RECIPE: The Becca Begins (Solera Barrel 1st Fill: Belgian Blonde)

Barrel is all topped up

Ever since I started brewing sour beers, and especially after reading Wild Brews, I have wanted to make a sour and put it into a barrel to age.  Specifically I wanted to start a Sour Solera, fill it with one beer, sour it, pull a portion after 6 months, then refill the (now) empty portion of the barrel with new beer.  I can add the same recipe as the original keeping the base flavors the same, or I can add something different and shift the color, aroma, and flavor profile in a different direction for the next pull.  I just needed something to house the beer.

I had considered using one of the blue plastic drums from the Homebrew Store that previously housed Liquid Malt Extract, but the potential oxygen uptake on a project of this size was too much for me.  I had also tried to figure out a way to do it with a retired 1/2 barrel keg but couldn't find one through legal paths.  I had put out an email to the brew club to see if anyone had a lead on one, and a response I wasn't expecting came back: I have a 14 gallon wine barrel that I am not going to use that you can have.  Wow!  Jackpot!  

Saison and 5 Brett Strains

The barrel had set empty for some time so I had to do some work to get it to swell again as well as to clean it for holding my beer and not adding unwanted bacteria to it like acetobacter.  It took a couple days to get it to swell.  First i filled it 1/3 full with boiling water and stood it on each head.  I also filled the heads on the outside with boiling water to get them to swell.  After setting it back on its belly on the stand it was dropping water quite a bit.  I topped it up to about 1/2 full  with cold tap water and left it there for the day (went to finish my brew at Falling Sky).  I came back afterwards and topped it up to about 3/4 full as the water flow had declined (but not stopped).  The following day I topped it off to full after adding Potassium Metabisulfate (2g/L) and Citric Acid (1g/L) to it to kill any bacteria, mold, and anything else as well as keep the water fresh.  It was fully swollen and holding water tight by the next day.

Mash is Drained

I decided that I wanted to brew a Belgian Blonde for the first iteration to go through the barrel.  I wanted the light, fruity, spicy, funky, tart flavors to shine, let the yeast do the bulk of the talking on this one.  From here I can go wherever I feel fit.  I took a queue from Russian River's sour Blonde Sanctification and went with a lower OG than Belgian Blonde's usually have since the higher degree of attenuation from the primary yeasts, bacteria, and Brett will make it super dry and raise the ABV that way.  To give some character to the beer I used a fair amount of Belgian Aromatic malt and a home made Invert Sugar which lended a fruity alcohol note during fermentation.  I set up to brew 15+ gallons to ensure a full fill, but hit 16 gallons, and in the end, I still came up shy by 1/2 a gallon. 

Only time will tell where this one goes from here.

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Stats:

Gallons: 16.00

OG: 1.054

FG: 1.005

ABV: 6.40%

Added Invert Sugar to Hot Wort to Dissolve

IBUs: 22

SRM: 7.0

Efficiency: 92%

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Fermentables:

20.00# Weyermann Pilsner (80.0%)

2.50# Special Aromatic (10.0%)

2.50# Sugar, Invert (10.0%)

Mash 10 hours @ 154*F

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Boil 45 mins

35 2.00 oz Magnum 16.40%AA

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Kettle Additions:

Gypsum - Mash 1 1/4 tsp; Boil 1 3/8 tsp

Epsom Salts - Mash 1/2 tsp; Boil 1/2 tsp

Calcium Chloride - Mash 1 3/8 tsp; Boil 1 5/8 tsp
Lactic Acid - Sparge 1.4ml

Yeast Nutrient - 6 taps

Whirfloc - 1 each

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Fermentation:

Cooled to: 74*F
2 Better Bottles = JasperYeast JY43 Saison slurry from Enygma

1 Better Bottle = JY33 B Brux & 87 B Brux, ECY B Naardensis, B Custersianus, and B Nanus, Cascade Brewing Lactobicillus Brevis

Barrel = WLP B Brux Trois, BSI B Lambicus, WY B Clausenii, Orval B Brux, Elysian's Mortis B Brux, Flat Tail Brewing "Brett F" wild yeast from local plums, Cascade L Brevis

74*F 2 days

78*F 2 days

85*F 10 days

Ambient Garage Temps for 6+ months

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Notes:

Maxed out my 17.5 gallon Kettle

7/16 Boiled 3 3/4 qts of water with 2.5# of Demerra sugar and 5/8 tsp of Citric Acid for 2 hours to make 2 qts of invert sugar. Next time I will add half the water volume and boil for 20 minutes. Think it might be too dark and rummy for a Belgian Blonde. 

7/18-19 Brewed alone, mashed all grains in at 8:30pm at 154*F. Dropped to 142*F by 7:30am, loss of 12*F over 11 hours. Sparged and boiled as one batch, added the sugar and end of boil. Cooled wort to 74*F and transferred via pump to 3 Better Bottles at 10:00am . Pitched 2 with JY 43 Saison strain slurry from Enygma, and the other with 5 Brett strains and Lacto. Set controller to 74*F. Positive pressure and bubbles in Saison yeast fermentors within hours, full krausen on all 3 by next morning. 

CO2 Force Racked Into Barrel

7/21 Jumped temps up to 78*F 

7/23 Jumped up to 85*F 

7/27 Pulled samples, tastes great. 1.006, 1.005, 1.004 on the refractometer. 

