Category: Brewing

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts: Down the rabbit hole of sour beer , I have begun experimenting with sour beers and alternate fermentation methods. The first was the Backyard Berry Sour (Pink Beer) which will now be a staple of the beer selections. It is a kettle soured beer with lots of fruit added in secondary.   We have made 3 batches so far. It is delicious, but I still need to work on perfecting the filtering technique as the raspberries crumble and plug up the kegs and beer lines.

The second was a mixed fermentation with BE-134 and “All the Bretts”. This was based on the NB Dead Ringer with added Acidulated malt, flaked oats (for body)  and more DME and the bret yeast. It was a moderate success.  Very drinkable and  smooth but had too of a much “hoppy edge” in combination with the sourness of the Brett yeast. It was a “Good – but I’ll only have one” sort of beer.

The third was trying some brett yeast as a 3rd fermentation on a batch of chocolate milk stout that was too sweet for my liking (stuck fermentation?) . To make room for new beers the remains of hte chcoloate milk stout was placed in 3l jugs with 100ml of brett starter and left to sit in a dark corner for 3 months.  Interesting, sort of like a very dark chocolate in bitterness but not quite what I hoped for.

While doing yet more reading, I was intrigued with the idea of something closer to Russian River’s Supplication.  Plus, NB had a great special on Scottish Wee Heavy kits which would become the basis of the brew.

Being that this would be a high gravity brew I needed to make a starter.  I used Lallemand Nottingham yeast in 1.5l of water and 3/4 c DME on a stir plate for 24 hrs at about 63F. Omega “All the Bretts” OYL-218 was already bulging in the package, so I figured it was going fine as -is (warm shipping temps in October and no ice in the shipment).

Recipe

Steeping grains

8 oz Acidulated malt

8 oz Flaked oats

8 oz Carapils crystal malt

6 oz biscuit malt

2 oz  Roasted Barley

Place the above ingredients in a couple of bags and steep for 30 min at 150F. Raise temp at the end to 170F and drain well (don’t be afraid to squeeze).

Now add

6 lb  Gold Malt extract (4.0 SRM)

1 oz Northern Brewer hop pellets

Boil for 60 min

15 min before the end, add

6 lbs Gold Malt extract

1 oz Willamette hop pellets

Chill quickly and add water to get 5 gal at about 63-65F. With my well water at about 50F, I need to have the wort down to about 75F before diluting.

To the chilled wort, add the starters. OG was approx 1.090.  Use a blow off tube, in case the fermentation is a bit rambunctious.  My basement ambient temp at this time, was 63-65F and the fermenter was placed directly on the concrete floor. Monitor the temperature and add heat as needed to hold temp.

Add 3/4 tsp Fermax yeast nutrient at day 3 (68F).   Do not let the temp  go down after it has risen.  I  started raising the temp 1F per day soon after so that at day 14 it was at 78F.

Transfer to secondary

With the beer in the secondary fermenter, the next ingredients were added:

21 oz dried Sweetened Montmorency Cherries

12 oz Zante Currants (small raisins)

The labels on both of the fruits indicated that there were no added oils (which would adversely impact head retention -but I am not so sure there were not).  The fruit had been heated to 160F for 30 min in a bit of water (enough to cover).  This was to get rid of any competing bacteria or yeast. However, the temp was low enough not to add a “cooked” flavor to the fruit.

Start ramping the temp 1F per day to 85F and hold there.

On the second or 3rd day, the fruit will float to the top as the fermentation restarts. Now it is a waiting game. Shake the fermenter vigorously every day to wet out the surface of the fruit. If the top layer of the fruit starts to dry out, you risk mold growth (likely bad)  .

At 4 weeks add 4 oz used toasted oak cubes. I had saved these from a previous batch of beer. I am not fond of the burnt character of the fresh oak cubes.  I rinsed the cubes briefly in Star San to avoid contamination rather than soaking in Bourbon or Rum. I wanted just the light oak character to come through

After 6-8 weeks the fruit will sink to the bottom. This is your indication that the secondary fermentation is complete.   Throughout the secondary fermentation the SG never really moved as measured with a hydrometer (I needed taste samples anyway). The floating fruit threw the Tilt Hydrometer way off. It ended up at 1.016

At the time of writing it is still only partially force carbonated and head is basically non-existent (dried fruit processing oils?).

