Lambic

Today I'm brewing up my first ever Lambic style beer. This is a sour style from Belgium and is the one that's responsible for getting me hooked on sour ales. I haven't made one before because Lambics take quite a while to mature...typically longer than a Flanders Red. That said, I'm so happy with the way my first Flanders Red turned out that I wanted to give this style a try. This will most likely end up a fruit lambic, but I'm not sure exactly which fruit yet...probably a kriek (cherries).

A lot of people are familiar with Lindemans line of lambics. Their fruit lambics are back-sweetened, and while I think they're really good it's not something that I intend to do. I will be using the Roeselare yeast blend instead of some of the other lambic blends. I've had great success with this blend so far and really like the flavor profile it develops.

Here's a link to the BJCP guidelines for the style.

Here's the recipe as I made it:

4.5 # Briess Pale Malt
3.0 # Weyermann Pilsener Malt
5.0 # Flaked Wheat
3.0 oz Aged Hops (90 min)
Rice Hulls (a couple handfuls)
0.5 t Wyeast Yeast Nutrient
1 Wyeast Roeselare Blend 3763 (no starter)

Dough in at 113F for 15 min. Raise temp to 122F for 15 minutes. Raise temp to 149F for 45 minutes. Raise to 158F for 30 minutes. Mash out at 169F.

90 minute boil.

As for ferm temps, it will be in the ferm chamber at 68F for a few weeks then will be moved to my utility room (around 68F seasonally) for aging. This will be fermented in a Better Bottle for the next year or so.

Brewing Notes
The original recipe called for 7.5 pounds of Pilsner malt; I thought I had enough on hand but ended up substituting 4.5 pounds of American 2 row. Other than that, everything went well. Efficiency on this batch was a hair over 85%. The starting gravity is 16.8P (1.069), very close to the Beersmith prediction of 1.068. The aged hops for this batch came from Hops Direct and are their Aged/Choice Debittered Hops which are Willamette. Here are a few pics of the brew session.

During the Mash

Notice the stainless scrubby for filtering the hops

3 ounces of aged hops

After the hop addition...looks like chile verde

Update 3/4/2013
I checked on the brew this morning before I went to work and there didn't appear to be any activity, but when I got home from work this evening there was a lot of krausen. The yeast blend was only a couple weeks old, so it was very fresh compared to the ones I used in Flanders #2 and #3.

Update 1/19/2014
I posted an update on several sours back in November, and this lambic has progressed nicely. I decided it was time to go ahead and get this on some fruit. I'm going to go ahead and split this batch with half going onto three pounds of red raspberries and the other half going onto 4.5 pounds of tart cherries. I picked up the raspberries in the frozen fruit section of the local Whole Foods. Trader Joe's or Wallyworld would have been cheaper but they only had berry blends in stock. I got the tart cherries in the frozen fruit section at Costco. I'm not sure if they always carry tart cherries but they had them at a really good price for $10/3lbs bag.

I want to get the fresh fruit character into this beer, so I'm not going to do the pasteurization method that I used for my Belgian Red. Instead I decided to sanitize the fruit with potassium metabisulfite. For both fruits, I dissolved 1/8 teaspoon of  potassium metabisulfite into about 1/4 cup water, then poured it over the fruit. I left it uncovered overnight, stirring periodically. This should kill of any wild bacteria and yeast on the fruit while ensuring I get that bright fresh fruit character.

Update 7/7/2014

I bottled the Framboise half about a week ago. I re-yeasted with Red Star Premier Cuvée to help ensure carbing/conditioning doesn't take too long. I used a fine mesh hop sack to try to filter out the raspberry leftovers but some still made it into the bottles. I was planning on entering this into a competition but now I'm not so sure. Hopefully it will settle into a nice compact sediment layer, but right now it doesn't look as good as I'd like for a competition.

Update 7/26/2015
I recently bought a pH meter for checking the pH of sours, also pH of the mash. The kriek half of this batch has been sitting in a 3 gallon keg for about a year. I was doing a bunch of bottling today, so I figured I'd check the pH. The reading came in at 3.13, a bit higher than I'd anticipated given how bracingly sour it was last year. The sourness has definitely rounded out a bunch; it's still very sour, but it's mellowed a lot. Color is also a bit of a darker red, almost burgundy compared to the pinkish red of a year ago.

