Chitty Bang Bang - Oud Bruin

I needed to use up my Wyeast PC Oud Bruin blend so today I brewed up an Oud Bruin-ish beer. I like my Oud Bruins a bit more tart than the classic style guidelines. This style should be tart but not as much as a Flanders Red and they should have a fairly substantial malty backbone. This particular blend is supposed to allow the malt character to shine in the finished beer so I'm anxious to taste the results. As usual, I'm using aged hops in this beer. The recipe as I brewed it:

3 lbs 8.0 oz Crisp Maris Otter
3 lbs 8.0 oz Pilsner Malt
2 lbs 8.0 oz Munich Dark
1 lbs 8.0 oz Chit Malt
10.0 oz Aromatic Malt
8.0 oz Pale Wheat
8.0 oz Special B
1.0 oz Midnight Wheat
1.0 oz Debittered Aged Hops (60.0 min)
PC Oud Bruin Blend (Wyeast #3209)
Yeast Nutrient
Whirlfloc

Mash at 156F for 50 min, 90 minute boil, ferment at 80F.

Brewing Notes
No issues. Hit target O.G. of 1.074 spot on. I whirlpooled down to 80F then transferred to a Better Bottle and pitched the blend. No aeration on this one.

Update 1/7/2015
I pulled a sample of this today. There's something a little off in this one. I'm going to rack it to secondary this weekend to get it off the yeast cake and give it some time to age a bit.

Update 1/20/2015

I racked this onto the yeast cake of the 2013 Oud Bruin Experiment over the past weekend. When I tasted it back on the 7th, it seemed like there was some autolysis issues in the beer. I'm hoping the brett in the yeast cake will clean things up a bit. I'll give this beer a few months before I try it again. 

Update 1/26/2014

There's definitely some activity in this beer. A bit of a krausen has formed and I'm getting a "glug" in the airlock every few minutes.

Update 4/7/2015

Pulled a sample tonight. I'm glad to say the hints of burnt rubber band (autolysis notes) are totally gone and it has a nice sourness level. The sourness level is towards the high end for the style...probably more along the lines of a Flanders Red than an Oud Bruin. ThIs is likely due to the additional cultures that were added via the 2013 Oud Bruin yeast cake causing it to dry out a bit more than the 3209 would have done on its own. I'm just glad this beer has been salvaged because it was a borderline dumper when I racked it.

Update 6/2/2015
I pulled a sample last night and I'm really liking this beer. The sourness is noticeable, but it's not too crazy. It has a lot of dark fruit character and really seems ready to drink right now. I may go ahead and package this beer in a couple weeks.

Update 6/28/2015
I went ahead and bottled this one yesterday.

Update 8/9/2015
The Beehive Brew-Off wrapped up today. This beer took bronze. I decided to enter it in 28B Mixed Fermentation Sour Beer as an American Sour Brown. Based on my experience, I knew judges wouldn't accept this as an Oud Bruin (too sour). I'm glad there's finally an American Sour category that is more tolerant of some of the more sour beers.

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Sour Rye

I recently brewed a Russian River Consecration clone as part of a club barrel project. Our club voted on a few different styles and the Consecration clone won out. We're only a couple weeks away from racking this beer into the barrel on a whole bunch of zante currants...which also means we're two weeks away from kegging our Tart of Darkness clone! But I digress.

One of the other styles that was in the running was a sour rye beer. I thought this sounded really interesting and I had some Wyeast sour blends on hand, so I decided to try my hand at a sour rye beer. I guess you could say Sour in the Rye from The Bruery is the inspiration for this beer, but this really isn't intended to be a clone attempt.

Like wheat, rye malt is huskless and has a reputation causing stuck mashes when used in large proportions, so I'd strongly advise, don't skip the rice hulls. I'm also using the chit malt again (as in Super Juice Solution). Here's the recipe as I made it today:

4.0 # Muntons Pearl Malt
4.0 # Weyermann Rye Malt
1.25 # Best Malz Chit Malt
0.5 # Weyermann Vienna
6.0 oz Weyermann Dark Munich
3.0 oz Briess Black Patent
1.0 # Rice Hulls
28g Aged hops (60 min)
Wyeast Yeast Nutrient
0.5 Whirlfloc
Wyeast 3203 De Bom Sour Blend

Mash at 150F for 45 minutes. 90 minute boil. Ferment at 80F then ramp up to 85F over a few days.

Do not aerate before pitching sour blend. Wyeast does recommend measured aeration after reaching about 80% of expected attenuation.

Brewing Notes:
No issues to speak of. I hit the target gravity of 1.057 spot on. Currently sitting at a cozy 80F in the fermenter.