8/2 Wracked off of yeast into cleaned 15 gallon wine barrel. Samples of the JY43 version were lightly sulfury, higher alcohols, fruity, no phenols. The Brett and Lacto version had a bit of funk and over-ripe fruits. Came up short on volume some how, so I racked ½-1 gallon of the Too Small Sour Brett Rye Saison in with a bottling wand shoved into the picnic tap to avoid splashing and filled the headspace. This added BSI Brett Lambicus, Elysian’s Brett B, Wyeast Brett C, Orval Brett B, and Flat Tail’s Brett “F” to the mix as well as more Cascade Lacto. 

8/12 Pulled bung to see a pellicle has already formed and took a sample. Light Brett spiciness and funk mingled with fruity alcohol.

8/16 Was able to score some 4D Stainless Steel nails from a super helpful brewer in town that has an amazing barrel aging program. Drilled the head of the barrel about 3/4 of the way down with a 7/64" drill bit and then slid one of the nails into the hole. This gives me the ability to pull samples from the barrel over time and not have to open the barrel itself and expose the beer to oxygen.

Left in garage at ambient temps to age and sour (Max temp in August in garage was 122*F).

Review: The Judith (Oaked Blackberry Sour Blonde)

The next beer in the Where the Wild Things Are series, this beer began its life as an American Blonde Ale brewed to see if my gear was infection free post deep cleaning after an infection string swept my brew house.  I didn't really want 9 gallons of Blonde, and half the batch was discovered to be infected, so I soured the majority of it.  After a few months on Brett, then a few more souring, I added different fruits to the split batches.  This one got fresh blackberries from the backyard in September, as well as a healthy dose of French and American Oak.

Look:

Pours a deep red to violet, thick white head drops fast to a tight ring that stays all the way through.  No real lace is left.  Super clear.

Aroma:

Smells like Brett funk and berries.  Hints of tropical fruits from the Brett, and some deep oak with hints of wine barrel.

Flavor:

Taste mirrors the smell, basement funk, dusty, tart, lemons, berries, fruity, tannic oak, wine, light oxidation (cardboard) in the finish, clean acid - no acetic.

Mouthfeel:

Puckering sour from the fruit, lactic acid, and super dry finish.  Oak tannins, balanced to sour.

Overall:

Very nice fruit sour.  Complex.  Great color, sour, funky, fruity.  Could use a little more fruit, or drink it sooner as the jammy fruit is starting to fade from what it was in mid February (just post carb).  Definitely a good wild ale.  Deep oak.  The oxidation is lower in this version than in the version that got mangoes and dry hops - need to stay out of my sours or flush with CO2 (now that I have it).

Recipe: Becca's Bavarian (German Hefeweisse)

Every so often you hit it spot on.  Everything comes together to make a magical concoction of malt, hops, and yeast.  My Bavarian Hefe that I brewed nearly 2 years ago was such a beer.  The perfect flavor blend of banana and cloves, a smidgen of vanilla, light, bready, highly carbonated, effervescent   My wife loved it, as did I, and it was sad to see it go.  I have longed to brew it again, and my wife has longed for the day I would.  On Valentine's Day she gave me my present, an extra brew day to make my Hefeweissen, and a twist, she wanted me to teach her to brew it.  Sweet!  

Recipe: The Becca 2012 - Third Trimester Tripel: When Things Get Funky (Tripel w/ Brett)

Last year I made an Imperial Stout with Cherries, Smoke Malt, and Chipotles named for my wife, Becca, A Smokin Hot Mother Of A Stout.  The beer didn't really suit her much since she can't stand to drink it.  I had been looking for a beer she would really enjoy to become the new Becca.  One of my first beers, batch 3 to be exact, was a Belgian Golden Strong, and my wife loved it, and I have wanted to rebrew to what I originally wanted.  The original turned out much darker than gold, and much sweeter than I had wanted; many people likened it to a sweet Tripel.  I had originally taken 1 gallon of that beer and put it on Brett like Matilda.  The Brett never really took hold (Reinhardt's Flemish Wild and Matilda dregs), so I hit it with Supplication dregs and turned it decent sour.  I have longed to make another beer like it again.  Enter the perfect solution to my delimma.

I used basically the same recipe as before, just All Grain instead of partial mash.  A 50/50 blend of Continental Pilsner malt and Domestic Pale Malt forms my base, along with about 20% White Wheat Malt.  Add a little Belgian Aromatic for some maltiness and touch of depth, and roughly 15% sugar to dry it out as well as boosting the gravity.  In the original recipe I used clear candi sugar which is expensive table sugar when it comes to the flavor contributions, so I just used table sugar.  The original recipe had Sterling hops, but I went with Santiam on this batch since I have a good 5oz in the fridge already.  I took some of the final runnings of my Wee heavy  and boiled it up for an 1800ml starter that I ran for a few days and then put in the fridge to stop the growth of the Brett from continuing too much.  I had snagged a package of the Wyeast PC Trappist Blend strain not knowing that it had Brett in it, and had needed a beer to brew with it so it seems the Lord's providence worked in my favor.

This beer seemed apt to become the new Becca since she loved the original, and she enjoys funky beers.  Seeing as she is in her third trimester with our second child, this year's rendition is The Becca - Third Trimester Tripel: When Things Get Funky.  Now I only needed a day to brew it... enter in the email from Denny Conn... our brew club needed one more brewer for Teach A Friend to Brew Day, and I jumped on it quick.  An easy brew, single rest, low mash temp, simple malt bill, sugar to boost the OG and dry it out, 2 hop additions, chill and pitch.  