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Blood Orange Hefeweizen

I picked up a copy of Extreme Brewing by Sam Calagione not too long ago. It's probably geared more towards beginning brewers since all the recipes are extract-based. However, it's filled with lots of good information for intermediate and advanced brewers too...especially when it comes to fruit and spice additions, how much to add and when.

On the extract note, my club has an extract meeting coming up soon (at least 50% of fermentables must come from extract), so I figured I'd give one of the recipes from Extreme Brewing a shot. One that jumped out at me was the Blood Orange Hefeweizen. I really like a well-made fruit beer and I also feel like I need a break from the high gravity beers I tend to brew in the winter. This brew lets me kill two birds with one stone.

It's been a long time since I brewed an extract beer and I have to say I was a bit surprised by the cost of extract. This batch (with blood oranges, yeast, hops, specialty grains, and DME) cost me around $50.  I probably could have done an all-grain version for around $30. It's still probably cheaper when you factor in the AG equipment and gadgets I've bought over the years, but I still had a bit of sticker shock. Anyway, below is how I made my version (I tweaked it a little so it's not quite the same as the original).

5.0 # Muntons Wheat DME (added at 15 min)
12.0 oz Rahr White Wheat Malt
8.0 oz Weyermann Pilsner Malt
04.0 oz Briess Crystal 10L
04.0 oz Flaked Wheat
05.0 oz Hallertau (60 min)
05.0 oz Saaz (20 min)
05.0 oz Hallertau (5 min)
05.0 oz Saaz (5 min)
8 small Blood Oranges
Whirlfloc
Wyeast Yeast Nutrient
White Labs WLP320 in a 1L starter

Specialty grains were steeped around 153F for about 45 minutes.  I didn't measure the amount of water but I'd guesstimate I had about two quarts. The tea was then added to the boil kettle along with 5 gallons of water for a total volume of about 5.5 gallons. DME was added the last 15 minutes of the boil to avoid darkening of the wort as much as possible.

The original recipe called for 4 medium oranges; my local supplier only had smaller ones so I upped the count to eight. To prepare the blood oranges, I took the zest from four along with the peeled and diced fruit from all eight and added that to 80 oz of water. This was brought to 160F then allowed to cool. The liquid and fruit were added to the fermenter while I chilled the wort. It was quite red so it'll be interesting to see the final color of this beer.

I want this to be more of an American style hefe without a lot of banana or clove character, so fermentation is starting out at 63F and I'll bump it to 65F over the first few days.

Brewing Notes
No issues with this brew. One nice thing about extract, the brew day was much shorter and there was less equipment to clean. O.G. came in a hair over 11.6 P (about 1.046). My plate chiller got the wort down to about 50F, so it's currently warming up in the ferm chamber. The oranges smelled awesome going into the fermenter; I hope this doesn't get scrubbed out too much during fermentation. I have the fruit and zest tied up in a knee-high nylon stocking...trying to avoid the messy sludge that I had with the peach/apricot wheat a little while back. This should end up being a nice refreshing and light beer as the weather begins to warm this spring.

Update 2/18/2013
This brew is still happily fermenting away.  I added 2 teaspoons of pectic enzyme today.  Normally you'd add this to prevent chill haze in fruit beers but since this is a hefe I'm expecting it to be cloudy. I'm told that it can also break down the cell walls of the fruit resulting in better flavor/color extraction from the fruit. I figured I'd give it a try and see what happens. There's still a bit of krausen in the fermenter so I'll probably let this go another week before racking to a keg.

Update 2/27/2013
This went into the keg today. It finished at 1.011 for an ABV of 4.65%, which is great for a session beer especially with warmer weather around the corner. It has some great orange aromas so I'm really looking forward to trying this when it's carb'd up.

Update 3/12/2013
I pulled a sample of this tonight. This is a really good hefe. The blood orange is noticeable, but not overpowering so you can really taste the base wheat beer behind it. Very tasty and very refreshing. It makes me want to hang out on the back patio. I'll definitely be making this again, next time as an all-grain version.

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Dark Saison 2013

I was so happy with the way my two Saisons turned out this year that I decided I'd like to brew a dark version for my first 2013 brew session. Dark Saison isn't an officially recognized BJCP style so it falls under 16E Belgian Specialty Ale. The Saison style itself is a pretty broad category with a lot of room for experimentation. That's even more so the case with Dark Saisons.

