Dark Chocolate Sour

With my typical 70% efficiency I am leaving quite a bit of sugar in the grain that's getting thrown away.  With a big beer that 30% amounts to enough gravity points to make reasonably potent small beer if one is inclined to do the work to get it via a parti-gyle mash.  Normally I am not inclined but today I decided to do it using the grain bill for a Bourbon Barrel Chocolate Imperial Coffee Stout.  I'm going to make a sessionable sour chocolate stout with it.

I have never had a chocolate sour beer before but there are a number of breweries that make them.  I have had Tart of Darkness from The Bruery which combines roasted and sour flavor in a pleasing package.  This gives me confidence that this experiment could work.  I will use some of the yeast cake from Flanders Red 1.2.1 to ferment this beer.

I don't have any extra hops to use for the beer so I am going to boil in the unwashed kettle used for the previous beer which will still have the hops from the last batch.  This recipe doesn't really call for any hop bitterness so I'm sure this will be fine.

I'll be taking first runnings and one batch sparge for the big beer.  My one concern is that the remaining sugars in the mash may not be easily extracted.  In order to get a bit of insurance I will be adding about 3 lbs of pale malt to the mash before parti-gyling this one.  I am hoping the gravity will end up in the 1.03s somewhere.  I'll be fermenting and aging this beer in a 5 gal better bottle.  I'm going to shoot for 4.5 gal to give myself enough head space.

I'll probably look to age this beer for a year to a year and a half.  This beer could be a good candidate for adding fruit if it doesn't end up getting very sour from just the sugar in the grain - raspberries could be a good match for this.

This is basically a free beer so if it turns out to be a failure I won't be that disappointed.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 3 lbs 2 Row
• Grain bill from Bourbon Barrel Chocolate Imperial Coffee Stout
• Hops:
• Spent hops from Bourbon Barrel Chocolate Imperial Coffee Stout
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 3763 Roeselare Ale Blend (2nd pitch Slurry)
• Water:
• 6 gal tap water
• Extras:
• 2 Tbsp of Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate Powder at 5 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 4.5 gal
• Mash Temp:
• 152 F to 145 F for 90 min
• Boil:
• 1 hr
• Fermentation Temperature:
• Ambient Basement Temps (60 to 75 F)
• Primary Duration:
• TBD (12 to 18 months)
• Secondary Duration:
• TBD

Results:

• OG:
• 1.036
• Efficiency:
• NA
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.004)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 89%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 4.20%) 

Brewing Notes:

• 3/29/15 - Brew Day - 12:30 PM to 2:45 Including Cleanup
• Added 2 row to the mash tun after running off the sparge from the previous beer
• Added 3 gal of 185 F strike water - temp settled out at 152 F
• Let it mash while I completed the previous beer - this took 90 min - Mash ended up at 145 F
• Mashed out without a vorlauf - collected 3 gal of wort
• Added 3 gal of cold tap water as a batch sparge, stirred, and drained
• Ended up collecting 6.25 gal of wort
• Brought to a boil - took 20 min

• Boiled until it got down to 4.5 gal
• Added cocoa powder at 5 min
• Put the chiller in to sanitize at flameout
• Chilled down to 60 F - took 6 min
• Measured gravity as 1.036.  The beer has a pretty strong chocolate flavor.  No hop flavor at all which shouldn't be surprising.  The beer isn't really that sweet.  Hopefully I ended up getting quite a bit of starch that will keep the souring bugs happy over time
• Transferred to better bottle with a siphon hose
• Pulled yeast off the bottom of my Flanders Red 1.2.1 with an auto-siphon
• Left down in the basement with a tee shirt covering it to protect it from the sun.  I will plan on a gravity sample/taste test in a month
• 3/30/15 - No foam on the surface but the airlock was bubbling this evening
• 5/16/15 - After a month and a half, I checked the gravity which was all the way down to 1.002.  No sourness or funk have developed yet - not sure they are ever going to as low as this is already.  It's a pretty watery/weak beer - it definitely needs something else going on.  I'll give it a few more months to see what happens to it.
• 9/13/15 - Transferred the cherries from this Berliner Weisse to the beer.  The cherries were falling apart from their aging the the previous beer but probably still have a bit of flavor to impart.  We will see.
• 1/15/6 - Added about a liter of DME based wort that had been souring with my culture of Lacto Brevis.
• 3/6/16 - Added another liter of DME based worth I'd been using to feed my Lacto culture.  I'll need to give this beer another try some time soon.  I had a Chocolate Gose in AZ last weekend which was as interesting as I thought it might be.  Was a good combo.
• 4/17/16 - Tasted a small sample of the beer.  The lactic acid culture I added has made the beer plenty sour.  Still hasn't developed any of the rich flavors I would expect from Roeselare.  I'm thinking this one is as good as it's going to get and is ready to bottle.  The sample had a lot of cherry fruit solids in suspension.  I will rack it off the cherries into a bucket fermenter and then cold crash it here in the next couple weeks.

Lessons Learned:

1. Doing a parti-gyle really wasn't that much more work to get another beer and it's pretty cool to have a free beer to experiment with.  I will definitely look to do this again in the future.  I think I could get a reasonable projection of the OG if I were to plan ahead next time.

Bourbon Barrel Chocolate Imperial Coffee Stout

My Local Home Brew Shop (Weak Knee) recently acquired another whiskey barrel for a group fill.  I have enjoyed the process of the first one enough to jump on board with this one.  For this round we will be making a stronger beer to stand up to the stronger whiskey and oak flavors of the first use barrel:  a Chocolate Imperial Coffee Stout

This will be the first beer I have brewed with either chocolate or coffee.  Cocoa powder will be added at the end of the boil and then at the start of secondary in the barrel.  We will then age the beer in the barrel for 6 to 8 months before steeping the coffee.