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Stats:

5.75 gallons

1.079 OG

1.007 Est Fg

9.4% Est ABV

32 IBUs

5 SRM

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Fermentables:

4.25#  Weyermann Pils

4.25# Great Western Pale

3.0#  White Wheat Malt

0.75# Belgian Aromatic Malt
2.25# Table Sugar

75 Minutes @ 148*F

82% Extract Efficiency

82% Brewhouse Efficiency

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90 Minute Boil:

FW - 2.0 oz Santiam ~ 6.0AA% (Home Grown)

10 mins - 1.0 oz Santiam ~ 6.0AA% (Home Grown)

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Fermentation:

6 gallon Better Bottle

15 mins Aeration

Wyeast PC 3789 Trappist Blend - 1.8L Starter 

36 Hours @ 68*F

24 Hours @ 70*F
14 Days @ 75*F
1 Week @ 55*F

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Additional:

Gypsum 1/2 t (mash), 1/2 t (boil)

Calcium Chloride 5/8 t (mash), 1/2 t (boil)

Whirfloc - 1 tab

Nutrient
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Brewed @ Oakshire.  Brewday went smoothly.  Got slightly higher efficiency than I expected and ended up with extra wort.  Racked into 6 gallon Better Bottle and pitched yeast @ 3:00pm. Drove home and aerated with pump for 15 minutes.  Placed in ferm fridge @ 68, transfered 3/4 gallon out into sanitized 1 gallon jug.

At 7 the next morning (16 hours) there was a 4" krausen already.  This yeast is ripping through the wort and is a true top-cropper.  Attached a blow off to both fermenters.  Jumped temp up later that night to get a little more fruity expression from the yeast since the Trappist High Gravity is known for a subtle and spicy character at lower temps and I want a balance between esters and phenols.  Bumped up temp gradually over the coarse of a few days to restrain fusel alcohols and promote yeast expression.

After 4 days the gravity was down to 1.025.  After 1 week it was down to 1.010.  After 2 weeks the FG is down to 1.007, tastes of clove and pepper with hints of pear and strawberries, light banana.  This yeast is ferocious.

Where the Wild Things Are: The Carol

About a year ago, actually, 52 weeks ago, I brewed up a Lambic that I fermented with the yeast I cultured off of blackberries from my backyard and a small starter of yeast from organic peaches grown locally.  After making the wort and adding the entire starter from each yeast to the carboy, I had a "funny" fermentation which consisted of small bubbles flowing up to the top quickly to feed a very small fluffy white head that looked like a single centimeter of soda foam.  Eventually the fermentation looked a little more like normal, but the krausen never really roared up like a normal yeast would.  There were chunks of peach flesh and blackberry, as well as oak chunks on top.  I also added some wild grapes after a month for a little extra yeast.  After only three weeks it was down from 1.053 to 1.006.  Nice and fruity, with a light tartness, mostly tropical and berries.

Over the course of fermentation, I have added dregs from commercial and homebrewed sours to try to get more complexity built up from other sources of Brett and bacteria.  I added some Russian River dregs, Cantillon Grand Cru, Jolly Pumpkin, Oude Beersel, Girardin Black, some infected Logen Berry mead a buddy made, and some dregs from a sour I did with Russian River dregs.  This will ensure a more complex beer, but it also kills much of the work I did culturing the yeast since the final product isn't a showcase of what that yeast can actually do (part of the reason I am going to brew a new one this year with fruit cultured yeast again and leave it alone).

After a few months I noticed a lot of oak character showing, and seeing that I used 5 oz of French Oak that had come from a wine barrel in Lodi, it wasn't any wonder why.  I needed to do something to stop the oaking, but I didn't want to lose all of the goodness in the trub and yeast that is needed for a Lambic to ferment properly.  I racked the beer out of the carboy into my sour bottling bucket and then dumped the trub, yeast, fruit, oak, etc., into a vessel while I cleaned the carboy and removed all the oak.  After this I added a few pieces of oak to the carboy, opened the valve on the bucket and refilled the carboy.  While this was going on I also racked the yeast, trub, and fruit back into the carboy as well.

I noticed an oxidative character beginning to creep in around January, so I brewed a little extra wort on my Saison and added a half gallon to the carboy to displace the head space.  The FG was still at 1.005.  Only took a few days for the fermentation to kick back up and take on the fresh wort.  After about a month or so, it was back down to 1.005.

Given another month, the FG had gotten down to 1.002, and there was a sheen atop the wort slightly resembling an oil slick, not like the pellicles I have seen before on my other sour beers.  By mid summer the taste was nice, funky, tart, clean, fruity, spicy, but lots of oak, so I racked it from the 6 gallon carboy into a 5 gallon, taking some of the yeast sediment at the bottom with it.  Given another month, the oakiness is starting to fade some.  I racked 1/2 gallon out of the carboy and added 1/2 gallon of my sour Blonde ale to try to cut down on the oak a little.  A few weeks later I am happy with the results, and am ready to bottle, and seeing that it is sitting at 1.001, not much more for it to do in the short term.

