Sour Blonde Top Up Batch - 2019

I plan on blending up another round of Sour Blonde in the next month.  This batch will give me some beer to top up the fermenters with.  I will primary this batch with a blend of Trappist Ale Yeast and Lacto Brevis that I've been re-pitching new beers onto over the last several years.  The yeast produces a fruity beer with a fair bit of sourness an typically leaves quite a few points of gravity for the microbes to chew on during aging.

These sour blonde beers are inspired by the Belgian Lambic style.  I'm using Raw Wheat as is done with these beer which I'll perform a Cereal Mash to extract the starch from.  I hope this helps contribute to a starchy wort like the classic Turbid Mash.  To try to increase the level of starch I'm going to add 0.5 lbs of white flour to the boil - I'll add a little bit at a time to hopefully prevent clumping.  I'm hoping this will serve to increase my gravity at primary.

I'll be using some home grown hops from a friend of mine which are pretty dried out.  They have a nice aroma but I'm hoping the bitterness has faded a bit.  I'll be adding these at 15 min to minimize the bitterness even more.  I'd like these to restrain the sourness from the lacto a bit.

It has been two months since I brewed - hopefully it wont be that long until the next one.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 12 lb Pilsner
• 2 lb Light Munich
• 4 oz Acid Malt
• Cereal Mash:
• 8 lb Raw Wheat
• 2 lb Pilsner
• 8 oz Flour
• Hops:
• 2 oz Cascade (Home Grown Flowers) at 15 min
• Yeast:
• Primary with Trappist Yeast and Lacto Brevis Culture
• Water:
• 14 gal Spring Water
• 5 gal Tap Water
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Irish moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:  
• 12 gal (Target 12 gal)
• Mash:
• Cereal Mash:
• Rest at 110 F, 155 F and then boiled for 20 min
• Main Mash:
• 160 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• Mid-60s (Ambient Basement Temps)
• Primary Duration:
• 4 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.053 (Target 1.050)
• Efficiency:
• 73% (Target 69%)
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.020)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 59%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 3.94%)

Brewing Notes:

• 7/28/19 - Brewday - 9:45 AM to TBD
• Cereal Mash:
• Milled my grain (double milled the raw wheat) and added about 3 gal of hot tap water.  Let this soak for 15 min

• Heated, stirring frequently, until the cereal mash reached the mid 150s.  Let this rest for 15 min
• Brought to a boil and then boiled for 20 min

• I then let this cool down for a couple hrs.  All the water seemed to absorb or evaporate in that time frame

• Removed the yeast culture from the fridge to warm up
• Brought 7 gal of spring water up to 170 F
• Milled the main mash grain.  Added the CaCl to the milled grain
•  Transferred 6 gal of spring water to the mash tun
• Added the Cereal mash to the mash tun
• Cycled through the grant and RIMS until everything had settled to about 170 F
• Stirred in the grain.  Try to eliminate doughballs.  The mash was very full at this point
• Cycled the RIMS at 160 F for 1 hr
• Brought 6 gal of spring water up to 180 F for the sparge
• Sparged by pouring quarts of water on top of the mash trough out the wort collection.  Collected about 10 gal of wort with the initial sparge water.  Added 2.5 gal of sparge water and collected 2 more gal for a total of 12 gal
• Started heating after collecting 2 gal.  Had it at a boil after collecting about 6 gal
• Boiled for 1 hr
• Added the flour a bit a time once the beer had come to a boil.  Got some dough balls floating through the beer in the progress.  These were fairly small (quarter of an inch in diameter at larges.  They shrunk through the boil
• Added the hops in bags with 15 min left.  They were papery and brown but they smelled nice

• Added Irish moss
• With 5 min left I added the wort chiller to sanitize
• Chilled the wort to 90 F
• Drained into two fermenters.  It is a very starchy wart.  Towards the end the draining tube clogged due to a dough ball.  I dumped the remaining gal into the two fermenters taking most of the little flour balls with the wort.
• Pitched about a cup of yeast blend into each fermenter

• Collected 10 gal of beer.  Measured the gravity as 1.064.  This is 73% efficiency and at 12 gal the beer would be about 1.053 which is closer to the target.  Added 2 gal of spring water split across the two fermenters
• Let these ferment in the basement
• 11/16/19 - I'm finally ready to use this beer.  Took a sample and found it had fermented all the way down to 1.000 SG which is pretty surprising.  The beer has a slight fruity and earthy aroma with a bit of sulfur.  It is straw gold and a bit cloudy.  Very lightly sour (I think my hopping level was good here) with some mineral flavor and very dry.  I think this would be pretty good to drink on it's own as a passable Berliner Weisse.  I am going to use this to top off my Sour Blondes today.  I saved off a quart and a half of the yeast cake for future batches

Lessons Learned:

1. I had some slow sparging which I think may have been due to the thick gummy cereal mash being added to the mash tun first.  I should have put the grain in first.
2.  I think the flour being added into the boil really helped the starch levels in the wort.  I'm going to do this again.  Next time I think I'll try to mix flour and water first like described in this page

English Light Pale Ale (AK) - Tasting Notes

I brewed this English Pale Ale (AK) in May and have been drinking it for the last month.  It was based on a historical recipe from the "Shut Up About Barclay Perkins" blog - brewed in 1896.  The beer is interesting in that it uses corn and sugar (invert #2) for fermentables.  These produce a light colored and well fermented beer.

I brewed utilizing Fuggle Hops rather than EKG like the recipe called for as I'd purchased a pound to use on my next beer.  I used the While Labs High Gravity Yeast (WLP 99) which is reputed to be from the brewery that this recipe was made by (Eldridge Pope).  This yeast was used to brew my next beer (a big English Barleywine).

The beer has gotten more and more carbonated over the last month - WLP 099 is a capricious SOB if it's still fermenting 2 months after pitching and 1 month after bottling (or there is some infection although no visual, aroma, or taste evidence of that).

Time for a tasting

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Herbal, tea-like, and slightly grassy hop aroma dominates along with a bit of light malt
• Appearance:
• Golden in color and pretty clear.  Pours with a 3 finger rocky head that fades down to a thin layer pretty quickly.
• Flavor:
• Light bready malt up front.  Get an almost lager-yeast like character from the beer - very neutral with no fruit ester.  Some hop flavor is mixed in (herbal and teal like) and then there is firm hop bitterness in the finish.  This is balanced by a bit of sweet malt.  A bit of alcohol comes through in the flavor.
• Mouthfeel:
• Light bodied and fairly dry.  It drinks very smoothly.  Crisp and refreshing
• Overall:
• It's nice to have a bitter beer to drink again (I've ended up buying 2 cases of commercial beer in the last few months due to lack of pale ale).  I've gone through about half the batch since bottling a month ago.  This is a really drinkable beer.  Tough to say how it should have turned out but this English Pale ale is interesting in that it has almost no yeast character (could tell someone it is a lager and they'd believe it) - the Eldridge Pope strain (WLP 099) is not estery at 70 F with a 1.051 beer it turns out.  Regardless, the English Fuggle hops deliver the goods - flavor, aroma, and bitterness are all quite nice.