Flanders Red

I'm a huge fan of sour beers. The funny thing about sour beers is people seem to either love them or hate them...there really isn't a whole lot of middle ground with them. One bad thing about living in Utah is the selection of commercial sours is pretty limited. The first sour I ever had was a Lindemans Framboise lambic at The Bayou in Salt Lake City. Admittedly, when I tried it years ago, I was still a bit of a beer noob but it was unlike any beer I'd ever tasted. It's still my number one recommendation for people that claim they don't like beer. Next came Lindemans Gueuze Cuvée René, which I think I prefer over the Framboise because it isn't quite as sweet. Next came a Monk's Café Flemish Sour Ale on a GABF trip followed by Temptation, Supplication and Beautification from Russian River Brewing. Long story short, I love the sours.

I'd been planning on brewing a sour for a long time, but never got around to it. The tough thing about sours is it takes a long time to develop the complex wine-like flavors they're known for. With most homebrews, you're able to enjoy the fruits of your labors within 3-5 weeks of brewing them. For brews like a Flanders Red, you're probably looking at about a year before it's ready to bottle. The longer you put off brewing a sour, the longer it will be before you get to enjoy them. So I bit the bullet and bought a Better Bottle that I'm dedicating for sour beers and I brewed my Flanders Red back on 10/29/2011. As the name implies, this style of beer originates in the Flanders region of Belgium. For more info on this style, click here. Here's the recipe as I made it:

5.25 # Dingemans Pilsner Malt
5.25 # Briess Vienna Malt
1.00 # Briess Light Munich Malt
0.5 # Weyermann Pale Wheat Malt
0.5 # Dingemans Aromatic Malt
0.5 # Weyermann CaraMunich II
0.5 # Dingemans Special B
0.8 oz Aged hops** (60 minutes)
1.0 oz Oak cubes (French Medium Roast) soaked in a couple ounces of Cabernet Sauvignon
Wyeast 3763 Roesalare Blend (no starter)

Mashed at 154F for 90 minutes. 90 minute boil.

** The aged hops are my homegrown hops from the 2009 harvest. This was when my hops were in their temporary locations, so it's a mix of varieties resulting from intertwined bines. For sour beers you don't really want any hop flavor or aroma; that's where aging comes in. I aged these hops by placing them in brown paper bags above my kegerator. The changing temperatures over the years has completely stripped them of any hop aroma.

Brewing Notes: The brew day was uneventful with no issues. Time will tell how well this thing turns out.

Fermentation Notes: Given the long duration for fermentation/aging, I'm fermenting this one in my basement utility room. Fermentation was very active the following morning and pushed up through the airlock. I ended up removing the bung for a couple days until fermentation had subsided.


11/18/2011 - Fermentation picked up and pushed through the airlock again but subsided within a day.

11/24/2011 - I opened a Temptation from Russian River for T-giving and pitched the dregs. Things are definitely smelling funky in there.

12/4/2011 - Added oak cubes soaked in Cabernet Sauvignon.

12/31/2011 - The airlock is showing a little bit of positive pressure, so it seems to still be chugging along slowly. I haven't tasted it yet and I don't see any point in taking a sample for probably another month. There's a lot of krausen residue in the fermenter that's obscuring my view. I can see a what looks like krausen on top when I remove the bung and peek through the opening. I'm not sure if this is a pellicle or not. I wasn't planning on racking to secondary but I may end up doing so just so I can see what's going on inside.

2/11/2012 - Added dregs from a Russian River Supplication

3/30/2012 - I couldn't wait any longer so pulled my first sample. As I pulled the sample, I was a little nervous, crossing my fingers that this beer is headed in the right direction. I smelled it and it definitely has a funky sour aroma. Taste-wise, there's a really nice tartness developing. I was a little surprised that it had such a great sour flavor already. I think it's mostly lacto at this point because I'm not picking up any vinegar-like flavors or aromas associated with acetobacter. It's very drinkable right now but I'm going to continue to let it age. I'll probably pull a sample on a monthly basis from now on so that I can see how it changes as it ages.