It's a complicated recipe, with a lot of specialty malts, and then with the chocolate, oak, whiskey, and coffee added to the mix.  I think the flavors are of the sort that obviously work well together so I'm pretty confident that we'll end up with a pretty good final product.  The main concern I have is that if the FG ends up too low for enough of our batches that the oak, chocolate, whiskey, and roasted malt could take on too sharp an edge.  My piece of the batch is less than 1/10th of the beer that will be in the barrel so there's nothing I can do to prevent this - hopefully everyone will hit the target FG of 1.019.

We are scheduled to put this beer into the barrel on 4/18 so I'll have just under 3 week to get it fermented out.  I don't expect any issues with this.  I'm really excited to get to do another one of these.

As a last minute decision, based on the huge grain bill and a fairly low projected efficiency, I decided to try my hand at a Parti-Gyle beer which is a second, weaker, beer using the sugars remaining the mash after the first big beer is mashed out.  This will be a Dark Chocolate Sour.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 9 lbs 2 Row
• 2 lbs Roasted Barley
• 2 lbs Chocolate malt
• 1 lb 8 oz Munich
• 1 lb Crystal 40L
• 12 oz Aromatic
• 12 oz Carapils
• 4 oz Black Patent
• Hops:
• 1 oz Cascade (Pellet, 7.2% AA) at 60 min
• 1 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.2% AA) at 30 min
• 1 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.2% AA) at 15 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1098 British Ale yeast
• Red Star Premier Cuvee (For Priming)
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min
• Extras:
• 1st use Bourbon Barrel 3 oz of Jack Daniels Soaked Oak Cubes
• 5 Tbsp Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate Powder at 5 min
• 5 Tbsp Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate Powder in secondary
• 750 mL of Jim Beam Extra Aged Bourbon Whiskey

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 5 gal (Target 5.25 gal)
• Mash:
• 155 F for 70 min (Target 153 F for 60 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temperature:
• Ambient Basement Temps (60 to 63 F)
• Primary Duration:
• 5 Weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA
• Barrel Aging Duration Secondary on Oak:
• 6 to 8 months
• Coffee Steeping Duration:
• NA - Decided not to use coffee on this batch

Results:

• OG:
• 1.083 (Target 1.077)
• Efficiency:
• 70% (Target 68%)
• FG:
• 1.008 (Target 1.019)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 90% (Target 74%)
• ABV:
• 9.84% (Target 7.61%)

Brewing Notes:

• 3/28/15 - Made a 1 liter yeast starter with 5.5 oz of LME.  Added 1/8th tsp of yeast nutrient.  Left on the stir plate to propagate over then next 24 hrs

• 3/29/15 - Brew day - 8:00 AM to 12:30 PM including setup (started the Parti-Gyle after this):
• Heated 8 gal of strike water to 185 F (assuming 20 degree loss to the mash tun, a 1.5 ratio of water to grain, and that the grain was at 60 F) - took 40 min
• Added Gypsum and CaCl to the kettle as it was heating up
• Transferred 28 qt of strike water to the mash tun and let the temp settle for 10 min - temp settled out to 178 F
• Added the grain and stirred in (there is a ton of dark malt in this one - the liquid was inky black)

• Measured the temp after 10 min as 160 F.  I stirred to cool until it got down to 156 F.  Restarted the clock on the mash at this point.
• Gave the mash a stir at 30 min - temp was down to 155 F
• Brought 6 gal up to 185 F for the Batch Sparge (and Parti-Gyle Beer) - took 25 min
• After 60 min the mash was at 154 F
• Stirred, vorlaufed, and drained (slowly at first and then at full speed)
• Added 3 gal batch sparge, stirred, vorlaufed, and drained.  Flow was being inhibited by the mash for some reason.  I have to stir and then blow air into the manifold to get a decent flow
• Collected 7.25 gal of pre-boil volume (right on target)
• Brought to a boil - took 15 min
• Added the 60 min hops once the hot break had settled down
• At 6.25 gal the 30 min hops were added
• At 5.75 gal the 15 min hops and irish moss were added
• Added the chocolate with about 5 min left in the boil - I stirred well to help the chocolate dissolve

• Added the wort chiller at flameout to sanitize
• Chilled down to 65 F - took 10 min
• Drained into the fermentor - aerating by letting the wort fall into the bucket
• Collected just about 5 gal (slightly less)
• Pitched the entire starter into the beer - it looked like it was pretty much at the height of it's fermentation activity which should get me a quick start
• Gravity was measured as 1.082 at 65 F which is about 1.083.  The sample had a nice balance between roast and chocolate.  The chocolate seemed to be at a nice level (not too strong which I was thinking might be an issue with 5 heaping tablespoons)
• Setup the fermentor with an airlock as I have quite a bit of headspace
• 3/30/15 - The airlock was bubbling this evening
• 4/9/15 - After a little less than 2 weeks in the fermentor the beer is down to 1.038.  I expected it to be quite a bit lower than that but I guess the large percentage of specialty malt and higher than target mash temp played a factor.  The beer is still bubbling a bit so maybe it will come down a few more points.  It has a nice chocolate flavor along with a firm roast.  The sweetness of the beer doesn't seem out of place - the alcohol level is a bit off the "Imperial" mark though.  This beer will really just be one in a larger blend so it's probably not that big a deal.
• 4/18/15 - Measured the gravity again today - still 1.038.  I guess it's done.  Very surprised at this (only 52% attenuation).  Drove it to homebrew store for transfer into the barrel which will happen next week.

