Flanders Red Brewday

Collecting Wort

This will be my first sour beer done with souring in the fermentation rather than through sour-mashing. Though it will take at least a year to be ready, I hope the results will be worth it since beers in this style tend to be very interesting taste wise and, if bought commercially, expensive.

I will be doing a 2-week primary fermentation in a plastic bucket. The beer will then age on oak cubes in a 3-gallon glass carboy in the basement, where the ambient temps range from 72F in the summer to I'm guessing 60F in the winter. If things get too cold down there I can always move the bottle to another area of the house since they do not tend to keep it too warm in the winter.

I am not necessarily looking for an extremely assertive vinegar taste in this beer. I have had one example of the style that tasted like apple cider vinegar, but I don't want this beer to end up that way. Brewing Classic Styles recommends an oak peg be stuck in the opening of the carboy to allow in some oxygen for the Acetobacter to chew on. This should allow just the right amount of acetic acid formation. However I don't have any oak pegs lying around, nor do I know where to get one, so perhaps I can just unseal the carboy for a minute at the 6 month mark to let in some oxygen.

Pre-boil OG.

Red In the Face
Size: 3 gallons
2# 10oz Belgian Pilsner
2# 10oz Weyerman Vienna
8oz Munich
4oz Belgian Aromatic
4oz Weyerman Wheat Malt
4oz Caramunich Malt 60L
4oz Special B Malt
-------------------
6# 12oz

0.5oz Kent Goldings, 4.5% AA, 60 mins

Wyeast 3763 Roselare Blend

0.75oz Medium Toast Oak Cubes, steamed and added to secondary


Anticipated OG / FG: 1.053 / 1.013
Anticipated IBUs: 14
  

9/17/12
Mashed at 152F with 2.11gal water for 60minutes. Mash-out water of 1 gallon at boiling to bring mash-out to 165F, held for 10minutes and collected first runnings. Sparged with 2.1 gallons at 168F, held for 10 minutes and collected second runnings.

2.15gal first runnings, on target. Second runnings were about the 2.1 gal for a total pre-boil volume of 4.25, again right on target. Yay!

Pre-boil OG was  1.041, at 4.25gal, for about 70% efficiency. If I boil it to 3.25gallons, then the beer will have an OG of 1.054, again pretty much right where I wanted it. I seem to be hitting my numbers better. That's really good news.

Started heating wort at 12:09pm. Boil began at 12:40pm. The plan is to boil 90 minutes to drive away any DMS.

Boiling before hop addition.

Added 1/2 oz East Kent Golding hops after 30 minutes of boiling. Added 1/2 tsp Irish moss for the last 15mins of the boil. 

Stopped boil at 2:10, cooled to 110F, then placed the brew pot in a bin of 68F water for the beer to fully cool to pitching temps. That was around 2:40pm. Looks like a little over 3 gallons are in the pot.

10:15pm. Aerated and transferred to a plastic bucket, which was placed in 60F water. Pitched yeast after "activating" the smack pack. It was only moderately swollen and seemed to have two inner packs, both of which were smacked. I've never used one of these things before. 

9/18/12
Signs of activity in the airlock by 10:45am. Bucket was sitting in a tub of 65F water. By later in the day the activity had picked up a little.

9/19/12
11:00am - Airlock was bubbling very actively as the fermenting bucket sat in 67F water.  Added some ice to keep the fermentation temps down.

9/21/12
10am - The airlock is still bubbling about once every 10 seconds. The fermenting bucket is now sitting in 68F ambient air temps.

Beer with Star-San bubbles.

9/30/12
Transferred to a 3-gallon glass carboy and added 5/8 oz medium toast Hungarian oak cubes. The volume of beer was just over 3 gallons. Placed the carboy in the 66F basement and covered with an old bed-sheet to protect the aging beer from light. Now for the long, long wait as the beer sours and picks up some oak character over the course of a year or more. Will plan on posting occasional updates when the beer develops a pellicle, etc.
  

10/6/12

It appears that a pellicle is starting to form in a few spots on the surface of the beer. It looks like the mold that grows on bread, but I'm pretty sure its just the brett doing its thing.

A pellicle starts to form.

9/12/13
I took off the little white cap for a few minutes, twice over the course of the previous 6 months or so, in order to let in more oxygen. There didn't seem to be much of a pellicle forming, which indicated a lack of oxygen. After letting some air in, the pellicle below formed and has slowly changed during the course of fermentation. No sign of it sinking down, so the beer is not yet done. I may need to wait 18 months before bottling.



1/8/13
Finally bottled today. There was still a pellicle on top, but I've read it's OK to bottle sours even when that's the case. Used 2.5oz sugar, going for around 2.4 volumes of CO2. I added some EC-1118 yeast after re-hydrating as per the instructions on the package, and made sure to stir it into the beer adequately. I got 30 x 12oz bottles.

The beer was quite clear, with a brownish (not red) color, and a very nice cherry-apple-bretty aroma. I had enough for a hydro sample, which read 1.080. So pretty dry, and right in the range where bottle conditioning should begin. The taste of the sample was OK, but not as sour as I might want.

Placed the bottles in a 60F ambient area - a temp the wine yeast are comfortable with. I plan to wait another month or so before cracking the first bottle, though of course it would be best to wait for at least another few months before the beer really comes into its best possible flavor.