5/4/2012 - Pulled another sample and it's got a nice sharp sourness with some great complexity from the brett and bugs. Again, I'm surprised it tastes this good already. I'm still not detecting any acetic acid character. Acetic acid production is accelerated in the presence of oxygen and suppressed when oxygen levels are low. Plastic buckets tend to have relatively high oxygen permeability compared to other fermentation vessels. I'm aging this in a Better Bottle and the manufacturer claims very low oxygen permeability even though it's made out of "plastic" and so far it seems to be working great.

9/22/2012 - I don't mean to brag, but this is an amazing sour. This one is turning out pretty much exactly how I hoped it would. It definitely has sharp sourness similar to some of the beers from Russian River Brewing Company. I think this one is going to be ready to bottle next month. Don't get me wrong, I'd drink it right now, but I'm going to try to be patient for another four weeks.

10/9/2012 - With the one year mark quickly approaching, I'm about ready to bottle this brew. I'll be checking the gravity again soon and if it's stable, it'll be in the bottle soon. It's going to need to be re-yeasted in order to carb successfully, so the plan is to use 1.5 grams of Enoferm RP15 Rockpile wine yeast per five gallons of beer. The reason I'm using a wine yeast is they tend to be more tolerant of the acids found in sour beers. About half the batch will be capped and the other half will be corked.

10/31/2012 - I ordered the Rockpile yeast for re-yeasting from More Wine and it should be here today. Looking forward to getting this in the bottle this weekend.

11/3/2012 - This went in the bottle today. I used 84 grams of sucrose and a somewhat heaping 1/4 teaspoon of Enoferm RP15 Rockpile wine yeast. I try to avoid measuring by volume but this is about what I usually use for priming homemade soda and that's worked out well. I re-hydrated the wine yeast in boiled water that had been cooled to 72F. I corked and caged 20 Belgian bottles. The rest went into a 12 or 22 oz bottles and were capped. I had a little bit leftover that I sampled. It's very nicely tart, so much so that I don't expect anyone that isn't "into" sour beers to like it much. The level of sourness is very similar to how I remember Russian River's Supplication. I've got a holiday beer tasting coming up in just over a month and I'm hoping it will be carbonated by then. However, I've never re-yeasted a beer and I've never used wine yeast so I'm going to cross my fingers and hope for the best.

1/11/2013 - I'm really happy with the way this beer turned out. The carbonation level was a little lower than I wanted, but other than that I had no complaints. I think the amount of yeast was appropriate, but it needed a bit more priming sugar. I took some to the Holiday Beer Tasting mentioned above. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it (there were several "wow's")...or at least nobody wanted to hurt my feelings. Like most good beers it gets better and better as it warms up a bit. When it's fresh out of the fridge it's mostly sour/tart but as it warms up the complexities start coming out.

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Special Bitter

Recirculating the mash

I've been doing a lot of higher gravity brews lately so today I'm brewing up something closer to a session beer, an English Special Bitter.  I brewed an Ordinary Bitter earlier this year and it was one of my favorite brews.  High gravity brews are fun, but at the same time it's nice to be able to have something on hand where you can drink more than one without getting trashed.  Here's the recipe as I made it:

9.5 # Crisp Maris Otter Pale

0.5 # Castle Aromatic

0.5 # Briess Crystal 120

0.25 # Briess Special Roast

1.2 oz Kent Goldings 60 minutes

0.5 oz Kent Goldings 20 minutes

0.5 oz Kent Goldings 1 minute

Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale (limited release Wyeast Private Collection)

Mash at 151F for 60 minutes.

Ferment at 68F.  This will be the first time using my new fermentation chamber.

Brewing Notes: I've been having a problem with over sparging on the last few brews resulting in an over-filled boil kettle and an over-filled fermenter.  This sometimes results in messy fermentations because with active ferms, the krausen pushes through the airlock.