• 5/2/15 - My beer was rejected for the barrel due to a suspected infection.  The beer had accumulated an oily film which could be a pellicle.  It doesn't really look like the pellicle I've seen on any of my deliberately infected beers.  I suspect that it isn't infected and that this film is actually a result of the chocolate as the beer seemed to have accumulated this film very soon after primary fermentation completed (much quicker than I would expect an infection to make itself known).  I did some research and found this forum discussion that seems to be documenting the same observation.  Based on this I felt safe transferring the beer to secondary for monitoring/aging.  I have 1.5 oz of oak cubes soaking in Jack Daniels which I plan on adding to this beer in a couple weeks.  I have been offered some of the beer from the barrel even though I haven't contributed anything to it which is very generous of the group.  Not sure I'll take them up on that but I think it would be very interesting to compare the beer aged in the barrel to this secondary oaked version.

• 5/16/15 - Added whiskey soaked oak cubes to the secondary.  I didn't include any of the whiskey it had been soaking in as it had turned a dark brown and tasted very woody.  Just to note:  I had soaked 1.5 oz of oak in the whiskey.  A few days in the cubes had soaked up quite a bit of the liquid so I topped it off.  They had been floating initially but they eventually sunk to the bottom.  After two weeks of soaking they weigh about 2.5 oz.  I decided to only transfer 1.5 oz of that to the beer.  I will continue to soak the remaining cubes and add them later if it seems like the beer needs it.

• 10/11/15 - Checked on this beer after almost 5 months.  Still no pellicle or other visible sign of infection.  Measured a sample as 1.012 which is shocking to me as the beer had previously stopped at 1.038 (measured twice - a week apart).  I have to eat some crow - there is a definite acidity to the beer that suggests some lactic acid bacterial infection.  The barrel team made the correct choice in booting my beer.  Overall I'd say the beer still holds together pretty well.  Even though is pretty dry the roast flavor doesn't really contribute any out-of-balance astringency.  The chocolate provides a nice dimension and the slight sourness in the finish just provides another interesting component to the flavor.   I don't get any whiskey or oak in the flavor which surprises me.  Given this new development I am going to skip the planned coffee addition.  I will give this beer another 3 months of aging before I check it again to get a feel for whether I have hit a stable gravity.
• 4/17/16 - Pulled another sample of this beer to taste.  I'm not sure what I was thinking with the last sample because with this one I'm not really getting any acidity.  No pellicle on the beer either.  I don't think this beer is infected after all.  It has a bit of fruitiness along with roast and chocolate flavors.  It tastes really nice actually.  The whiskey and oak flavors barely come through.  I am going to put in another 5 table spoons of chocolate powder (sanitized in 1 cup of boiling water) and another 1.5 oz of whiskey soaked oak cubes and let this age a bit longer.
• 8/5/17 - This beer has spent the last year or so in my wife's townhouse basement.  It had a film on the top like it had previously - assuming this was just the chocolate rather than a pellicle.  I am going to bottle today!  Measured the gravity as 1.008.  The beer has a subtle chocolate character along with quite a bit of oak flavor.  The oak provides a bit of sharpness (which may have been what I mistook for acidity initially).  It's a wine-like oak character I would say - it may be that I'm tasting the tannins.  There isn't a lot of whiskey in the flavor profile.  I tried blending some Jack Daniels whiskey into half a cup of the beer and found that 1-2 tsp added enough whiskey character to be interesting.  This amounts to a full 750 mL bottle.  Based on this I am adding a full bottle of whiskey to the beer at bottling.  I chose Jim Beam "Extra Aged" Bourbon for this.  Bottled with a pack of Red Star Premier Cuvee wine yeast.  Added 3 oz of priming sugar.  Ended up with 4.5 gal of beer which got me 46 12 oz bottles.

Lessons Learned:

1. Two batches in a weekend (even a long weekend) is too much brewing for me.  Two and a half batches like I did today is way too much.  I'm exhausted.
2. Brewing with chocolate is fun but the powder is pretty darn messy.  Cleaning the kettle was a pain.  I imagine cleaning the fermentor out is also going to be a pain.
3. FG is a product of mash temp, yeast, and grain bill.  In order to predict FG you need to understand the impact of all three of those variables (and there may be others as well).  I'm not sure there's anything to be done to get an accurate prediction of a recipe the first time you brew it.  This recipe has an unusually high percentage of specialty malt (48%) which made the prediction even more difficult.  Never would have guessed I'd only get 52% attenuation even with this grain bill. 
4. I oaked this batch for 2 years.  The oak character is kind of sharp and "wine-like.  I think I would have been better off charring the oak prior to adding it for aging.  This could produced some more Whiskey like flavors.  I think I'll do that next time I try an oak aged dark beer.

Flanders Red 1.3.1

For the third round of Flanders Red using my Roeselare yeast cake I've decided to brew two batches.  This batch will be fermented for two weeks with regular yeast prior to adding the Roeselare blend while the other batch (1.3.2) will have the Roeselare blend do all the fermenting (as was the case for my first two batches:  1.1.1 and 1.2.1).  I am going to primary with WLP 530 Abbey Ale yeast slurry from my Belgian Double.  I am interested to see how the esters from this beer are transformed by the brett in the blend.

The main concern with allowing a primary yeast to ferment a sour beer first is that it will eat too much sugar and wont leave enough for the brett and bacteria to contribute their flavors to the beer.  I have decided to mash in the high 150s to the low 160s to try to prevent the gravity from coming down too far in primary.  Another potential concern (hypothesized by The Mad Fermentationist) is that oxygen levels in the beer after primary will be fairly low and that this could inhibit the brett from working well.  I am thinking that the three months I've been giving these beers in a bucket fermentor will give the brett enough oxygen to do it's thing.

I like the idea of primary fermentation separate from the souring because it seems like a much more controlled and potentially more repeatable way of brewing these beers.  Just pitching the Roeselare you don't really know how much of the sugar the yeast, brett, and lactic acid bacteria are each eating.  By using a primary yeast strain first you can be fairly sure that the brett and bacteria will be consuming most of the sugar going forward.  This is the method used by Rodenbach for their Flanders Red.

