Flanders Red Unfermented Top Up Batch (2020)

This will be a top up batch for my Flanders Red beers.  I used about 21 gal of beer this year on 4 blends:  Plain, Cherry, Raspberry, and Tamarind & Raisin.  This top up batch will replace half of beer taken.  It will be unfermented so that the cultures still living in the fermenters will have something to munch on over the next year.

I'm using a malt bill very similar to what I had in the past.  The specialty malt are the critical piece for color.  I'll be mashing high like always (160 F) to give the slower microbes some more complex sugars to work with.

One significant change is that I'm hopping slightly more aggressively with this beer in the hopes of inhibiting Lactobacillus as the beers are getting increasingly sour over the years.

From past additions of Unfermented beer I expect the fermentation to be fairly slow an gentle.  I should be safe with using Vented silicon bugs on these beers rather than 3 piece airlock


Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct
• 7 lb Pilsner Malt
• 7 lb Pale Ale Malt
• 4 lb Munich Malt
• 1.5 lb Aromatic Malt
• 1.5 lb Crystal 60L
• 1.5 lb Special B
• 1.5 lb Flaked Corn
• 3 oz Acid Malt 
• Hops:
• 1 oz Chinook (Leaf, 12.2% AA) at 60 min
• Yeast:
• NA
• Water:
• 12 gal spring water
• 5 gal tap water
• 1 tsp CaCl

Process Details:

• Volume:
• 11.25 gal (Target 12 gal)
• Mash:
• 160 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 1 hr
• Fermentation Temperature:
• Ambient Basement Temperature (60-75F)
• Primary Duration:
• NA
• Secondary Duration:
• 1-3 years

Results:

• OG:
• 1.062 (Target 1.050)
• Efficiency:
• 79% (Target 68%)
• FG:
• NA
• Apparent Attenuation:
• NA
• ABV:
• NA

Brewing Notes:

• 8/16/20 - Brewday - 10:30 AM to 3:30 PM- Including setup and cleanup
• Heated 12 gal of strike water to 190 F
• Milled my grain.  Added CaCl into the grain
• Moved 6 gal of water to the mash tun and then cycled through the RIMS
• Stopped the RIMS and added my grain.  Added the flaked corn last.  Topped the mash up with 1 gal more of water

• Let the mash settle for 10 min.  The temperature was just about 160 F at that point
• Cycled the RIMS for 60 min
• Heated 11 gal of sparge water
• Did a fly sparge until 7 gal was collected.  Started heating this at 4 gal.  Had it at a boil 10 min later. 
• Left the mash tun full of water for a second batch sparge
• Added the hops to the boil kettle
• Slowly did the second batch sparge and fed into the boiling kettle
• Boiled for about 75 min to finish the batch sparge
• Added the wort chiller in the final 5 min to sanitize
• Added 1 gal of spring water to increase the volume (I checked the gravity near the end of the boil and found I was quite a bit higher than expected)
• Chilled to 85 F

• Collected 11.25 gal
• Measured the gravity as 1.062
• Transferred to wort into my Flanders Red Fermenters as follows:
• Fermenter #1 - 1 gal
• Fermenter #3 - 1 gal
• Fermenter #4 - 1 gal
• Fermenter #5 - 1 gal
• Fermenter #6 - 1 gal
• Fermenter #8 - 1 gal
• Fermenter #9 - 1 gal
• Fermenter #10 - 1.25 gal
• Fermenter #11 - 1 gal
• Fermenter #12 - 2 gal