A beer that I have been watching, shaping, tasting, aging, and waiting on for a year is no simple brown bottle beer.  For this batch I needed to do something special, at least for a few bottles.  I started with 375ml Champagne bottles.  At this point I could go with cork and cage, or cork and cap (Cantillon style), but I opted for a cap and wax seeing as they look very nice, and it's super cheap as well as not requiring extra equipment.  Add to this full labels with art work and it is a very nice show piece, even if it is only 6 bottles worth.

I hope that the beer will carbonate quicker than my other sour which has been bottled for nearly 7 months and is still fairly flat.  Our club has a competition coming up and in late October that I would like to enter this batch into.  I will of course set the bulk of this beer aside to cellar for years to come and continue to develop.

This beer will be the first installment in my new series of beers, dubbed Where the Wild Things Are, named after characters from the children's book made movie.  The first is going to be called The Carol.  One of the main Wilds, he was impulsive, much like brewing a beer with blackberry yeast, adding dregs at random, and over oaking, only to move the beer twice.

NOTE: This beer took 1st place in Sour Beers and BEST OF SHOW in February 2014 at the KLCC BJCP comp.

Update: Laminated Envelope - Blackberry Version

Awhile back I brewed up an American Blonde Ale to test my fermenters that had housed infected batches.  The resulting beers were mixed and soured with different dregs and such.  After some time had passed I split the batches into 2 5 gallon carboys and added mangoes and mango juice to one, leaving the other one plain for a later addition of fruit.  Just a few weeks ago we returned from a long trip to California to find an abundance of blackberries on the large bush that has overtaken an entire fence in our back yard.  We were able to pick nearly 6# in one evening, and still had tons left that we were unable to get to that day.  Seeing that we didn't need that many berries, I decided to split off 4.33# of blackberries into the plain sour batch.  After dropping some in, one-by-one, I tried pulverizing them in my hand, and this too caused too much splashing, so I blended them up in the blender and poured it through my funnel with a tube on the end that was under the surface, cutting down on aeration.  The beer is a deep purple with chunks of blackberry floating around and a very broken pellicle on top.  Honestly, it looks like a giant version of the starter I did about this time last year from the same blackberry bush to make the Lambic I am going to bottle soon.  Between the two carboys I should have about 4+ gallons of Sour Blackberry Blonde and nearly 5 gallons of Sour Mango Blonde come next summer.

Review: Le Ferme du Funke

Every so often you come across a beer that you brew and you know that you got it right.  This is one of those moments.  It was one of my first Saisons.  Honestly I gave more thought to the other Saison I brewed on the same day, a Rye Saison with Apricots named ApRYEcot.  This beer was supposed to be a basic Saison while the other was to be a nice fruity, spicy Summer drinker.  This beer evolved when I decided to pitch Brett at bottling and let a case age.  That was extremely difficult with how good it turned out.  And it's a good thing I was able to hold back on that case.  When one our local, yet national, BJCP sanctioned homebrew comps hit this past February, I decided to enter it.  I'm sure glad I did.  I took 2nd place in the KLCC Homebrew Competition, Category 16: Belgian and French Ales.  1st place went to a very talented homebrewer, who consequently I tied for 2nd place and then beat out in a mini-best of show for the win, splitting him to 1st and 3rd.

Look:

Pours a clear gold with 1+ finger of brilliantly white head that fades slow to a thin cap and nice ring leaving good lace.  Lots of tiny bubbles continue to flutter to the top.

Aroma:

Smells of spicy Brett, light funk, hay, lemon, pepper, barnyard comes in as it warms.

Taste:

Tastes the same as the nose, spicy, floral, lightly funky, hay, lemon, peach, lingering fruit in the finish.

Mouthfeel:

Crisp dry finish, tart, but not sour, bubbly, light, smooth, bitterness lingers and makes for a perfect finish begging for another sip.

Overall:

Very nice Saison.  Refreshing, crisp, dry, spicy, light flowers and fruits, lots of Brett phenols, light Brett esters.  Barnyard is restrained but the Brett is not.  Could use more malt and hop flavors and aroma, but Brett tends to eat everything in sight and transform it.  The Brett did it's job.  Great carbonation and head, looks beautiful.

Sour Blonde Update: Tropicana!

The Blonde Ale has made some advances since I last updated on it.  What started as a test batch to ensure my fermenters were free of the infections that hit my other brews, morphed into a sour project when the experiment revealed that my conical was indeed still infected (and much new information leads to the conclusion that it is actually the source of it all).  The batch was being housed in 4 glass jugs, and the conical, the former containing Lacto, Pedio, Brett, and oak, the latter containing Brett only.  I recently added some 5 gallon glass carboys to the brewhouse, scored at a garage sale for $12 each, couldn't pass it up.  I decided to take the just under 3 gallons of oaked and soured version, the 1 gallon of Lacto from yogurt and honey, and the 6 gallons of Brett Blonde and mix them together split into 2 carboys.  One remains blended and aging for now (will receive some fruit later), the second received fruit now.