Dates / times

Start – 11/3/19

Transfer to secondary  11/17/19

Keg 1/25/20

This seems to be a success. I need a few others to taste it. I am getting ready to do another batch, maybe shifting more towards the currants  or trying frozen cherries instead of dried. It almost begs for a hint of cinnamon as well. I will try some experiments in the meantime before committing to a whole batch.

 

Over time I have had a few sour beers,  but I had not done much exploration of the genre. After the success of the Backyard Berry Sour a.k.a. Pink Beer, I wanted to explore them more broadly. Unfortunately, Wisconsin is seemingly  not on the sour beer  distribution web  (if one exists). A few trips out East and careful scrounging for sour beers locally additionally piqued my interest.   However, the prices ($13-23 / 4 pack) were at the upper end of my price range.

I did however decide that based on my tastings that I wanted to try my hand at “brett beers”. That is, those that are fermented with the aid of Brettanomyces cultures rather than just sticking with the safer kettle soured (Lactobacillus culture) beers.  To most brewers and vintners, having Brett in the brew is a sign of contamination and when not intentionally added, leads to off flavors, gushers (beers that spray forth when opened) and bottle bombs (don’t wait for a human to open them).

More research was in order, so I could make my own. Hopefully with some controls so I could brew conventional beers and keep the brett monster in its place.  The first purchase was  “American Sour Beers” which provides a great overview of the processes, methods and recipes.   The second was “Yeast” which covers the use of yeast in brewing as well as the necessary scientific methods (proper culturing / propagation, cell counting, viability testing, etc). Both of these appealed to my inner engineer.  I was especially impressed with the writing style in Yeast, where one of the authors (Chris White of White Labs ) does not make this a pedestal to promote his own products but rather uses them as infrequent examples – great restraint.

Next was the need for a bit more equipment.  There is the fear and potential problem of accidental cross contamination.  So it is best to keep all plastic parts separate between the regular and Brett beers. That means fermenters, hoses, stoppers, siphon, wine thief, lids, Tilt hydrometer, etc.   I also purchased a microscope and hemocytometer to do some cell counting (OK this was just for the inner geek but fun anyway).   I do also practice double sanitization (once after washing everything after brewing and once before brewing) both as a good general practice and to avoid accidental cross contamination.

So more or less prepared, I ordered the ingredients along with both kinds of yeast needed.   I am not yet ready to jump into brett only fermentations so I followed the recommendations and stated with a Belgian style ale yeast – SafAle BE-134 for primary fermentation and Omega Yeast – All the Bretts  for the brett culture. I have used BE-134 in a number of beers and like it but the All the Bretts was the only Brett yeast in stock locally in late summer.

Next- on to the brewing.

My first experiment with sour beers was a kettle soured beer with fruit. It proved to be very popular and resulted in another 2 batches being made this past summer.

Kettle souring is a “safe” technique in that it uses cultured lactic acid bacteria in the wort before the boil. The boil  kills the bacteria and there is no worry about them running away (making an excessively sour beer) or contaminating the rest of your brewing gear.

This beer is based on the Northern Brewer Funktional Fruit Sour.   Without repeating the recipe, here are the highlights from Batch 1

Day 1  (friday night) Boil the malt only wort for 5 min and then cool to 80-85F.   Leave it in the brew kettle.  Add the lactobacillus culture and cover.  Heat must be applied. My Spike 10 gal Brew Kettle can be set up with a side mount thermo well into which the thermo probe is inserted and the heater wrapped around.  Initial pH was 6.5

Day 2 make up the starter.  1.3 l water, 3/4 DME boil and cover the flask with aluminum foil. Chill to 68f. Add the yeast. So far,  there have been 3 batches  T-58, BE-134 and EC1138   I like the T58 the best for this one.

Day 3 (Monday eve) The pH has dropped to 3.53 – nice and tart.  Now We continue with the brew. Do this per the recipe  including primary fermentation.  2/3 tsp Fermax was added per batch .