Speaking of experimentation, I've never used Midnight Wheat Malt or raisins in a recipe before so this will be fun. The midnight wheat will contribute a lot of color but is said to be similar to de-bittered malt in that it lacks the astringency associated with dark roasted malts. I was originally planning on going with a full pound of Midnight Wheat, but after talking to Cody at Salt City Brew Supply, I scaled it back to half a pound. As for the raisins, I'm using Trader Joe's Thompson Seedless Raisins. These raisins are not treated with sulfur dioxide or any other preservatives per the label. I'm hoping some of the raisin character carries through to the finished beer but that may be asking a from only 6 ounces. I may end up adding more raisins in the secondary if it seems to be lacking character. The reason I'm using raisins is I got to try a Dark Saison a couple years ago at Beachwood BBQ in Seal Beach. It was a sour saison and had been aged and/or brewed with raisins which added some really nice complexity to the beer. I don't expect to get the same level of sourness out of my beer, but I'm hoping for something that is complex and will age well.

As for the yeast, I saved the WLP644 Brettanomyces bruxellensis Trois from my Funky Saison and will be re-using it in this batch. So this will be a 100% brett fermentation as well. Since this yeast has been sitting dormant in the fridge for a while, I made a 1 liter starter.

Here's the recipe as I'm making it:

9.0 # Weyermann Pilsner Malt
2.0 # Briess Dark Wheat Malt
0.5 # Briess Midnight Wheat
0.5 # Special B
0.5 # Acidulated Malt
2.0 oz Styrian Goldings (60 min)
1.0 # Belgian Candi Sugar (10 min)
6.0 oz Raisins, pureed (10 min)
2.0 oz Saaz (5 min)
0.25 t Bitter Orange Peel (5 minutes)
Zest from a navel orange (5 minutes)
Whirlfloc
Wyeast Yeast Nutrient
White Labs WLP644 Brettanomyces bruxellensis Trois

Mash at 147F for 90 minutes. 90 minute boil. Start fermentation at 72F then raise to 85F over a few days.

Brewing Notes
Brew session went well. I got started a little later than I'd planned, so I didn't finish cleaning up until about 7pm. This was due to kegging both my Rauchbier 2012 and my Mannish Boy Bourbon Barrel Barleywine. I've said it before, but I'm really thankful I can brew in my garage rather than outside. Right now it's a nippy 4F outside. The garage was probably 40F...still chilly but a heck of a lot better than 4F.

The only problem I ran into during the brew session was a chilled the brew a little too much. I was shooting for about 70F but chilled to 60F, so it's currently in the ferm chamber warming up. One of these days I'll get around to installing a thermometer on the chiller output.

Update 1/15/2013
I checked the ferm temps when I got home from work last night and it was right at 72F. Not bad considering the high outside was only 5F. It may seem a little odd to brew a Saison in the dead of winter, but I'm hoping this will have developed some nice brett character by the time the weather starts to warm up. I pitched the yeast last night and there's now a nice layer of krausen on top. I just bumped it up a half a degree and will continue to do that morning and night over the next few days.

As I mentioned above, I wasn't sure the 6 ounces of raisins would be enough to provide much raisin character in the finished beer. I'm glad to say the aroma of raisins was quite noticeable when I pitched the yeast. I'd expect some of the character to get scrubbed out during primary fermentation, but I think it's a good sign of things to come.

Update 1/22/2013
Not much of an update, but I did crack open the lid on my ferm chamber tonight. This one definitely smells interesting. Like the Funky Saison I brewed back in June, I'm picking up tropical fruit aromas along with a little bit of banana, and something else I can't quite place. It doesn't smell like the raisins, but it is somewhat fruity/estery.

Ferm temps are up to 80F now. I think I'm going to have a hard time hitting 85F given the cold weather we've had in Utah lately, but based on the aromas coming out of the ferm chamber I don't think it's going to be lacking fruity character.

I'll probably check the gravity this weekend and also taste a sample. On that note, I realized I forgot to check the starting gravity before I pitched my yeast. I'm guessing terminal gravity will be around 1.005. ABV should end up in the 9-10% range.

Update 1/26/2013
Checked the gravity with my refractometer today. It is ballpark-sh at best since I forgot to get my OG (knowing the OG is critical if you use a refractometer rather than a hydrometer). Assuming my gravity was near the Beersmith prediction (1.079) today's reading of 9P would translate to approx 1.010 and 9.18% ABV. I think it can still drop at least three more points, so this will be staying in the ferm chamber at least another week.