I did some chatting with fellow homebrewers and sour lovers Mike Tonsmeire (and his friend Seth) and Ryan about possibilities for adding tropical fruits.  Both recommended staying away from pineapple unless I was going to back sweeten as they are highly acidic.  After looking at the options of guava, papaya, mango, passionfruit, and dragon fruit, I decided on mango (passion and dragon are too expensive).  I added one papaya and remembered that I don't much care for it, and one won't impact the flavor enough to worry about it.  I also added 3 mangoes skinned and de-seeded.  According to a few sources, I would need between 8-10# of mango, and i only added about 3.  The cost factor does weigh in, so when I found some Mango Nectar (high fructose corns syrup free) on sale for $3.50 1/2 gallon, I jumped on it.  Bought 2 jugs.  The juice weighs in at 1.057 OG.  I added one jug to the carboy and almost overflowed the vessel.  The other I put into one of my glass gallon jugs and then siphoned some of the sour beer in with it to ferment it like a sour/wild Mango cider.  Once they are done souring, I will blend them back together before bottling.  Who knows what else will happen between now and then though.

Recipe: Le Ferme du Funke (Brett Saison)

If you haven't caught on yet, I love me some Saison!  It wasn't always this way.  I went to a Fresh Hop festival 2 1/2 years ago and grabbed a beer that had Saison/Farmhouse Ale as the style.  Only beer I've spit out before pouring out the rest of the taste glass.  I immediately ran for a refill of something hoppy to get that swill off my tastebuds.  Some time later I had Upright Four and really enjoyed it.  I had Jolly Pumpkin Bam and Bam Noire and really loved the Noire.  I got a 6 pack of Collette from Great Divide.  Now I try every Saison I see on tap, and drink quite a few of them.  I have a sports bar next to my house that has Upright 5 on tap regularly.  The more I drank them the more I love them (unless they are brewed with 3711).  I really enjoy Dupont.  And I have brewed 4 Saisons now.  There wasn't a question when I brewed my first Saisons I was going to use the Dupont strain.  Didn't care about the stalling, I wanted that yeast.  Did my first Saisons when I didn't have temp control, so I did them in the garage in the high 70s.  One turned out to be a great idea, but not much more - a Rye Saison with Apricots.  The Apricot puree took over much of my beer which meant either 3 gallons of "clear beer" of 5 gallons of soupy beer.  I opted for soupy and bottled most of the Apricot.   This lead to lots of sulfur in the nose and bottle bombs as the yeast destroyed the remaining sugars in the fruit.  The other batch I did that day is an amazing beer, it took 2nd place in a National BJCP sanctioned comp in the category 16, splitting 1st and 3rd to an amazing brewer.  Finished with Brett in the bottles, I'm glad I found, I'm not sure how, a way to keep nearly a case for almost a year.

Stats:
5 gallons
1.044 OG
1.004 FG
5.3% ABV
20 IBUs
4 SRM
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Fermentables:
7.5# German Pils
1.0# German Vienna
0.75# Faked Oats
0.25# Belgian Aromatic
0.25# Acidulated Malt
60 minutes @ 149*F
68% Efficiency
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90 Minute Boil:
90 0.5 oz Styrian Bobek 3.8AA%
20 0.7 oz Styrian Bobek 3.8AA%
10 0.3 oz Citra 13.4 AA%
5   0.8 oz Styrian Bobek 3.8AA%
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Fermentation:
1L starter WYeast 3724 Belgian Saison
Shook to Aerate
4 weeks @ 75+ (ambient in garage in July)
Bottled w/ 1/2 cup starter made from Orval dregs
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Additional:
Whirfloc Tablet

Review: Antiquated Ambush (Sour Saison)

What do you mean you brewed a sour in 4 weeks?  Yup.  Did my original Saison recipe from a few months ago with a few tweaks, and then, due to a boost in efficiency had an extra 3/4 gallons of wort.  Took it out of the main fermentation and hit it with my RR starter.  4 weeks later I had 5 gallons of Saison, and 3/4 gallons of sour Saison with a hint of Brett, and a nice tartness.  Blended the two and bottled.  Nice pellicle in the bottles.  After 7 weeks in the bottle at garage temps the bugs and Brett are doing a great job of boosting the carbonation levels closer to the typical Saison range (under carbed on purpose so I didn't get bottle bombs).  I'm very hopeful of how this beer is going to continue to develop over time.  Nice thing is that I used the yeast slurry from the soured version to do the same thing with my Witbier!

Look:

Pours a slightly hazy (souring bugs and Brett still active, pellicle at top of the bottle) burnished gold with a nice 1+ finger pure white head.  Lots of tiny bubbles.  Decent lacing.  Head fades slowly to a thick cap that persists to the last drop.

Aroma:

Smells of lemon, pepper, apricots, tropical fruit, hay, Brett funk, tart, light buytiric acid as well (not too off-putting, just a mild fecal scent).  Spicy and floral hops are present but not powerful.  

Taste:

Tastes much like it smells, tart lemons, peppery spice, ginger, apricot, sulfur, fruity, floral, Brett funk is mild yet present.

Mouthfeel:

Dry, crisp, spritzy, light, refreshing, bubbly, tart, very balanced finish between the dry, bitter, sour, sweet.  The finish is surprisingly perfect (surprising due to being a first time attempt at the recipe).

Overall:

I'm very impressed with this beer.  The Saison yeast is quite restrained on this version compared to the original, more than likely due to overpitching (same issue on the Witbier), wish it was popping a little more.  Lots of stuff working together on this version.  The Brett and bugs are quite present for being this young and the low FG, they must have ripped apart the 3/4 gallon early.  The spice, fruit, tartness, look, Brett, dry tart finish, hops, all of it works together to make a very delightful drink.  Only two things that I wish would change are the mild buytiric acid (which over time will hopefully be esterfied by the Brett and bugs), and the weather.  Oregon is nothin but rainy and cold right now, and this beer just begs the clouds to kick and the sun to ramp us up to the 80s.