If this goes well I might try a few more rounds of this primary first approach.  It will be interesting to see how this batch compares to the direct 3rd generation Roeselare pitch after a few months of souring.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 4 lbs Pilsner
• 4 lbs Munich
• 3 lbs 8 oz Vienna
• 1 lbs 8 oz Flaked Wheat
• 12 oz CaraMunich
• 12 oz Aromatic
• 12 oz Special B
• Hops:
• 1 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.2% AA) at 60 min
• Yeast:
• WLP 530 Abbey Ale Yeast Slurry (4 Cups)
• Wyeast 3763 Roeselare Ale Blend (Third pitch)
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 160 F for 60 min (Target 162 F for 60 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• 60 F to 75 F (Ambient Basement Temps)
• Primary Duration:
• With Abbey Ale Yeast:
• 2 Weeks
• With Roeselare:
• 3 Months
• Secondary Duration:
• TBD (15 to 33 Months)

Results:

• OG:
• 1.056 (Target 1.062)
• Efficiency:
• 62% (Target 70%)
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.012)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 80%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 6.83%)

Brewing Notes:

• 3/27/15 Brew day - 12:45 PM to 4:30 PM including setup and cleanup
• Brought 7 gal of water to 190 F strike temp - took 35 min
• Added CaCl and Gypsum to kettle
• Transferred 5 gal of strike water to the mash tun and let settle for 10 min - ended up at 179 F
• Added the grain and stirred in to eliminate dough balls
• After 10 min check the temp - was about 160 F (close enough to target to not fool with it)
• Gave the mash a stir at 30 min to help conversion - temp was still at 160 F
• Brought 5 gal up to 190 for sparge - took 30 min
• At the end of the 60 min the mash was still just about 160 F
• Stirred, vorlaufed, and then drained (slow and then quickly)
• Added the 5 gal of water as a single batch sparge - brought mash up to 173 F - stirred, vorlaufed and drained
• Ended up with 8 gal 
• Brought to a boil - took 15 min
• Added the 60 min hops after the massive amount of hot break subsided (it came back about 15 min into the boil and stuck around for most of the 60 min which was very odd)

• Added irish moss when volume got down to 6.5 gal
• Added the wort chiller to sanitize at flameout
• Chilled the wort down to 60 F - took 10 min
• Transferred to the fermentor - aerated by letting it fall a foot or so into the fermentor.  Let most of the cold break get into the fermentor but the hops behind

• Collected 6 gal of wort
• Added 4 cups of yeast slurry to the beer and setup the fermentor with a blow off tube
• Measured final gravity as 1.056.  The wort has a really rich maltiness and isn't that sweet.  I think my plan of preventing the primary yeast from getting the gravity down too far is going to work
• 3/29/15 - This beer was bubbling vigorously this morning.  I'm finding that Wyeast 530 is a pretty strong fermentor - hopefully it won't take this down too far.
• 4/11/15 - After 2 weeks I measured the gravity as 1.006.  This is much more attenuation that I expected (89%).  My Dubbel with the first pitch of WLP 530 only got 82% attenuation.  This is even with what seems like it should have been a much less fermentable wort (mashed in the low 160s).  I'm really shocked by this finding.  I have no idea how this could have happened - will need to do some research.  The beer has a pretty good fruitiness but is boozy.  Transferred it to a new bucket (have about 5.5 gal at this point).  Added half the dregs from Flanders Red 1.2.1.  It is going to be very interesting to see if this beer manages to get very sour.  I think there is plenty of ester character here to get pretty funky though.  Only time will tell.  I plan on doing some more rounds of this primary yeast first method - not sure what I'll tweak next but something will need to be tweaked.

• 7/25/15 - Transferred this beer to a glass carboy for long term aging.  Measured the gravity as 1.000.  It has a good bit of funk and a decent level of sourness.  It didn't end up as sour as 1.3.2 did which is probably due to the lower gravity after primary.  It is quite a bit more sour than every other batch after 3 months though which has to be largely due to the warmer basement temps.  It is quite a bit less fruity smelling than the direct pitch batches have been.  I transferred it onto about half a gal of 1.4.1 which had been primary fermenting in the carboy previously
• 7/23/17 - Status Report:
• Big vinegar aroma from the fermenter- none in the sample though.  Fruity and earthy smells to this beer.  It has a big aroma.
• Orange/red and clear
• Medium level tartness - restrained and pleasant.  Earthy Brett flavor comes through very strongly.  Also has a reasonably strong fruity flavor component.  Get a bit of grainy malt flavor coming through on the finish
• Strong flavor and aroma on this one with a good level of complexity
• 12/16/18 - See 2018 Status Report

Lessons Learned:

1. After a few frustrating batches of missing my mash temp by being too clever with my water to grain ratios I have hit (or gotten very close to hitting) my mash temps in the last couple batches.  I think shooting for a 1.5 qts per pounds ratio of mash water to grain has really helped with this.
2. I was really happy to have only collected 8 gal of wort which allowed me to just to a 60 min boil.  This was my quickest brew day ever at less than 4 hrs.  I don't feel like I had to sacrifice doing anything important for this either.  My efficiency wasn't good but I suspect this was more a product of the high mash temp rather than the amount of sparge water.  I'd trade an hour for a few gravity points anyway.
3. I'm really enjoying this 3 month cycle of brewing these beers.  It fits nicely with the 3 month tasting cycle I'm doing for the maturing beers.  I think this routine can help me hone in on impact of the various choices I've made in brewing these beers.

French Saison - Tasting

It has been almost two months since I brewed my first (and, so far, only) Saison.  Common wisdom says that Saisons should be fermented warm.  I brewed this beer in the low 60s and it turned out to have a very nice level of spicy yeast character that characterizes the style.  The yeast also managed to get the beer down to 1.000 so it seems that it was perfectly happy with the low temps.

