clone of the famous Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout.  This beer aged for 6 months on oak and finished at a pretty extraordinary 1.046 (close to the Starting Gravity of many of my beers).  It started at 1.130 which puts it at about 13% ABV - it packs a wallop.

I bottled the beer about three months ago with wine yeast and was pleasantly surprised that it has carbonated somewhat.  I've been drinking it quickly (I've got less than half the batch left at this point) and it's been preventing me from drinking my stockpile of real BCBS.

This batch has re-enforced my opinion that duplicating the effects of barrel aging isn't a trivial matter.  Even though I didn't quite capture the BCBS barrel character I think I've gotten pretty close (definitely moving in the right direction compared with the medium toast Hungarian oak cubes soaked in whiskey).  Regardless, it has been a lot of fun!

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Oak and light whiskey aroma hits first followed by the smell of bitter dark chocolate, roasted malt, and coffee
• Appearance:
• Black and opaque.  Pours with a thin layer of brow foam.  This fades into a thin ring after a couple minutes
• Flavor:
• Malt hits up front - it has a chocolate and caramel character.  The oak (vanilla, roast, and smoke) and whiskey then come through.  They meld very nicely with malt.  In the finish there is a bitter roast flavor - very much like eating a high % dark chocolate.  I suppose some of the bitter finish is the hops as well although there isn't any hop flavor that clearly comes though.  There is also a strong alcohol component in the finish.  The finish has a balance between the sweet malty, bitter roasty, and alcohol flavors.
• Mouthfeel:
• It is a full bodied beer with quite a bit of sweetness.  It drinks fairly smooth - maybe a slight bit of astringency.  Has a warming alcohol presence.  As strong as this beer is it drinks very easily - not so heavy that you feel full after drinking one (although a second would be way too much if I want to get out of bed the next morning).
• Overall:
• This is a big, rich, and complex beer.  The base beer brought a real rich set of flavors which stand up nicely to the the whiskey and oak.  This was intended to be a clone of BCBS but I'm thinking I likely missed the mark a bit in terms of the strength of the whiskey character (will do a final side by side comparison).  Even so I think the beer strikes a very nice balance of it's own.  I'll be brewing another one of these.