Review: The Callen

I set out to do a partigyle Wee Heavy and 80 Schilling.  The hope was to brew a big Scotch Ale to name after my son Callen as an owed to our heritage, as the label reads:

"For such a wee lad, he is a heavy one.  Assertive and bold, but effervescent, one would do well to watch in amazement as this one ages.  Or enjoy him while he is young and smooth, w/ hints of flowers and earth; ne’er a harshness to him at all.  Take your time with him, and ponder the many intricacies of what he is; if you go too fast you’ll miss the wonders of truly knowing him, and he may just sneak up and bite ya’ in the ars!"

To start with, C120 and Special B may not have been the best choice.  But knowing exactly what went wrong on this batch recipe wise will not be easy since the yeast that I pitched was a slurry of 1056 from a previous batch that I had no idea was infected with a wild yeast.  Gushing bottles, fruity esters, what might be Brett L.  Makes for a decent Belgian Dark Strong, too bad that's not what I was trying to brew.

Appearance:  Pours a deep copper (muddy from the yeast being stirred up by the gusher infection) with a super thick beige head that persists for days and leaves a thick cap for the entire drink.  Great lacing, and lots of carbonation.

Smell:  Smells of fake cherries, dark fruits, burnt sugar, faint bread crust, pears, strawberries, flowers.

Taste:  Tastes like it smells, cherries, burnt sugar, toffee, fruity, pie crust, spicy heat in the finish - smooth yet warm.  Honestly I get hints of Trader Joe's 2012 Reserve Belgian beer less the chocolate and over the top spice.

Mouthfeel:  Medium-full consistincy, sweet but warm finish, carbonation makes it lighter on the tongue and leaves a smooth finish.  (If I add a touch of Lactic acid to the glass it makes the whole thing pop).

Overall:  For a Belgian Dark Strong it would be very nice (maybe back off on the fake cherries some though).  As a Wee Heavy if fails miserably.  The gusher infection is very fruity, lots of cherry, and tears through residual sugars thus the gushing.  Hoping that the pie cherry flavor eventually begins to morph to some horse blanket and some acid as well, thinking Old Ale after some time in the cellar maybe.  We'll see where this one goes in time.

Bring On The Bugs

I've been thinking about building up my reserves for sour dregs to add a little more depth and complexity to my sour beers.  The two that have finished were good, but I only used one type of dregs to achieve them and my hope is to add a lot more to the following batches.  Previously I have used Russian River's Supplication and Consecration.  Recently I built up the dregs from there Sanctification which is brewed with only Brett, with Lacto and Pedio in secondary, and bottled with Brett alone (thus removing the champagne yeast that they use in all the other sours at bottling), as well as dregs from a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere which has a great pellicle.  I added the dregs from a bottle of Oude Beersel Oude Geuze Vielle to my Lambic as well as dregs from some of my homebrew, Cantillon, and a dose of Logenberry Mead from my buddy that had gotten infected.  

I've got quite a few bottles of different sours that I was considering culturing from, such as, RR Beatification (among other RR offerings), Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus, Oakshire Scookumchuck, Girardin 1882 Black Label, Boon Oude Geuze Mariage Parfait 2007, and Hannsens Scarenbecca Kriek.  What I was thinking was to make a 1.030 starter wort from DME and Apple Juice, transfer into water bottles and put it in the freezer until I drink one of these bottles, at which point I will pop the cork, pour the beer, flame the lip, and add dethawed starter wort to the dregs in the bottle then place foil on top and leave at ambient to grow.  After some time I will be able to swirl up the starter of which ever one/ones I want to use, pour some off into the beer I am brewing, and add some more starter wort to it to feed it and keep the culture going.  This will give me variety, and since I have lots of 1 gallon jugs, I can add JP to one, Cantillon to another, Hannsens to another and RR to another, and compare how they turn out, then blend to the desired effect I want.


One problem that I hit was with the bottle of Fantome Saiosn D'Erezee Prentemps that I did this with.  I ended up with Icebergs on top (Large clumps of mold) and a Sea Cucumber floating around in the liquid (large carpet of mold).  According to another homebrewer and sour  maker he has had this same issue when the starters are grown in too hot an environment.  Another issue that Mike Tonsmeire threw my way, and I was reminded of again while reading Wild Brews again, is that mixed cultures like this will be very difficult to keep in balance.  Inevitably the Sacc strain will die off and autolize, the Lacto (especially in un-hopped stater wort) and Pedio will multiply rapidly, and the Brett will not keep up with the acid bacteria.  If this were to happen, successive batches would become very sour and not have much other flavor components to keep the beer in balance with the proper flavors and aromas, just sour.  What he recommended, and the way I will probably go, is to just pitch the dregs into a batch, let it age, bottle, and then pitch the dregs from my bottled beers into new sours along with other dregs, age, bottle, repeat, and so on.  This will give me a large diversity of bugs and wild yeasts from different breweries, as well as a house character as my current bugs and yeasts are repitched and morph from batch to batch.  With all the different sours I have going right now, it sounds like a good option.