Update 2/18/2013
I racked this to a glass carboy on 2/9/2013 to free up my conical for my Blood Orange Hefeweizen. It's been sitting in my office at about 68F ever since. My plan is to cold crash it and add gelatin in about a week. It looks very dark in the carboy, but I don't know that I'd call it black. It's probably more of a dark brown with deep ruby highlights. I'm hoping the gelatin will help pull any chill haze causing proteins out of suspension so that it has good clarity when held up to the light. Hopefully this will be in the bottle by 3/2/2013.

Update 2/27/2013
I bottled this batch tonight. It had dropped pretty clear so I decided to skip the gelatin and go ahead and bottle it. This beer is definitely dark...it looked like motor oil as I racked it into the bottling bucket. Assuming the Beersmith prediction of 1.079 for the O.G. is close, this finished at 1.006 for an ABV of 9.69%. I tasted a small sample and it was very good. There's already a bit of brett character and I'm interested to see how it tastes once it's carb'd up.

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Soft Pretzels

My youngest daughter requested I make some homemade soft pretzels the other day. I had a good recipe a while back but it's been so long since I've made them I have no idea where it is. So I searched the Internet and found this one (EDIT: link removed due to being a dead link). I figured I'd post the recipe here since beer and pretzels pretty much go hand in hand...and so I don't lose it again. The original calls for malt syrup. I keep some DME around for yeast starters so I substituted some in place of the syrup. Here's how I made it:

Makes 12 soft pretzels

12 oz water
2 T DME
0.25 t honey
0.25 oz dried bread yeast
1/2 stick of butter, melted
2.25 t Kosher salt
1# 6 oz. all purpose flour

Egg wash
Kosher Salt for finishing pretzels

Make sure the water is the right temp...I usually shoot for about 85F. Dissolve honey and DME in the water then add the yeast. Also, try to give it about at least a 10-15 minute head start before you add it to the mixer. Melt your butter. Add remaining ingredients (except egg wash and salt for finishing) to your mixer. With a dough hook attachment, mix on medium low for 8 minutes.

Transfer the dough to a greased bowl and spray the top with a light coating of vegetable oil or non-stick cooking spray to keep it from forming a skin. Cover the bowl with a damp paper towel and leave it to rise until it doubles in size (usually 1-2 hours depending on yeast health and kitchen temps).

After it's doubled in size, gently press out the CO2 and divide the dough into 3 oz portions (another great use for your digital hop scale). Roll the portions into 18-24 inch long ropes and form them into your pretzel shape. Place them on a greased cookie sheet then put them in the freezer until they're at least partially frozen. When I made mine I left them in the freezer overnight.

When you're ready to cook up your pretzels, start by pre-heating your oven to 400F. Remove the pretzels from the freezer and bring 10 cups of water to a low boil along with 1/2 cup baking soda. Adding three pretzels at a time, poach them in the boiling solution for 1 minute then return them to the cookie sheets.

Next mix up an egg wash by whisking together one egg and 1 teaspoon of water. Use two fingers to gently and evenly coat the pretzels with the egg wash. Sprinkle with Kosher salt then bake in the oven until golden brown (about 15 minutes) and enjoy.

We served these along with a beer cheese fondue that my wife made on Christmas day. Note: These tend to disappear quick, so be prepared to mix up a second batch!

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Rauchbier 2012

Any fellow brewers reading through my posts would quickly realize I tend to brew more ales than lagers. For those not familiar with the difference, ale yeast is a top-fermenting yeast that tends to work best at warmer temperatures, whereas lager yeast is a bottom-fermenting yeast that tends to work better at cooler temperatures. Ale yeast tend to contribute more flavor to the finished beer (e.g. esters) whereas lager yeast generally contribute less flavor resulting in a "cleaner" fermentation. Because of the cooler temperatures, lagers ferment slower than a typical ale so they can tie up your equipment a little longer. They also require bigger starters for a healthy clean fermentation, so they can cost a little more to make. That said, I do enjoy a lot of lager styles and particularly the one I'm brewing today, a Rauchbier.

Rauchbiers are similar to Marzen/Oktoberfest beers, so they tend to be malt focused. The major difference is Rauchbiers use smoked grains and the smokiness carries through to the finished product which can be good or bad depending on how much you like or dislike smoked foods.