To remedy this, I made a dipstick out of a BBQ skewer so that I can measure volumes at 5, 6, and 7 gallons in the boil kettle.  For most brews with a 60 minute boil, I'll run off 6 gallons to the boil kettle.  This should result in five gallons of finished product in the keg.

The target OG for this recipe was 11.7P based on approx 70% efficiency.  My pre-boil gravity was 13.2P and post-boil was 16.1P.  13.2P is a SG of around 1.053.  I plugged 1.053 into  Brewer's Friend Brewhouse Efficiency Calculator and it's showing a Brew House Efficiency of 78.86%.  I was expecting something in the 75%-80% range, so it's good to know I'm in the neighborhood.  I used the BrewHeads calculator as well and got 78.6% using theirs.  I plan to check this on the next few brews and see if I'm consistently getting this efficiency.

Update 12/29/2011 - Even though I was very careful with my volume, I still had some krausen push up through the airlock.  Fortunately I caught it in time and it didn't make much of a mess.  Since it's in my ferm chamber and since I'd previously washed the chamber down with a disinfecting bleach solution, I decided to just pull the bung out of the lid and let it ferment away without an airlock.

Speaking of fermentation chamber, it's working great. My plate chiller got the wort down to about 62F so I let everything stabilize and warm up a little bit before I pitched the yeast.  I didn't time it, but I'd guesstimate it was about an hour after I'd transferred to the fermenter before I pitched the yeast.  I'm fermenting at 68F and pitched the yeast when it got up to 67F.  I checked everything last night and there is still a very dense head of krausen on top.

Another observation, in theory the CO2 generated during fermentation should displace at least some of the air in the ferm chamber.  This definitely seemed to be the case because when I reached in to wipe up the little bit of yeast that had pushed up through the airlock, I took a breath in but didn't feel like I really got much O2.  I'd liken it to trying to catch your breath at a higher altitude than you're used to.  I don't think there's high enough concentrations to cause someone to lose consciousness, but it would be interesting to try to get a reading of the concentration.  And if there was a practical way to reclaim it, that would be kind of cool

Update 3/30/2012 - This is a great easy drinking beer.  This is definitely one I'll be making again.

Not the best pic (cell phone) but you can see the cone of hops and hot break material as I'm running off to the fermenter.

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Fermentation Chamber

Update 5/29/2013: Unfortunately the chest freezer died. I'll soon be working on another one that will hopefully last a little longer. RIP Ferm Chamber 1.0

Here's my newest piece of equipment.  It's a chest freezer that I've modified to use as a fermentation chamber.  A while back, I realized fermentation temperature control was one area I was really lacking.  My HERMS brewing system provides for very accurate and repeatable mash temps.  Fermentation temp control is just as important as accurate mash temps when it comes to consistent repeatable results.  I have lagering ability but I've been lacking heating ability.

There are commercial heating solutions on the market such as the Brew Belt and the FermWrap heater.  My understanding is they work very well, but the only problem is I have a mix of fermentation vessels (conical, glass carboy, bucket, Better Bottle) and none of the commercial products seemed to work for all fermenters.  Considering  my needs, a fermentation chamber seemed to be the best option.

I found a used Haier 7 cubic foot freezer on KSL classifieds for $50.  Seemed like a bargain since it has built-in cooling capability and it is well insulated.  For heating capability, I went with the Brewer's Edge space heater from Williams Brewing.  This is essentially a heating pad/mat that sticks to the side of your fermentation chamber.  It takes up zero space inside the chamber and it's only 25 watts so it should cost next to nothing to run.  It's advertised that it can keep a small space up to 20 F warmer than ambient air temps.  I tested it with a five gallon bucket of water and it actually exceeded the advertised capability; it held 70F in an unheated garage with overnight lows in the high teens and low 20's.  I may pick up a second one as extra insurance against very cold nights.