Add to this my culture of Lacto from yogurt, and my Brett starters - 1 Orval, 1 Reinhardt's Flemish Wild Ale, and I will be getting some Brett C from an all Brett beer that some buddies have going, I should be looking at quite a bit of funk to funk around with.

UPDATE: Brett Blonde

Thought I would post a quick update on the Blonde Ale that I turned some Brett lose on, mainly I just want to post some pix of the pellicle from inside the conical cuz it looks cool...

Infecting My Infection Experiment

A few weeks ago I brewed up a basic American Blonde recipe to test my fermenters to see if I had effectively killed off the infection that may have been housed in them from previous batches.  The conical version of the beer seemed to be infected from the start so I decided to sour up the whole lot of it.  After checking the final gravity on the Better Bottle version and tasting it, I decided that I didn't have to have 5 gallons of this one bottled and could go for a half batch or so.  It seems a little thin with a FG of 1.005.  The flavors are nice, but the body is a little off.  I shouldn't have expected much different since I pulled 10.5 gals (post boil) from 12.5# of grain, and with such a low OG (1.037) even taking up the mash temp to 153*F wasn't going to stop it from finishing low.  Thus the decision to purposely infect the infection experiment batch.

On the conical, I diverted 1 gallon to a jug that housed a Brett starter to funk up, and I hit the remainder with 1/4 cup starter from Russian River Consecration and 1/4 cup of my Lambic along with 8 pieces of French Oak.  After a few days it was tasting quite oxidized, so I moved it out of the conical into smaller containers.  I put all the oak into one jug so it will be over oaked and used to blend into the final mix.  The rest was put into 2L bottles with a small addition of sugar.

I bottled 18 bottles worth from the Better Bottle using carb tabs just so I can know exactly how the final batch actually turned out.  The rest I transferred into the conical where I added the entire 2.5 gallons of this wort fermented on all Brett, the gallon of Bretted conical beer, and added 1.25# Clover Honey for added sugars.  I put a piece of saran wrap over the top so that I can easily look inside at what is going on with out allowing oxygen in every time I take a peek.  The saran wrap is kind of fogging up from the honey fermenting, which started out as a ring of foam as is began to dissolve from the bottom of the conical and start to ferment and slowly developed into a full krausen by 2 days later.

The plan is to let the Better Bottle version now in the conical funk up with Brett for a few months while the original conical version sours in the 2L bottles.  After 3 months or so, I will drain off a couple gallons of the Bretted conical into 2L bottles and add a 1 gallon starter of Lacto and honey, as well as a couple of the 2L soured bottles to get the souring bugs going in the Brett only version.  After some time passes I will pull some more form the conical and add the remaining 2L bottles of soured Blonde as well as the oaked sour Blonde to the mix.  Come the end of summer, I will have 2 gallons of Blonde Ale on Brett, and about 8 gallons of soured, oaked, wild Blonde which I will split 3 gallons onto cherries, 3 gallons onto apricots, and keep 2 gallons straight giving me a total of about 10+ gallons.  We will see how time plays this one out. 

The Becca: Imperial Chocolate Stout w/ Cherries & Chipotle

The Becca: Smokin' Hot Mother of A Stout.  I got the idea to brew a beer to name after my wife, a complex, deep, rich beer to ponder, as the back of the label reads:

Gaze upon her beauty ever so longingly, be captivated by her sparkle, stand in awe of her mystery.  You would not think that she had the fortitude to withstand the years, yet with a strength that causes many to wonder at her power.  So dark that you would think her bracing, and with a gracious smoothness that drives one to ponder her infinite depths, the complexity and richness of who she is --- truly a sweet heart.

Great Western Pale Malt, Crisp Pale Chocolate, Black Patent, C75, Carafa III, C136/165, Cherry Wood Smoke Malt, Zeus hops, Chipotle pepper, 3.75# Sweet Cherries, 61 IBUs, 10.6% ABV.

Appearance:  Pours like oil, jet black, 1 finger dense brownish tan head that fades slow to a thick cap, leaving behind spotty lacing and nice legs.  The head has a slight rose-ish tint to it on the edges from the cherries.

Aroma:  Smells of dark chocolate, espresso, cherry, big sweet caramel, plums, burnt raisins, toast, deep dark fruits, baking cocoa, hints of smoke and spices, touch of alcohol as it warms.

Taste:  Flavors pop with chocolate cake, cherries, plums, burnt toast, slightly spicy, hint of smoke, bready, touch of coffee beans, big caramel presence.  Drinks like a black barley wine with hints of cocoa and smoke, roast is light and could stand to show more presence.

Mouthfeel:  A warming finish but not boozy, big, chewy, sweet yet semi dry finish, slick, light carbonation, coats the tongue and throat and leaves them covered.  Bitterness is in the background and balances the beer to keep it from being cloying, but doesn’t assault you.

Overall:  Very impressive Imperial Stout, and way too drinkable for 10.6% at only 4 months.  Deep, black, thick, sweet yet not cloying, mild roastiness, big fruits, chocolate.  The spiciness and smokiness of the Chipotle are hinting at their presence, as is the Carafa III bringing in a touch of coffee.  The cherry lets you know that it is there, but you wonder if it is malt & yeast or fruit.  It could stand to be a little more bitter to help balance it out, and a touch of roast barley or more black malt for a little more roast character and to help dry the finish out and leave you wanting more.  Looking forward to how this beer ages (especially since it had the last pitch of the dreaded infected batches).