Update 1/7/2015
Pulled a sample today. Aroma was very acidic, but the flavor was mildly acidic. I'm going to rack this to secondary this weekend to get it off the yeast cake and age it a bit longer.

Update 1/21/2015

Since the sourness level is so low, I decided to rack this onto a portion of the yeast cake from Flanders Red #3. I'm hoping the additional bugs will increase the sourness level. 

Update 4/7/2015

Pulled a sample tonight and the flavor is finally catching up to the aroma. I think I might let this go another month but it's pretty drinkable as is.

Update 6/2/2015
This beer is definitely tart now. The sourness level is getting close to some,of my Flanders Reds. I think I'll be packaging this beer in a couple weeks. I really like the way it has turned out. I'm not picking out a ton of rye character (e.g. spicy), but it's a really nice beer. I have a bottle of 2015 Sour in the Rye that I'm going,to share with friends at GABF this year, so I'll bring a bottle of this along and do a side by side comparison.

Update 7/22/2015

Recently got a pH meter, so I decided to check the pH of this beer. After knocking out a bit of CO2, it's reading 2.92...that's a pretty sour beer! Embrace the Funk lists the pH of a bunch of commercial sour beers (http://embracethefunk.com/ph-readings-of-commercial-beers/). Reviewing the list, none have a pH quite this low; 3.06 for New Belgium Bottle Works 10th Anniversary is the lowest as of 7/22/2015. I'm going to start taking readings on all of my sours, so we'll see if I need to start targeting something closer to the low 3's so that people don't feel like the enamel is melting off their teeth.

Update 8/9/2015
The Beehive Brew-Off wrapped up today. This beer took silver for 34A Clone Beer. I already had an entry in 28B Mixed Fermentation, otherwise it would have gone there. I was afraid judges would shy away from the high acidity; they did comment on it but they said they enjoyed it.

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Consecration - ZZ Hops Big Bad Barrel Part 2

Today I'm brewing 10 gallons of Consecration clone for part 2 of my club's barrel project. This beer will be fermented clean then racked to the barrel on a whole bunch of zante currants.

Here's the recipe as I made it adjusted for my efficiency

19.0 # Rahr Pale Malt

0.88 # Weyermann Acid Malt

0.44 # Weyermann Carafa II
0.44 # Special B

2.0 # Corn Sugar (10 min)

2.0 # D-180 Dark Candi Syrup (Flameout)

28g  Sterling (90 min)

56g  Sterling (30 min)

56g  Styrian (1 min)

White Labs WLP530 Abbey Ale

4.0 # Zante currants in secondary

Mash at 158F, 90 minute boil

Brewing Notes
This session was a bit of a bitch. I had a brain fart and forgot to put my hops into the hop spider. This caused problems during the whirlpool because it clogged my hop/trub filter. After a couple clogs I decided to just go ahead and pump into the fermenters. At least lunch was good...enjoying some smoked candied salmon with brown rice and Parmesan asparagus for lunch during the brew session.

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Milk Stout 2014

Today I'm brewing a Milk Stout that I'm hoping will turn out close to Left Hand 's Milk Stout. 825 State Stout from Epic Brewing used to be my favorite commercial stout. Last year at GABF I got to try Left Hand's Milk Stout Nitro and Wake Up Dead Nitro (RIS). I absolutely love these beers and try to stock up on them whenever I can find them. They are so smooth and so easy drinking with just the right amount of sweetness, chocolate, and roast. 825 State Stout is still up there for me, but I love LHMS.

This recipe is based on one I found on HBT. I tried to go back and find the author to give him/her credit but for some reason I can't find it.

Edit: Found it! Thanks to ADX for sharing this recipe

One thing I'm doing today that I haven't done for a long while...I'm using dry yeast. Here's the recipe as I'm making it:

4.75# Muntons Pearl
2.25# Rarh 2 row
1.0# Briess Roasted Barley
.75# Briess Caramel 60L
.75# Briess Chocolate Malt
.75# Weyermann Munich II
0.5# Flaked Oats
0.63# Flaked Barley
10g Magnum (60 min)
28g US Goldings (10 min)
1.0# Lactose (10 min)
Safale S-05
Yeast Nutrient (5 min)

Mash at 151F for 75 minutes. 90 minute boil. Ferment at 63F then raise to 68F over several days.

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Super Juice Solution - Trinity Brewing

Not too long ago I brewed a sour IPA inspired by Red Swingline from Trinity Brewing. It turned out to be a nice beer, but it's not anywhere close to Swingline. It has some really nice hop flavor and aroma plus a mild tartness in the finish, but no question, I missed the intended target.