To control the heating and cooling cycles, I built a controller based on the eBay aquarium temperature controller.  Its functionality is well documented on HBT, so I won't go into too much detail here.  These work great and it's the cheapest dual stage controller I've come across.  The only con is for us in the US, these only display the temp in Celsius  This can be easily remedied by making a chart to convert between Celsius and Fahrenheit.  For anyone interested in building one, here's the link to the thread on homebrewtalk.

I needed a little extra height inside the chamber to accommodate my conical fermenter so I built a collar similar to what you'd typically see on a keezer project.  I decided to use a PVC fence rail for this because PVC is a good thermal insulator and I shouldn't have to worry about rot, painting, warping, etc.  I used some PVC angle to reinforce the corners.  I also made some some simple wooden L-brackets to fit inside the rail to further reinforce the corners and provide a secure mount for the relocated hinges.  For adhesive, I went with Plumbing Goop Contact Adhesive & Sealant.  I was hoping to find something that would essentially weld the joints and form a strong permanent bond.  I couldn't find anything like that but this Goop product seemed to work fairly well.

I mounted the collar using double-sided tape and caulked all the joints/seams.  I also caulked the corners of the freezer interior.  I did this for sanitary reasons just in case I ever have a messy fermentation (I don't want anything funky growing in the corners).  The collar was then insulated with two layers of 1" rigid foam insulation.  I also used some aluminum foil tape to help seal joints/crevices in the foam.

Lastly, I welded a dolly for the fermentation chamber so I can easily move it around the garage.  To minimize lifting, my plan is to clean and sanitize the fermenter, put it in the chamber, then pump cooled wort directly from the boil kettle into the fermenter.

I haven't added it yet, but my plan is to add a fan and some ducting that will constantly circulate air in the chamber.  This will help ensure consistent temps without stratification.  I haven't had a chance to ferment in it yet, but it seems to be working very well.  After finishing it up, I've been testing it with a 5 gallon keg filled with water with the temperature probe taped to the side and insulated with a piece of foam.

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Jack's Punkin' Ale 2011

I brewed my pumpkin-inspired ale today.  There seems to be two schools of thought on pumpkin beers, and that is to use or not to use real pumpkin in the mash.  I've read a bit about it and also listened to a few podcasts on the subject, and from what I'm seeing/hearing you don't get much, if any, benefit from using real pumpkin in the brew.  To the contrary, it seems that it can make a bit of a mess, so it can make clean-up more of a chore.  So as you can probably tell, I lean towards not adding pumpkin.  The pumpkin character that I'm after actually comes from spices typically found in pumpkin pie recipes.

I never got around to making this recipe in 2010, but I made it back in 2009. It's based on an extract recipe I found on BasicBrewing.com...I'd give more credit if I could, but they're redesigning their site and the recipe database is currently unavailable.  I converted the recipe to all-grain, but I can't remember if I used a program to convert it, or if I approximated based on other all-grain recipes.  Anyway, I was hoping to get started on this beer a little earlier so that it was ready by Halloween but it'll still be ready for the holidays.  

The last time I made this beer I noted I thought it could use a bit more cinnamon, so I've increased the amount slightly.  Also, I've upped the grain bill a bit so this year's version will be a bit higher gravity.

13 lbs Crisp Pale Ale malt

1 lbs Crisp Crystal 45L

1 lbs Weyermann Cara Munich I

1/2 lbs Weyermann Cara Red

1 oz Hallertau 60 min

0.5 oz Cascade 5 min

1 t Allspice, ground 15 min

1 t Apple Pie Spice 15 min

1 t Cloves, ground 15 min

1 T Nutmeg, ground 15 min

5 Cinnamon sticks 15 min

Wyeast 2565 Kolsch Yeast

1-2 Cinnamon sticks in the secondary after primary is complete

Mashed at 152 for 60 min

Mash-out at 168 for 10 min

Pre-Boil Brix = 16.2

Post-Boil Brix = 18.4

I was a little worried that I didn't get my yeast starter going early enough.  I started it around 3pm on 10/15 and pitched around 1:30pm on 10/16.  Seeing signs of active fermentation as of 6pm 10/15, so I think I'm good.

