Raspberry Flanders Red (2017) - Tasting Notes

This is the third blend (see plain and cherry portions) from my 2017 Flanders Red blending session.  This was my first attempt at blending Raspberry with Flanders Red.  I blended it up on 12/17/17 - read my brew notes here.

Raspberries are a really wonderfully intense tasting and smelling fruit.  They are often used with Lambic but it seemed like they would go equally well with a Flanders Red.  I used 10 lbs of fruit grown in my back yard in 2017.  The base beer was a blend of two fairly mild versions from my collection.  My thought was that the beer would gain plenty of acidity from the fruit and so a complex but less acidic base would be beneficial.  I certainly was correct about the acidity - this is a very acidic beer.

I chose to backsweeten this beer as is typically done with Rodenbach to improve the drinkability.  The base was pretty close to 1.000.  The invert #3 syrup I added probably got it up to 1.010 after bottle conditioning.  I pasteurized the beer once proper level of carbonation had been reached.  I timed it pretty well with this batch as most have been pretty well carbonated.  I bottled this beer on 5/6/18.  It's been tasting great and the raspberry flavor is holding steady.

I am overdue on my 2018 batch and have a lot more raspberries this year.  Will be putting together some new blends before long.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Sweet smelling with a strong Raspberry Character.  Maybe get a bit of earthy aroma coming through faintly
• Appearance:
• Pours with a couple finger head.  Dark red in color.  Pretty murky on this pour as I dumped in most of the dregs.
• Flavor:
• Very sharply acidic with intense fruit flavor.  The finish is a little sweet and has some malt the comes through in the end.  This balances the acidity nicely.  Complex earthy and leathery Brett flavors come through in the background.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium light bodied and slightly sweet.  The acidity of the beer prickles the mouth.
• Overall:
• 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.

American Brown Ale

I've been holding off on brewing another hoppy beer pending the acquisition of a keg fridge but a gift of a few oz of homegrown Cascade hops has prompted me to brew another highly hopped ale destined for bottles.  This time I'm going to try out an American Brown Ale.  Like many American versions of beers, this takes an English Base beer and uses a more aggressive hopping approach with Fruity American Hops.

I found an interesting recipe on Homebrewtalk which I've decided to brew.  I like the look of the malt bill - I think the judicious use of multiple specialty malts will probably provide some complexity.  It will be bittered to about 35 IBU and will have 2 oz of flame out and 4 oz of dry hop.  Finally, I'll be fermenting with US-05 (Chico strain) at 68 F which typically gives a pretty clean fermentation profile.

I'd planned for this beer to come in at 1.55 SG which would have gotten me around 5.5% ABV most likely (as the recipe specified).  I had an accident while cycling the mash where I let about a gallon of first runnings spill onto the ground.  I did a second mash with 4 more lbs of grain to compensate and overshot the gravity by quite a bit (up to 1.067).  Some of the numbers below aren't quite right as a result.  I may add some water post fermentation to get closer to the desired ABV.

Recipe Detail:

• Grain:
• 11 lb 2 Row
• 12 oz Chocolate Malt
• 12 oz Victory Malt
• 12 oz Crystal 40L
• 12 oz Crystal 80L
• Additional Mash after losing ~1 gal of first runnings
• 3.5 lb 2 row
• 0.5 oz Munich Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Centennial (Pellet, 8.4% AA) at 60 min
• 0.5 oz Cascade (Pellet, 5.1% AA) at 30 min
• 0.5 oz Cascade (Pellet, 5.1% AA) at 15 min
• 1 oz Willamette (Pellet, 4.8% AA) at 0 min
• 1 oz Cascade (Pellet, 4.8% AA) at 0 min
• 1 oz Willamette (Pellet) Dry Hop
• 3 oz Cascade (Whole Cone) Dry Hop
• Yeast:
• Safale US-05 (Chico)
• Water:
• 13 gal Spring Water
• 1 oz CaCl
• 1 oz Gypsum
• 1 oz Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal
• Mash:
• 156 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 68 F
• Primary Duration:
• 3 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• N/A

Results:

• OG:
• 1.067 (Target 1.055)
• Efficiency:
• 64% (Target 65%)
• FG:
• 1.020 (Target 1.013)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 68% (Target 76%)
• ABV:
• 5.78% (Target 5.51%)

Brewing Notes:

• 9/23/18 - Brewday - 10:45 AM to 4:45 PM - Including setup and Cleanup
• Heated 8 gal to 180 F
• Added 6 gal to the mash tun.  Cycled through the RIMS until the system was at 166 F
• Milled my grain.  Mixed in the brewing salts
• Doughed in.  Stirred well to hydrate everything.  Temperature was at 156 F after the mixing - right on target
• Set the RIMS to cycle at about 2 qt per minute at 156 F