I also chose to shoot for a modest OG to try to make an easy drinking beer.  I actually undershot my OG by quite a bit and ended up with an even more modest than intended beer at 1.038 OG.  This was a happy accident as the beer at 5% ABV is refreshing and flavorful but still very low impact which I have appreciated the next morning after drinking a couple of these.

This is a pretty rich style of beer so I'm going to have to try another Saison before too long.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• The beer has a pretty strong spice aroma - maybe clove-like would be a good descriptor.  It also has a somewhat indistinct fruity smell (maybe citrus) - I wonder if this may be the Sorachi Ace finishing hops.  Overall it's a light but pleasant aroma.  I wouldn't characterize it as a very aromatic beer.
• Appearance:
• It's a golden color.  It cleared up very nicely.  Pours with a pretty good head that quickly dissipates.  There is a bit of lacing left on the glass.
• Flavor:
• Up front the flavor is spicy and slightly fruity like the aroma.  These are somewhat subtle flavors - it doesn't kick you in the head with yeast character.  The hops don't contribute anything that jumps out at me in the flavoring (must just be well blended in with the yeast flavor) but there is a pretty firm bitterness on the finish.  There is also some breadlines and alcohol to the finish along with the spicy fruitiness.  I think it's a pretty good balance but might lean a bit too hard on the hop bitterness (although saisons are often hoppy so this isn't necessarily a flaw).
• Mouth-feel:
• Very dry which makes for a really easy drinking beer.  It's light bodied but it has enough carbonation to avoid feeling thin and insubstantial.
• Overall:
• I like drinking the beer.  If I had fermented warmer I probably would have gotten stronger yeast character out of the beer which would have changed the balance a bit and maybe competed with the lingering bitterness in the aftertaste.  As it is, with such a light beer, I'm not sure having more spicy/fruitiness would necessarily have been an improvement though.  If I were to brew this again, at this gravity, I might go with a slightly lower alpha acid hop for milder bittering.  It could be I'm just not liking the bittering character of the Sorachi Ace hops - will have to try those in another beer sometime to be sure.

Single Hop Pale Ale (Cascade)

I'm just about out of hoppy beer (I should have never let this happen!!!) so I have decided to brew another pale ale.  In the interest of learning more about the contributions of the many different ingredients available I settled on a single hop pale ale using Cascade hops.  I've used them before but with other hop varieties so I've never been sure exactly what they're bringing to the table.

I am going to brew a recipe very closely based on this one from homebrewtalk:  Da Yooper's House Pale Ale.  I really like the grain bill on this one.  I'm going to go for a gravity that will get me an ABV in the 4% to 4.5% range for easier drinking.

The recipe called for the Chico strain but I've decided to use the White Lab 013 London Ale yeast that I just finished fermenting my Oatmeal Brown Ale on.  Sort of odd for a pale ale with american hops.  I'm going to let it sit in the ambient basement temps (low 60s) so I don't expect that it will be overly estery.  Should turn out interestingly.

I've decided to mash at 156 F to try to get the beer to finish between 1.010 and 1.015 but wont mind if it's a bit lower than that.  I have also decided to go with an abbreviated fermentation schedule for this one (3 weeks) to try to preserve as much of the late hop character possible.

As a last minute decision (hope I don't regret it), I decided to try an open fermentation as my lid is currently in use for the oatmeal brown.  I'll be interested to see if this adds any character (or makes a big mess).  I'll be putting the fermentor into the fermentation chamber without temp control to try to protect the beer from airborne particles as much as possible.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 5 lbs Marris Otter Malt
• 3 lbs Vienna Malt
• 2 lbs Munich Malt
• 8 oz Crystal 20L
• 8 oz Crystal 60L
• 3 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Cascade (Pellet, 7.2% AA) at 60 min
• 0.5 oz Cascade (Pellet, 7.2% AA) at 30 min
• 0.5 oz Cascade (Pellet, 7.2% AA) at 10 min
• 0.5 oz Cascade (Pellet, 7.2% AA) at 5 min
• 0.5 oz Cascade (Pellet, 7.2% AA) at Flame out
• 1.0 oz Cascade (Pellet, 7.2% AA) Dry hop
• Yeast:
• White Lab 013 London Ale (Re-pitched)
• Water:
• 10 gal Spring Water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 5.75 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 156 F to 158 F (Target 156 F for 60 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• Ambient Basement Temps (low 60s)
• Primary Duration:
• 3 Weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.050 (Target 1.045)
• Efficiency:
• 71% (Target 68%)
• FG:
• 1.012 (Target 1.012)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 75% (Target 73%)
• ABV:
• 4.99% (Target 4.33%)

Brewing Notes:

• 3/13/15 - Made a yeast starter.  Used a 1.5 liter starter with 5.5 oz of DME.  Transferred 1 cup of yeast slurry from a previous batch and put onto the stir plate to propagate
• 3/15/15 - Brew day - 7:10 AM to 11:20 AM Including setup and cleanup
• Move the starter to the fridge to drop the yeast
• Brought 7 gal of water to 185 F strike water temp - took 30 min
• Added Gypsum and CaCl to the kettle
• Transferred 17 qt to the mash tun and let settle for 10 min - ended up at 174 F
• Added the grain and stirred to eliminate doughballs - temp ended up between 156 F and 158 F (right on target)

• Checked the mash temp again after 10 min and it was the same
• Stirred the mash after 30 min - temp was still the same
• Brought 6 gal of sparge water up to 185 F - took 20 min
• At the end of the 60 min mash it was around 156 F
• Added 2 gal of mash out water, stirred, vorlaufed, and drained (slowly at first to set the grain bed and then at full speed)

• Added 4 gal batch sparge, stirred, vorlaufed, and drained like before
• Collected 8 gal of wort (this was the goal to get a 60 min boil)
• Brought the kettle to a boil - took 20 min
• Added the 60 min hops after the hot break cleared
• Decanted the spent wort off the starter