To my surprise, I received an email from Jason Yester, "Captain of the Pirate Ship" (that has to be the coolest job title ever), aka Trinity's head brewer. He mentioned he saw my post and said to contact him if I needed any help with the recipe. Jason is putting out some awesome beers so I would have been a fool not to accept his generous offer. We exchanged a few emails and he graciously shared his recipe and some process information for one of their newer beers, Super Juice Solution. Jason also gave me permission to post the recipe, which goes to show not only does he make great beer, he's also an incredibly cool guy. 

Super Juice Solution is similar to, but a little different than Swingline (e.g. no aging in Chardonnay barrels). It's a sour session IPA and it involves a method of souring and a malt that I've never used before.

• Kettle/Wort souring - Usually when I brew a sour beer, I'll either pitch bugs early in the primary to give them a head start on yeast (see my Berliner Weiss posts) or I'll pitch a blend like Roeselare and try to be patient for up to a year while the souring microbes do their thing. This time I'll be kettle souring before the boil with lactobacillus then boiling, and finally fermenting with brett brux. After the mash, I'll collect 6.75 gallons of wort and take it up to a quick boil to kill off any unknowns before I pitch the lacto.  Next, I'll chill to around 114F then hold it at 114.5F for 22-23 hours until the pH drops to around 3.2-3.4. After that, I'll proceed with the boil. In order to maintain the temp during the souring process, I ordered a 60 watt car battery heater/warmer. This is controlled by my BCS-460. It probably wouldn't work that well in the garage in the middle of winter, but my garage is pretty warm in the summer so it's having no trouble maintaining the temp.

• Chit malt - I've never used this malt before and it was a bit challenging to find a source. Fortunately the guys at Salt City Brew Supply managed to track some down for me. It's basically a very undermodified malt somewhere between raw barley and more common well-modified base malts. I asked Jason if I could use any undermodified malt in this recipe (e.g. Briess' Under-modified Pilsner Malt) and he said no, Chit malt is essential and the key to sour beer. This malt is also commonly used in decoction mashes for German lagers (e.g. Rogue Farms Good Chit Pilsner).

Jason gave me the recipe based on their 12.2 barrel brew system which I scaled down for five gallons. Here's the recipe as I made it. 

5# 12oz Weyermann Pilsner Malt

1# 8.6oz Best Malz Chit Malt

12.3oz Weyermann Vienna Malt

12.3oz Weyermann Acidulated Malt

5.3oz Crisp C77

6oz Rice Hulls

WLP677 Lactobacillus Delbrueckii 

WLP650 Brettanomyces Bruxellensis

14g Summit (60 min)

5.6g Corriander (15 min)

131g Amarillo (10 min)

120g Amarillo (Dry hop @3 months)

20g Willamette (Dry hop @3 months)

10g EK Goldings (Dry hop @3 months)

Mash at 145.4 for 35 minutes. Collect 6.75 gallons and boil for 15 minutes**. Chill to 114F and pitch lactobacillus. Hold at 114F for 23 hours (pH should be down near 3.2) then boil. 90 minute boil. Ferment in the low 70's then ramp temps up into the mid 80's. Age for 3 months then dry hop. 

**Jason doesn't recommend boiling for 15 minutes. Something got into my first attempt at making this beer. I'm not sure what it was (microbes and/or yeast) but it was horrible smelling and tasting. I ended up dumping it before the boil. So just for my own piece of mind, I decided to do a short boil on the second attempt to kill off any unknowns. 

Brewing Notes

So I brewed this beer a little while ago. I was debating whether or not to post about it until I found out if I successfully made a decent sour IPA, but I figured I might as well post anyway. 

Things went well although I left it to sour a lot longer than 23 hours. I tasted the sample after 23 hours and I could detect some tartness but it was masked by residual sweetness in the wort. I tried pH test strips and they didn't measure a change, so I decided to let it go a bit longer. Well, life got in the way and before I knew it, an entire week had passed. I tasted it before boiling and there was noticeable tartness, but it still seemed to be masked. I went ahead with the boil thinking that once the brett ferments out the sugars, the sourness should come out. Time will tell if that theory is correct.

P.S. Even if I manage to screw up this beer, buy a couple bottles of anything you can find from Trinity. You won't be disappointed.  

Update 11/30/2014

Dry Hops were added today!

Update 12/27/2014
This turned out to be a nice beer but the tartness level is pretty low. There's some tartness in the finish, but it's much lower than I expected, especially considering the lactobacillus had a whole week to sour. I must be doing something wrong during the souring phase. I'll have to revisit this recipe in the future.

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