• Mashed for 60 min
• Heated 7 gal of sparge water to 180 F
• Still not sure what happened but I stepped away for 10 min towards the end of the mash and came back to find my grant overflowing.  There was about a gal of wort on the ground.  The RIMS had been at an equilibrium for a good 45 min so I can't believe the rate changing was the issue.  In the urgency to get things right I stopped everything before I could really assess what went wrong.
• I drained the mash tun and got the first runnings.  Sparged with maybe a gal of water.  Ended up with 5 gal of 1.056 wort.  I decided to add some grain and do another mash.  I calculated my efficiency at about 55% for this first runnings batch.  Based on this I decided to add 4 more lb of grain (3.5 2 row and 0.5 Munich) along with 4 more gal of hot water.
• Mashed for another 60  min with the RIMS cycling at 156 F
• Took the first runnings again with a couple gal batch sparge of hot water
• Collected 9 gal which I measured at 11.5 brix (1.043).  This puts my efficiency at about 61% with the addition of the 4 lbs of grain.
• Brought to a boil
• Added the bittering hops after the hot break cleared
• Added 30 min hops
• At 15 min added more hops and the Irish Moss
• Waited until 0 min to add the wort chiller to sanitize and let the beer come back to a boil before killing the flame
• Chilled down to 180 F and then added the flame out hops
• Let the beer sit for 30 min
• Rehydraded my yeast in a cup of room temperature water
• Chilled down to 185 F
• Drained into fermenter - let it fall couple feet.  Left about half a gal of hops and cold break behind

• Moved to the beer to the fermentation chamber to chill down to 68 F
• Got 6 gal of beer.  Measured the gravity as 1.067.  So, I overshot by a pretty big margin with my course correction.  Ended up with 64% efficiency which is better than I thought I'd do.  I may add some water post fermentation (~1 gal) to get closer to the ABV I wanted.
• Pitched the yeast once the beer was at 68 F
• 9/24/18 - Airlock was showing signs of fermentation by the next day
• 10/7/18 - It has been two weeks since brewday so I'm adding the dry hops.  I used hop bags weighed down by stainless steel bolts.  Split them up into 4 bags.  The whole hops float on the surface even with the weights.  I pushed them down to saturate them a bit.  Set the fermentation chamber down to 50 F to begin the cold crash
• 10/11/18 - Chilled the beer down to 34 F
• 10/13/18 - Added gelatin to fine the beer.  Decided to give the beer 1 week to cold crash.  This is a bit longer than I planned to leave it on the dry hops but I think at the cold temperature it will be fine.  The hops had sunk to the bottom.
• 10/20/18 - Bottled today.  Measured the gravity as 1.020 which gives me 5.78 ABV.  I got 5.25 gal of beer.  I was considering adding some spring water to dilute down to the target ABV but this beer is tasting pretty nice at its current numbers.  I'll bottle as is.  Primed with 4 oz sugar.  Got 32 16 oz bottles and 8 12 oz bottles.
• 11/30/18 - Tasting Notes - This is an easy drinking and nicely balanced beer.  It has enough going on to be interesting even thought the flavoring hops have mostly gone.  I think the 16+ oz Russian River bottles I used for this were a good choice.  It has a low enough ABV (5.78%) where that much beer doesn't really effect me and that bit of extra beer over the 12 oz bottles makes for a slightly more satisfying first beer of the day.

Lessons Learned:

1. Lost quite a bit of wort after walking away from the cycling mash tun.  I think I must have turned off the pump from the grant back into the mash tun (idiot I am).  I probably spent 90% of the brew day in the house screwing around with other things.  Need to remember this for next time
2. I planned for half a gal of beer lost at transfer to fermenter due to high hopping.  This was a good estimate and I hit the 6.5 gal post boil volume as planned so I got 6 gal in the fermenter. 

Munich Dunkel - Tasting Notes

I brewed this Munich Dunkel back in May and employed a double decoction mash as well as 6+ week lagering period.  It was pretty long process going grain to glass (over 2 months) but I think it was worth it.  Some style you can make mistakes and throw a ton of hops at it and hide some flaws (at least for a little while).  A beer like this is really a demonstration of the care that was taken in making it as there isn't any hiding of the flaws.  I'm not sure how loudly I would crow my ability to brew this style (since this is somebody else's recipe) but I'm very happy with how well I was able to execute this one.

The combination of malt complexity and smooth and easy drinking character make for a really comforting and satisfying beer.  Once I'm setup to keg I plan to have one of these on tap all the time.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Clean lager yeast along with a bit of toasted bread and burnt caramel.
• Appearance:
• Dark Amber or light brown in color with good clearity.  Pours with a finger head that settles down to a thin layer of foam after 30 s or so.
• Flavor:
• Bready and toasty malt flavor come through up front.  A very rich malt flavor.  Get a bit of the caramel I picked up in the aroma as well.  The malt flavor lingers into the finish and is carried through with a light hop bitterness.  I pick up a subtle hint of hop flavor in the beer which is herbal and tea like.  No alcohol and no yeast character come though.
• Mouthfeel:
• Light-medium bodied and fairly dry.  Goes down very smoothly.
• Overall:
• Rich and complex malt flavor which is comparable to many of the German made examples I've had.  Easy drinking and refreshing which makes drinking 2 to 3 pretty easy.  Nice clean lager profile - it was a well executed fermentation and lager period on this beer.  One interesting note:  this beer has, by far, the least sediment per bottle of any of the beers I've made.  This hasn't prevented the normal carbonation from occurring.  The six odd weeks of lagering is likely responsible but I also gave it some extra time to fine with gelatin.  I may have to try something like this with future beers.