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Finished Brew Stand!

I finally finished my brewstand so I thought I'd add this post to summarize the build and also to update the previous posts that describe my overall system.  I've brewed one batch so far, a clone of Dogfish Head's Indian Brown Ale.  I'm very happy with the way everything turned out.  The only problem, if you can call it that, is the burner was a lot more powerful than my old propane one and I had a couple of minor boil-overs on the maiden voyage.

The only thing I can think of that I would do differently if I were to start over again is I'd probably position the casters a bit wider for added stability and I'd probably use swivel casters on all four corners so that the stand is more maneuverable.

Just a couple of disclaimers, I'm brand new to welding so I doubt that my welds would pass x-ray tests.  Some of my welds are a bit ugly...as luck would have it, it seems like the ugliest tend to be in highly visible areas.  Regardless, they seem to be plenty strong and the stand seems very sturdy.  My stand is a gas/electric hybrid and there are dangers involved in working with each.  Do not attempt something like this without doing some research and make sure you fully understand the risks involved.

This version is essentially version 4.0 of my brewery.  1.0 was my extract setup, 2.0 was my gravity fed all-grain system, 3.0 was the initial incarnation of the BCS-controlled HERMS, and 4.0 with the custom stand and integrated burner is the current version.

Below are some pics of the finished product.  The shelves are all diamond plate aluminum.  The black portion of the stand is painted with Rust-Oleum® High Heat spray paint and the silver portion is painted with Rust-Oleum® Hammered spray paint.  Primary features of my custom stand include:

• BCS-460-Controlled HERMS
• Control Panel
• March 809 Pump
• 40 Plate Counter Flow Plate Chiller
• Natural Gas Burner
• Dual Carbon Water Filters

Brewstand Done!

BCS-460-controlled HERMS
My brew stand is an electric HERMS (Heat Exchanged Recirculating Infusion Mash System) with a natural gas burner for the boil kettle.  The electric portion is controlled by a BCS-460 from Embedded Control Concepts.  Mine isn't quite as fancy as some BCS-based systems out there.  A lot of them are fully automated but mine is targeted more for just controlling the mash process.  I currently use two temp probes to control two 1500 watt 110 volt heating elements.  One element is used in the Hot Liquor Tank (HLT) and one is used in a standalone Heat Exchanger (HEX).  A lot of HERMS systems use a combination HLT and HEX but a standalone HEX gives you a little more flexibility.  This is because the reaction time of my HEX is much quicker than when you're trying to heat the entire volume of a combo HLT/HEX.  The mash is circulated from Mash Tun (MT) through the HEX then returned to the MT by the pump.  The BCS-460 triggers three relays to control the elements and the pump.  The result is consistent mash temperatures that allow me to brew with repeatable results.  Long story short, it removes some potential variables.  If I make the same recipe three different times I should get nearly identical end products each time (assuming I have consistent fermentation control as well).

Control Panel
The Control Panel enclosure is a Hoffman C12C12 Consolet Steel Junction Box ordered from DougDeals.  The control panel includes three switches, (2) two-way switches (off-on) for the HEX and HLT elements and (1) three-way switch (auto-off-manual) for the pump.  I also have a momentary switch that can be used to advance to the next state on my BCS (e.g. advance from a pause for hose swaps to start mash recirculation).

The temperature probes are connected to the back of the control panel via 1/8" mono headphone jacks and plugs from Radio Shack.  The three solid state relays that control the elements and pump are mounted to a large heatsink from HeatsinkUSA and the heatsink is mounted to the back of the control panel.  The panel tags and legend plates are from Precision Engraving & Graphics (the owner's husband is also a homebrewer!).

