In support of my homebrew club's barrel project I'm jumping ahead on the BJCP list to the Flanders Red Ale. I've never brewed a sour before so this is uncharted territory for me and in addition to brewing a beer style I don't have experience with I also absolutely maxed out my brewery's capacity. This beer is named after the cyber espionage group Fancy Bear which is associated with the Russian military intelligence agency GRU. BJCP Style: 23B - Flanders Red Ale BJCP: "A sour, fruity, red wine-like Belgian-style ale with interesting supportive malt flavors and fruit complexity. The dry finish and tannin completes the mental image of a fine red wine." Brewday 05.23.2021 Recipe: This recipe will have a primary (Wyeast 1968) and secondary (Wyeast 3763) fermentation. I propagated a 2L starter of the Wyeast 1968 24hrs prior to pitching. Grist: 2row, Vienna, Special B, & Flaked Corn Brewery manager checking the quality of the grain Sparge and Mash salts Milled grain This particular mash was scheduled to have a 20 min rest @120F/49C, a 40 min rest @145F/63C, and a 40 min rest @162F/72C. However with such a large volume of liquid I struggled to change the mash temp in a quick and meaningful way so I just bumped the temperature up on the control box and the let the mash temp free rise to 168F/76C over the course of 2 hours while I rode my indoor trainer. Mash pH after about 10 minutes I had to get creative with the sparge arm/mash tun lid for this sparging session (arm is upside down with a kettle lid sitting on top to control the overspray) Transferred into the boil kettle and crossed my fingers in hopes of preventing a boil over. Pre-boil gravity is showing somewhere between 17.9P (1.073SG) and 17P (1.070SG) Hop charge for the Flanders is pretty negligible considering its a 15 gallon batch. Most of the character for this beer should come from the secondary Brettanomyces yeast and the lactic acid bacteria present in the Roselare Blend. An extremely calm boil that STILL almost resulted in boil overs several times. My post boil measurements came in way over what I expected, but I also got pulled away a few times during the boil so my the boil duration was extended a bit...21.1P (1.087SG). Assuming a normal-ish fermentation this will put me well beyond the ABV for style which is 6.5 at the top end. I also don't know how the two yeast strains will handle a 9+ ABV beer...we'll see what happens :) Transferring to two separate fermenters (CF10 & CF5) after being chilled in the counterflow. Adding O2 before placing in the fermentation chamber. The wort was little warm still so I let the chamber cool both down to about 65F/18C before pitching yeast. I ran into another snag with this beer when I conducted a yeast cell count...I was only seeing 1-2 cells in each quadrant of the hemocytometer (even after extended time on the plate shaker) which would mean that my yeast cell count was .05 Billion cells/mL...far below any reasonable pitching rates. I believe this was due to strange coagulation in the erlenmeyer flask (based on how the slurry looked). Since I wasn't able to determine an accurate yeast count I decided to pitch the entire slurry into the two fermenters (approx 70-30 split between the two). 05.24.2021 (+24hr): Wyeast 1948 is off and running 06.12.2021 (+20): Hydrometer reading is showing about 1.024 SG/6.0P That puts this Flanders Red around 8.27% ABV This batch was split between the one of our NorWa club barrels and my cellar. The barrel definitely had a strong vinegar aroma so I assume there was a fair bit of acetobacter present. Several members brewed their own version of a Flanders Red and contributed to the barrel as well. I pitched a full pack of Wyeast 3763 Roselare Belgian Blend into the portion of the brew I kept. I'll check the carboy from time to time over the next year to see if/when a pellicle forms. I also plan to add some oak cubes/spirals a few months before packaging this brew.
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Jamie WeissHomebrewer, Recognized BJCP Judge, aspiring Certified Cicerone Archives
November 2023
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