Cherry Flanders Red (2017) - Tasting Notes

I made up this Cherry Flanders Red last year using two batches of beer which had aged more than 2 years each and then let them age on 12 lbs of sour cherries for more than 6 months.  This is my second attempt at the style (read about the first here).  This time I opted for a different blend than I used for this year's plain batch.  I chose beers that were relatively mild in flavor knowing that the cherries would lend quite a bit of complexity and sourness to the beer.

Some changes from last time:  I used sour cherries for the batch which have an interesting flavor but not the classic cherry flavor so I used a bit of black cherry juice to supplement.  My first attempt got very dry which hurt the drinkability a bit so I've added dark invert syrup to backsweeten and than pasteurized the beer once it had carb'd up.

Cherries get along really well with a Flanders Red as the base beer normally has a cherry like fermentation character.  I picked cherries again this year and plan to make another batch of this soon.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Very fruity aroma with a hint of balsamic vinegar.  Get a bit of earthy brett character mixed in as well.  Maybe a bit of alcohol comes through.
• Appearance:
• Brownish red in color.  Pours with a finder of head which dissipates down to nothing in a few seconds.  Pours reasonably clear normally but for this tasting I dumped in the dregs.
• Flavor:
• Up front the flavor matches the aroma with a strong fruit flavor mixed with a hint of acetic acid.  The finish has a good balance between sweet and sour.  There's a bit of brett character mixed in as well as a bit of malt flavor the lingers through the finish.  The cherry flavor is very nice in this one and I think that is accentuated by the fermentation character.  I think I may also detect some slightly nutty character which I suspect could be the cherry pits.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium-light bodied and fairly dry.  The sourness is prickly.  It is an easy drinking beer with good refreshment value.
• Overall:
• Bold flavored with a really striking complexity.  The cherries play very well in this beer and are the obvious star of the show.  The acetic character the beer developed supports the overall package in my opinion.  I also think the slight sweetness from the backsweetening makes this a much more drinkable beer.  

Burnt Honey Mead (Bochet)

I just bottled my first attempt at mead this weekend so I've decided to try a second.  I'll be try out a Bochet which is a mead made out of honey that has been cooked until it has started to caramelize.  I've never had one before but it's reported to create some interesting caramelized flavors.

Mead making is very easy compared with beer making - they just take honey, water, yeast, and a lot of time to mellow.  The boiling necessary to make the caramelized honey makes things slightly more complicated.  The general process seems similar to making candi syrup where the temperature the mixture is allowed to get will determine the color and flavor of the mead.  I'm going to go with a relative low temperature for this first attempt - 142 F.  I'll cook it on a pretty low heat to not overshoot this.  May not get really bold flavors from this but I'll hopefully avoid burning anything.

I'm making 2 gal of this in the same pot I used last time.  I'll use Nottingham ale yeast which should dry things out pretty well.  Like my last mead, I'll give this a good 6 months or more to mature.

Recipe Details:

• 7.5 lbs of clover honey
• 1.75 gal of spring water
• 0.25 tsp Yeast Nutrient
• 1 package of Nottingham Ale Yeast

Results:

• OG:
• 1.108
• FG:
• 1.022
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 78%
• ABV:
• 12.63%

Process/Notes:

• 8/12/18 - Brewday:
• Poured the 7.5 lbs of honey into a large pot

• Rinsed out the remaining honey from the containers with some hot tap water
• Heated at medium low 
• The mixture came to a boil after a couple hrs
• The honey started to form some foam at the top.  I skimmed this off

• Stopped the boil when the mead got to 142 F
• Let it chill to the low 100s
• Hydrated the yeast in a cup of 90 F spring water
• Put 1.5 gal of spring water into the pot - mixed in the yeast nutrient
• Poured the warm honey into the pot
• Topped up the pot with water to get to about 2 gal
• Pitched the yeast
• Moved this to the basement utility sink in case there was any aggressive foaming
• 8/13/18 - Fermentation was well underway by the next day.  Only a light layer of foam on the top
• 8/14/18 - Fermentation still going.  Still pretty tame so I decided to move it off to a corner where it will age and be forgotten about for the next 6 months
• 11/23/19 - Bottled this Mead today.  Measured the gravity as 1.022.  Bottled it without any priming sugar for a still mead.  Ended up with about 2 gal which got me 22 bottles.  It is a little sweet and had a caramel and raisin flavor along with a slight bitterness.  It has an alcohol presence but is pretty smooth.

• 12/12/20 - Tasting Notes - Boldly flavor with a good amount of complexity.  Not easy to drink a lot of as it's quite sweet (half a bottle might be a good amount in one sitting) but enjoyable as a sipping drink on a cold.  I like the flavors quite a bit - fruit and caramel are very nice - and it's neat that they're all derived from just browning honey.

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.