I've brewed two Rauchbiers in the past, the first of which was fantastic but the second one suffered from a horrible case of chlorophenols. Chlorophenols can manifest themselves as band-aid-like flavors and aromas. They don't age out and humans are pretty good at detecting them even at very low levels. There can be various causes but chlorine in the brew water is a common one especially when paired with smoked grains which are phenolic by nature. If you plan to brew this style it can't be stressed enough, you need to treat your brew water to remove chlorine. There's nothing worse than finding out after 6+ weeks of nursing this thing along that you've ended up with band-aid beer. Carbon water filters, pre-boiling your brew water, and Campden tablets are a few ways to remove chlorine. It's pretty easy to prevent so just take the time to do it.

This recipe is loosely based on the Rauch Me Gently recipe from Brewing Classic Styles. I've adjusted the grain bill slightly to adjust for my efficiency (typically around 85%) as well as availability of grain from my LHBS. I was planning on using Weyermann Rauchmalt but the LHBS was out so I went with Cherry Wood Smoked Malt from Briess. In my experience this malt imparts a lot more smoke flavor than Weyermann's beechwood smoked malt, so I'm only using 1.8 pounds. I also cold-smoked 2.8 pounds of Weyermann Pilsner malt over hickory that I'll be using in this recipe.

4.2 # Weyermann Pilsner
1.8 # Briess Cherry Wood Smoked Malt
2.8 # Weyermann Pilsner Malt (home-smoked with hickory)
1.5 # Weyermann Munich II Malt
0.625 # Weyermann Cara Munich III Malt
0.2 # Weyermann Melanoidin Malt
1.7 oz Briess Black Patent Malt
1.5 oz Hallertau (60 minutes)
0.5 oz Hallertau (10 minutes)
(2 packs) Wyeast 2124 Bohemian Lager in a 1.57 liter starter
Wyeast Yeast Nutrient
Whirlfloc

Mash at 154F for 60 minutes. 90 Minute boil.

Ferment at 50F. This yeast is known to produce a bit of diacetyl, so it's best to perform a diacetyl rest after primary fermentation is complete to allow the yeast to clean up after themselves. To do this, raise the temperature from 50F to about 60F for 1-2 days. After the diacetyl rest, lower the temp to 40F for the lagering period. Allow it to lager for at least 4 weeks before bottling/serving.

Brewing Notes
No notable issues on this brew day. Color is a beautiful reddish amber. It started snowing around noon which made me really thankful for the ability to brew in the garage. The ground water temps have dropped to the high 40's, so I was able to chill the batch down to about 59F pretty quickly. A couple hours in my ferm chamber and the wort was down to pitching temp of 50F. I tasted a small sample and it's got a noticeable but smooth smokey character that seems very balanced with the malt profile. I can't wait for this one to be ready. Efficiency was about 83%. This seems to be about where I've settled in +/- 1%. That's with using a .045" gap on my grain mill.

Update 12/26/2012
I've got a couple inches of krausen this morning so things are progressing nicely. It's also worth mentioning, this brew may not quite fit the BJCP guidelines for a Classic Rauchbier since it uses a blend of cherry and hickory smoked malt rather than beechwood smoked malt. When smoking meat, different woods will create different flavors in the meat so I'd expect the same with smoked malt. Case in point, peat smoked malt should be used in very small quantities as it can result in a very harsh smokey character. On the other hand, some rauchbiers are made with up to 100% beechwood smoked malt. Despite the fact that this recipe doesn't use beechwood smoked malt, I think it will still be close enough to enter as a Classic Rauchbier in a BJCP-sanctioned event.

Update 1/3/2013
Fermentation seemed to be slowing so I checked the gravity and I was down to 1.017, so real close to finishing. I started ramping up the temp for the diacetyl rest.

Update 1/7/2013
I dialed the temp down to 40F the evening of 1/5/2013 to begin the lagering phase. A couple things surprised me with this beer. First was how quickly it fermented to terminal gravity. It just goes to show how important proper yeast pitching rates are, especially with lagers. I think this is the first time I have used two yeast packs and made a starter for a lager.

The second was the level of smokiness in this beer. The cherry smoked malt is smooth but intense. I originally bought 2.8 pounds for this recipe but scaled it back to 1.8 after eating some of it and realizing how smokey it was. The home-smoked hickory is more subtle by comparison and the combination of the two should add a level of complexity. This one is still in the fermenter but I'll probably transfer it to a keg soon for the remainder of the lagering period.

Update 2/9/2013
I put this one on tap for Superbowl Sunday and I think it turned out very well. It ended up having a much more subtle smoke character than I'd expected. It's noticeable but very smooth which may be why it seems more mellow/subtle. I'd guess it's at a level that would appeal to more drinkers than if the smoke character were more intense. 

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