• Added the 30 min hops when volume got down to 7 gal
• Put in the irish moss with about 20 min to go
• Added the 10 min hops with a bit less than 6.5 gal
• At flame out added the last bit of hops and the wort chiller to sanitize
• Did a 15 min hopstand
• Chilled the wort down to 70 F - took 7 min
• Transferred to the fermentation bucket - let the wort fall a foot or so to aerate (My oatmeal brown is in the bottling bucket I usually use to slosh the wort back and fourth with in order to aerate).  I believe this will be sufficient

• Moved the beer to the fermentation chamber and pitched the yeast
• Measured the OG as 1.050 which is a bit higher than expected efficiency
• 3/16/15 - A good layer of foam has formed on the top of  the beer - it's neat being able to see the status of the fermentation so easily
• 3/18/15 - The krausen has sunk to the bottom 
• 3/29/15 - Added the dry hops
• 4/2/15 - Cold crashed down to 35 F
• 4/4/15 - Added gelatin for fining
• 4/5/15 - Measured the FG as 1.012.  The beer has a nice citrus/fruity hop aroma.  The flavor is pretty good balance between malt and bitter (bitterness is actually pretty restrained).  Bottled with 4.75 oz of priming sugar.  Ended up with 5.5 gal which got me 54 12 oz bottles.
• 4/30/15 - I've been drinking this for the last couple weeks.  I'm waiting for the hops to mellow a bit before doing the official tasting.  The first 6 beers I drank were very carbonated - I couldn't get through even a soft pour without having to pause for the head to settle.  The last two I've opened have been very lightly carbonated somehow.  I wonder if I didn't get an even mix of priming sugar in this beer.  I skipped the stirring step with this one - just added the sugar water at the start let the cycling of the beer flowing into the bottling bucket mix it in.  May have to be a bit more methodical on my next batch.
• 5/30/15 - Tasting Notes - A nicely balanced and refreshing beer for the summer.
• 5/1/17 - Drank the last one of these.  It was still clean and really nice tasting - no oxidation.  Hops had faded quite a bit as expected.

Lessons Learned:

1. It was a quicker than normal brew day due to only collecting 8 gal of pre-boil volume.  It didn't hurt my efficiency either.
2. I went with a bit over a 1.5 qt to pound ratio of water to grain which worked out well.  I was able to hit the mash temp and maintain it over the 60 min period.
3. Lost about a qt of volume to all the hops in this beer.  I'm glad I was shooting for 6 gal rather than 5 as I'll still have plenty of this beer with 5.75 gal.

Belgian Dubbel

My first batch of beer, brewed back in January 2014, was a Belgian Tripel.  It was an extract beer kit and it was fermented without temp control and a bit warmer than it should have been (80s).  It turned out quite a bit darker than expected and had a bit more sweetness and ester/fusel alcohol character initially than I was hoping for.  It ended up aging very nicely though and the last bottle (consumed last month) was subtle and very smooth.

I have decided to try to make another Belgian Abbey-style Ale.  There are a lot of interesting looking recipes out on the internet for these beers - lots of use of spices and flavorings.  I'll probably try one of these before too long but for this one I found a cool recipe on homebrewtalk for a Westvleteren 12 Clone that calls for a very simple grain bill (all base malt) and utilizes the interesting technique of boiling down first runnings to get caramel flavors and a brown color.  I have never had a Westvleteren beer so whether this is a good clone or not isn't very relevant to me.  This recipe is for a 10% which is a "Quad".  I've decided to try to bring the beer in at around 7.5 to 8% ABV which would make this more of a "Dubbel".

The recipe will use WLP 530 Abbey Ale Yeast which is apparently pretty authentic for what the Belgian brewers use.  The recipe calls for some temperature ramp up towards the end of fermentation which I will ignore for this batch.  I plan on chilling the wort down to the low 60s and then letting it ferment in the ambient temperature of the basement (also low 60s right now) - it can free rise as much as it likes from there.

Seeing how much my Tripel improved with a bit of age (and how well stocked I am right now with homebrew after bottling two batches this week) I will let this beer sit in primary for one month and then age for an additional three months prior to bottling (might decide to throw in some oak as well).

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjuncts:
• 7 lbs 2 row malt
• 7 lbs Pilsner malt
• 4.5 oz Acid malt
• 2 lbs D-180 Candi Syrup (added at 5 min)
• Hops:
• 1 oz Brewers Gold (Pellet, 9.0% AA) at 60 min
• 1 oz Hallertau (Pellet, 2.7% AA) at 30 min
• 1 oz Styrian Goldings (Pellet, 1.4% AA) at 15 min
• Yeast:
• WLP 530 Abbey Ale Yeast
• Red Star Pasteur Red Wine Yeast (Bottle Conditioning)
• Water:
• 10 gal Spring Water
• 2 gal Tap Water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min

 Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 152 F (Target 150 F for 60 min)
• Boil:
• 75 min (Target 90 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• Ambient Basement Temps (Mid to low 60s)
• Primary Duration:
• 1 month
• Secondary Duration:
• 3 months

Results:

• OG:
• 1.076 (Target 1.070)
• Efficiency:
• 76% (Target 69%)
• FG:
• 1.011 (Target 1.012)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 85% (Target 82%)
• ABV:
• 8.53 (Target 7.61%)

Brewing Notes:

• 2/26/15 - Created a 2 litre starter with 7.5 oz of DME and 1/8 tsp of yeast nutrient and pitched the yeast.  Put onto a stir plate to grow.  Activity was seen the following morning.
• 2/28/15 - Brew day - 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM including setup and cleanup
• Brought 7 gal of spring water up to 172 F strike water temp (lowered the flame on the burner once it got withing 10 degrees to avoid overshooting) - took 20 min
• Added CaCl to the HLT as it was heating
• Moved 24 qt of strike water to the mash tun - let the temp settle for 5 min - ended up in the high 160s
• Added the grain and stirred well to eliminate dough balls
• Checked the temps after 10 min - ended up between 152 and 154 F.  Gave it another good stir and let it go at that temp
• Stirred after 30 min - temp was high 140s to low 150s.  It was the right call to let it ride at the slightly higher than desired temp as it came down to the correct range
• Brought 6 gal of sparge water up to 200 F - took 25 min
• Mash was in the low 150s after 60 min.  Vorlaufed and drained - slowly at first and then up to full speed

• Pulled off 1 gal of first runnings to boil down to a syrup
• Added 6 gal batch sparge and stirred - ended up in the mid 170s
• Vorlaufed and drained like before
• Started to boil the first runnings on the range in the kitchen
• Collected 8.5 gal of wort in the kettle and 1 gal for syrup
• Brought the kettle up to a boil
• Added the 60 min hops at 8 gal and the 30 min hops at 7 gal
• The stovetop wasn't boiling fast enough so I moved the gal of 1st runnings to the HLT to reduce down more quickly
• Added irish moss when volume was down to 6 2/3 gal
• At 6.5 gal added the 15 min hops

• Once the first runnings looked fairly thick I pulled some of the boiling wort and mixed it in with the syrup to loosen it up and then poured the whole thing back into the kettle
• Added the Candi Syrup at 6.25 gal
• Put the chiller in to sanitize at flame out
• Chilled the wort down to 65 F - took 10 min
• Transferred the wort to the fermentor - ended up with 6 gal
• Poured back and forth between the fermentor and another bucket to aerate
• Measured gravity at 1.076
• Pitched the yeast (looks to be at about high krausen)

• Set the fermentor up with a blow off tube

• 3/2/15 - Powerful blowoff from the fermentor today.  The lid is bowing out due to the high pressure.  I wont be surprised if it pops overnight.

• 3/8/15 - The beer is still bubbling away after a week.
• 3/27/15 - Transferred to secondary in a 6 gal glass carboy.  The beer finished out at 1.011.  It still had a bit of krausen on the surface which is odd.  The beer is deep brown and a bit cloudy - will probably need to cold crash even after aging for 3 months.  It has a nice, but restrained, fruity yeast character.  The flavor is, likewise, fruity in a somewhat restrained way.  It has a bit of sweetness and hoppiness mixed in.  Hides it's alcohol very well - never would guess this is an 8.5% beer.  It's a lot better than my first Belgian.  Doesn't really need any more age but I'm going to stick with my plan anyway.

• 6/26/15 - Cold crashed down to 36 F in preparation for bottling this week
• 6/27/15 - Added 1 packet of gelatin dissolved in hot water to the beer to clear it.
• 6/29/15 - Bottled 5.5 gal with 6.5 oz of priming sugar and 1 packet of re-hydrated wine yeast.  Got 55 12 oz bottles from the batch.
• 8/29/15 - Tasting Notes - Smooth, malty, and complex.  This beer hides it's 8.5% ABV very well.  Yeast character is restrained from the low fermentation temperature.  Would try to increase that ab bit next time.

Lessons Learned:

1. My efficiency calculation needs to be updated to recognize the fact that I get maybe 70% efficiency from the grain but pretty much 100% with sugar.  I believe this is the root cause for the higher than expected efficiency in this batch.
2. I was a bit more careful with my water usage for this batch and had a nice short boil as a result
3. Boiling down the first runnings on the kitchen range was a good idea but it just didn't have the power to get a real good boil.  I wont be trying that again.  The boiling of the wort down to syrup didn't really have much of a color impact - the beer was pretty light until the candi syrup.  I wonder if it will have any real flavor contribution

Sour Blonde 1.2.1

It has been 3 months since I brewed my first batch of Sour Blonde which is loosely based on a Belgian Lambic.  I will be transferring that beer off it's yeast cake and brewing a new batch to add to it.

For this batch I'll be using the same grain ratios but upped slightly to account for projected lower efficiency.  That will be 60% Pilsner Malt and 30% Flaked Wheat to try to simulate the starch contributions of raw wheat in a turbid mash (might try for a real turbid mash next time).

I plan on mashing at 162 F to try to preserve more sugars for secondary fermentation.  I missed that mark last time and after a month of fermentation the beer was down to 1.014.  I would like that to be in the 1.02s for this batch to try to get a bit more sourness.

Like last batch I'm going to leave the beer out over night to cool and hopefully collect some wild yeast to provide some other flavor contributions.  I don't expect high risk or high rewards associated with this as I'm pitching onto a cake that likely still has brewers yeast living in it but it's fun to imagine that I'm going to get something unique doing it this way.  I did learn that I lost a lot more volume from evaporation chilling this way so I plan on stopping the boil at 7 gal in order to end up with 6 gal in the fermentor.

It's really kind of fun brewing these batches of beer that I'm going to get to watch evolve over the next several years.  I know there is a risk that this particular beer might not turn out but I'm viewing all of these "Sour Blondes" as part of one big project where, even if one isn't great or doesn't sour up much, it could still potentially be used as part of a blend or, at the very least, teach me something useful about the process.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 9 lbs Pilsner Malt
• 4 lbs 8 oz Flaked Wheat
• 5 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Hallertau (Pellet, 4.6% AA) at 120 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend (Second Pitch)
• Water:
• 11 gal Spring Water
• 2 gal Tap Water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6.25 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 162 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 150 min
• Fermentation Temp:
• Ambient Basement Temps (62 F to 75 F)
• Primary Duration:
• 3 months
• Secondary Duration:
• TBD (15 to 33 months)

Results:

• OG:
• 1.050 (Target 1.055)
• Efficiency:
• 64% (Target 68%)
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.006)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 89%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 6.43%)

Brewing Notes:

• 2/7/15 Brew day Part I - 2:00 PM to 7:20 PM including setup and cleanup
•  Brought 6 gal up to 196 F - Took 26 min
• Added the CaCl to the kettle
• Transferred 15 qt to the mash tun and let settle for 5 min - ended up at 182 F
• Added the grain and stirred vigorously to eliminate dough balls.  Ended up a bit high at 165 F so I added 2 cups of cool spring water which lowered the mash temp down to about 162 F

• Stirred after 30 min to try to improve efficiency - temps were down to 156 F which was pretty frustrating.  It was a pretty thick mash so that probably contributed (less thermal mass to hold the temps)
• Brought 9 gal of water to a boil - took 40 min

• At the end of the 60 min mash it was down to the high 140s to the low 150s
• Added 2 gal of near boiling mashout water, stirred, and then drained without a vorlauf - drained slowly at first and then with the valve all the way open (got some very cloudy muddy looking wort)
• Added 3.5 gal of boiling water for a batch sparge (raised mash temp up to 185 F), stirred and then drained
• Added a second 3.5 gal of boiling water which brought the mash temp up to 188 F (running a risk of extracting tannins) and drained
• Collected 12 gal of wort
• Brought to a boil (came pretty close to a boil over with that large volume) - took 25 min
• Once the volume got down to 11 gal I added the 120 min hops

• Added the irish moss once the volume got down to 725 gal
• Ended the boil at 7 gal
• Move the pot to the front porch to cool down over night and hopefully capture some interesting wild yeast from the air
• 2/8/15 Brew day Part II - 7:00 AM to 7:25 AM:
• Wort was down to 45 F the next morning.  Had 6.25 gal of wort remaining after evaporation.
• Cleaned up the krausen ring around the bucket the held the previous batch of Sour Blonde and swirled the yeast cake with the 1 cup of beer I left behind when transferring 1.1.1 to secondary
• Transferred SB 1.2.1 onto the yeast cake - transferred most of the cold break but left the hops for the most part.  With the wort being so cold I image the yeast will be a bit shocked and probably take a while to start fermentation

• Measured OG as 1.050 which is about 64% efficiency.  The sample was very cloudy - lots of starches in the wort.  It was sweet but also pretty bready - I'm guessing the the mash temp problems aren't going to screw up the souring of this beer too much.  No tannins in the flavor.
• Moved down to the basement to ferment - will check on the gravity in a month once primary fermentation is complete.
• 2/12/15 - The beer finally started to bubble today.  It filled the airlock with gunk.

• 3/14/15 - It has been just over a month since brewday.  Pulled a sample and measured the SG as 1.008.  So, it's down a bit more than I would have liked (would rather have seen it in the teens).  I'm going to try really hard to keep the mash temp higher on the next batch.  No real pellicle on the beer at this point but it does have a tart aroma.  The beer has a very slight acidity with a bit of brett funkiness - tastes nice.  I believe it's a bit farther along the road towards souring than the previous batch was after a month.

• 5/10/15 - Transferred to secondary after 3 months - took a bit of the yeast cake with me to give the brett a bit of extra food.  Measured the gravity as 1.006.  The beer has pretty intense funky/fruity aroma like the last one.  The flavor is also pretty funky - no real sourness has developed yet.  It's very similar to the last one except for the lower gravity at transfer.  I'll check on this again in 3 months.

• 3/4/16 - Sampled the beer today.  Measured the gravity as 1.005.  It has cleared beautifully and is a very nice golden color.  There is a pretty strong brett funk on the nose.  Quite a bit of brett in the flavor as well.  Still no sourness has developed.

• 10/20/17 - Status Report:
• A bit of earthy funk along with a bit of fruit
• Lightly gold and slightly hazy
• Beer has a bit of earthy funk.  Also get some alcohol flavor.  Maybe a slight bit of fruity ester mixed in as well.  No sourness has developed
• Pretty mild flavored and not very complex
• 12/2/17 - Topped off with 1 gal of lacto soured 1.020 beer to add a bit of sourness to this beer and to give the bugs a bit more to eat after a couple years.
• 5/25/18 - Status Report:
• Pungent earthy and cheesy aroma to the beer.  Maybe a bit of overripe fruit.  Quite musty as well.
• Light gold and clear - a few pellicle chunks floating in it.
• Fruity with a light tartness in the finish.  Has some earthy brett notes.  I detect a bit of sulfur.  Also get a bit of bread flavor in the finish on this one.
• Medium-light bodied a bit of sweetness to it.  A bit of prickling acidity in the mouthfeel.  Drinkable beer.
• Some nice flavors and aromas with pretty good complexity.  I quite like this one
• 6/3/18 - I used this batch on three blends today:  4 gal in a Plain Sour Blonde, 1 gal in a Cherry Sour Blonde, and 1 gal in a Raspberry Sour Blonde.  The beer seemed to have improved a lot with some extra food which made it very attractive as a blending component.  As unimpressed as I was with it 6 months ago that was a big surprise.  There was about 1 quart of beer remaining at the bottom of the glass carboy along with some yeast dregs.  I added Sour Blonde 6.1.1 to this (calling this Fermenter #2).

Lessons Learned:

1. I don't think collecting all the pre-boil volume I did makes much sense.  The runnings from the final batch sparge were like water - I can't believe I got much sugar out of the beer with that one.  I also don't think a 150 min boil bought me anything that a 90 min boil wouldn't have.  I'm really sick of doing batch sparging.
2. Mashing this batch was a disaster - can't move to the RIMS setup quickly enough.  It seems like no matter how much stirring I do the mash varies significantly in temperature from one spot to another.  I'm sure the beer will be fine but this fire and forget methodology just doesn't suit me very well - I want control that I'll never be able to have with the current setup.
3. I like the simplicity of this recipe and I think I'm getting good starchy wort out of it in spite of the mash not behaving as expected.