Control Panel

Control Panel Innards

Back of Control Panel

March 809 Pump
This is your standard homebrew pump and I used it on my old setup.  On the old setup, it was mounted very low, tended to cause a lot of vibration because of poor mounting, and was difficult to lubricate.  For my stand, I fabricated a mount below the burner for the pump and it includes a 1/8" thick piece of neoprene rubber on the mounting surface.  This helps cut down on rattles and vibration.  It also includes a splash guard made from diamond plate aluminum to protect the pump motor from boil-overs and accidental spills.  The splash guard is attached with thumb screws so it can be easily removed when the motor needs lubricating.  As I mentioned above, the pump can be automatically controlled by the BCS-460 or manually controlled.

Pump and Mount

40 Plate Counter Flow Plate Chiller
This is a brand new piece of equipment.  After building a CFC out of copper tubing and not being too happy with the results, I decided to bite the bullet and order a plate chiller from Duda Diesel.  The chiller seems to work great and it's very compact compared to the DIY CFC I built.  I fabricated an L-shaped mount for it below the burner but above the pump.  It rests on a 1/8" neoprene rubber pad as well and is attached to the stand with stainless steel thumb screws so it can be easily removed for cleaning.  All connections use quick disconnects (cam locks for wort in/out and brass disconnects for the water in/out).

Counter Flow Chiller Front

CFC Back with Thumb Screws

Natural Gas Burner
The natural gas burner is a 6 inch low pressure burner from agrisupply.com.  It's intended for propane, but I converted it to NG using the natural gas conversion valve from Williams Brewing.  To do this I had to drill out the threads on the burner and tap threads for the conversion valve.  The burner is supplied by a 25' ½" hose from G4Burner.com.  The burner was rated for 70K BTU's using propane.  I'm not sure how many BTU's result from the NG conversion (NG has less potential energy than propane) and the long length of ½" hose, but it seems to do the job very well.  I reached boil about 10-15 minutes sooner than with my previous setup and now I don't have to worry about running out of fuel mid-boil.

Dual Carbon Water Filters
These are your basic water filter housings available from Lowes or Home Depot.  They're mounted on the back upper rail of the stand and feature a quick-disconnect so my water line can be easily attached.  I decided to go with dual filters to increase the contact time with the carbon and thus reduce the chance of chlorine making its way into my brewing water.

Water Filters

I just want to say thanks to everyone that posts info online in various blogs and forums for inspiring me and contributing ideas for this project.  I've always wanted to give welding a try and this was a really fun project that's going to make my homebrewing hobby so much more enjoyable.  I also want to thank my very loving and understanding wife for supporting my brewing hobby.  She says I always tell her "as soon as I have xyz on my brewing setup, I'll be done..."  I think we've both learned that there are always improvements to be made and I'm glad my honey allows me to experiment without giving me too much grief.

Another pic

Back side

Update 1/19/2014
I know the title of this post is "Finished Brew Stand!" and I posted it in October of 2011, but brewers are always looking to make minor tweaks to their setups. I've been using the trub/hop filter from BrewersHardware.com since I finished my stand. This piece of equipment is used to filter debris (mostly hop particles) so that my plate chiller doesn't clog. It works great and I've only clogged the filter once when I tried recirculating. I used a camlock to attach the filter to the in port on my plate chiller and it did fine but it always worried me because the weight of the filter was totally supported by the plate chiller. I finally decided to order a bracket for the filter and got around to mounting it this weekend. The mount for the bracket is simple, just a piece of 2x2x1/8 angle iron welded to the stand. It has a hole drilled in it for a 12mm bolt which is used to attach the bracket to the stand. It really holds the filter securely, so there's no chance of bumping the filter and accidentally damaging my plate chiller. I've added a couple pictures below.

Mount for trub filter bracket

TF bracket mounted

TF mounted in TF bracket

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