And as an added bonus, it makes a killer addition to chocolate cake!

Review: AmillenniALE Gone Wild

Batch #3... So many firsts. My first recipe. My first partial mash. My first starter. My first Belgian. My first Wild hair... at bottling, after adding the priming sugar, I thought, this would be awesome with Brett. I diverted a gallon to a glass jug I had and hit it with the dregs of Reinaert Flemish Wild Ale and Matilda along with some DME. The beer had finsihed at 1.021. I also added some American Oak, medium toast. After about 7 months, I didn't notice much Brett funk, and a lot of oak, so I moved it to a new jug, hit it with a starter of the dregs of Russian River Consecration and went sour and wild with it. After another 5 months, it was nice and sour, oaky, finished at 1.002 and was highly oxidized, but I bottled it anyways, and boy am I glad I did. Sucks that I only got a 12 pack of it though.

Look: This beer pours a super clear amber with a very thin beige bubbly head that fades quick and leaves thin lacing and legs.

Aroma: Smells of cherry pie and barnyard funk, lots of Brett in the nose, with red wine, oak, light vinegar twang, wet cardboard from the oxidation, black pepper and clove spiciness.

Taste: Sour hits the palate first, lactic, and a sharp acetic vinegar, followed by oak and an alcohol that is smooth yet vacates your sinus cavity on the exhale. Spiciness comes next, with fruits, cherries, and Brett funk, oxidized, and a spicy finish.

Mouthfeel: The beer is light and thin, carbonation is lacking, bone dry finish and very tart, but not puckering, astringent and tannic from the oak in a nice way, as it warms it leaves an astringent bitterness in the finish.

Overall: Very nice sour. Very glad at how this extract/first partial mash, first recipe, shoot-from-the-hip, last minute, single gallon, evolving-experiment turned out. The sourness is clean and sharp, a nice blend of lactic and acetic acids, not too overdone, but nicely sour. The dry finish, tannins, and sourness with the low IBUs works well here, and creates a great finish. The Brett is very complex and enjoyable, and the spicy alcohol is subtle for being about 9% with no residual sugar to balance it. Definitely needs more carbonation to help with the thin body and to help all the flavors and aromas pop as well as to help cleanse the palate after each sip. Oxidation is to be expected and considering the high amount of it at bottling, I'm surprised (and excited) at how restrained it is now.

Yogurt... In My Beer?

So much cleaning, so much sanitizing, so much stressing about whether I would ever be able to brew a clean beer again, and then the inevitable happens... another infected batch. I had stripped apart my conical, soaked it in PBW and hot water for over a day, and then left it in bleach for nearly a week. After brewing up 8 gallons of Blonde Ale to split between the conical and my Better Bottle (that had housed the infection as well) as a test to see if I had rid myself of it, I let them both ferment for a week. I pulled samples of both of them to taste, smell, and check the gravity. What I found from that conical was so much different than the Better Bottle. Dull, lifeless, dirty fruit, watery, and 3 points lower, diagnosis: INFECTED! With that, I resigned my efforts to salvage the fermenter, after all I had done, it was to no avail, and thus, a new fermenter for brewing up sours was born. And with all my renewed passions towards sours, it happened at just the right time. I was already planning on souring half the batch anyways, this just made it easier.

I pulled a gallon of the beer from the ball valve that went straight into a glass jug that had housed my Brett starter before it went into the leftover wort from this brew session, and had yet to be cleaned. Given a few months, the Brett should build up a nice pellicle and funk it up quite a bit. In the conical, I added a 1/4 cup of a starter I had built up from the dregs of Russian River's Consecration last summer, as well as a 1/4 cup of the Lambic I brewed last September using yeast I cultured from blackberries growing wild in my neighbor's backyard. I tossed in about 8 cubes of French Oak that were previously used by a winery in Lodi, CA to revive an old barrel as well. I also have a starter from RR Supplication that I won't be adding, at least not right now, because there is a lot of head space in that vessel right now and that culture has some definite acetobacter from when I used it in a bucket on another brew.

Just for the fun of it, I also made a 1L starter with 750ml water and 250ml Apple Juice, and 100g DME, that I cooled to 115*F, and pitched in 1/3 a serving Zoe Non-Fat Plain Greek Yogurt, which I inserted my temp control probe into and set it to 115*F wrapped in the heating blanket I received from a friend. 3 days later, the temp is constant at about 39*C (~100*F). When I poured a sample it fizzed like Alkaseltzer, which is good, that means carbonation, which means that something is going on. A sniff gives hints of yogurt, clean, nothing off in the aroma. A taste gives off sour apples, and a light yogurt twang. I effectively cultured Lacto from Greek Yogurt! After a few more days, I added 3/4 gallons of water mixed with 1.25# Clover Honey to bring it up to 4L, and give it a week or so at 100*F. Once this gallon of Lacto fermented Mead is ready to go, I will add it to the main Blonde Ale in the conical, along with another 1.25# of Clover Honey in a gallon of water, and let her ride for a good 6-8 months. Then I will add back in the gallon of Brett only portion, and hit it with 2-3# of fresh Apricots this Summer. This will bring the total volume of beer up to 6 gallons, with a new OG of 1.041 (1.037 prior to honey), and a FG of near 1.002 (or less) for a 5% ABV oak aged, wild Honey Blonde Ale.

Here's to innovation and infections!