10-14 days later transfer to secondary  SG 1.017

Add the fruit. All of the fruit had been frozen, then heated to a boil, and mashed with a “motor boat” style stick mixer to break it up. Each 5 gal batch required :

• 2lbs frozen Blueberries,
• 1lb mixed frozen fruit (Raspberries, strawberries and blackberries),
• 12 oz frozen blackberries
•  1lb frozen cranberries

The blueberries all came from my garden. While I grow the others, including high bush cranberries, I do not get enough for brewing so I have to resort to store bought frozen.

I still do not have the perfect technique for managing the berry pulp in the fermenter. The first batch I just dumped it in.  This required twice filtering to keep the keg from plugging with bits of pulp.  The second and 3rd batches I placed in fine mesh bags and then in the fermenter but they were too “floaty” trapping the C02. I tried venting them with 1/2″ pvc pipe but this was not great either. They still floated.   I shook the fermenter daily to attempt to keep things mixed up and prevent mold growth (if the fruit on top dries out it is susceptible to mold).

Batch 1  5 days primary, 14 days secondary  OG 1.054, FG1.02

Batches 2&3  Additional 1.5 lbs golden light DME per batch above the kit fermentables.

10 days primary, 35 days secondary     Added EC1118 yeast i batch 3 in secondary    Batch 2 OG 1.070 FG 1.007, Batch 3 OG1.073  FG 1.009

Transferring the first batch to the keg. 2 more filtering passes were required.

As you can see the beer is a brilliant PINK.

The FG ranged form 1.007 to 1.009  across the batches.   This is a family favorite. All of the ladies love it, especially those that don’t care for the IPAs and Imperial Stouts that I do otherwise.  The girls have requested that I keep it on hand for all family gatherings and summer boating.

Note that some articles suggest removing the precipitate from the kettle souring step. The lactobacillus layer on the bottom of the kettle can scorch and create a burnt rubber flavor.  Tip for my next batch.

 

 

Like many of my brews this started with a kit – Northern Brewer Plinian Legacy. This is a “clone” of the impossible to find in Wisconsin, Russian River Pliny The Elder .

I wanted a very strong Imperial IPA so I also added to the kit an additional pound of golden DME at the start of the 90 minute boil.

Prior to brewing, I made a starter with 1.5 liters of water, 1 cup DME this was brought to a boil in the erlenmeyer flask with an aluminum foil cap and then chilled in an ice water bath. Once it was cool enough – 68F I added the BE134 yeast.  This went on the stir plate for 24 hours. This is a highly attenuating Belgian style yeast that also withstands high alcohol content.

Prior to chilling I added 2 tsp of Fermax yeast nutrient.

The cooled wort was oxygenated for 3 minute.

As I have learned in subsequent brews,  you need a cool start (63-65F) to prevent this yeast from getting going too vigorously and the temperature rocketing up. In this case, I started at 68-69F which was the same as the basement temp and it rose after a few days to 74F.  This batch also required a large blow off tube.

Initially, I had a  1/2″ ID blow off tube  and the lid blew off the Big Mouth Bubbler making a bit of a mess.  I have latches to prevent the lids from simply walking out the top.  So I switched to the big blow off tube (1″ ID).  Another option I discovered later, is to add the yeast nutrient at day 3  to level the fermentation rate out a bit.   In the photo above, besides the Pliny Plus with the top blown off,  you can see also 2 batches of the “Pink Beer” in secondary fermentation and the “Brett Ringer” in primary (another post yet to come).

 

date	SG	temp
09/01/19	1.084	69
09/02/19	1.067	71
09/03/19	1.0344	74
09/04/19	1.0267	72
09/05/19	1.0233	73
09/06/19	1.02	73
09/20/19	1.01	75
10/02/19	1.078	68

As you can see, imperfect temperature control , both in starting a bit warm and then when it hit peak, not holding that temp.    I do not have anything to cool the fermenting beer other than the cement floor and ambient air temp (no chiller – yet).  I did ramp the temp back up after the first week a bit to help keep the fermentation going. The fermenter was vigorously shaken 1-2 times per day to help keep the yeast from settling out too early

This beer has a high amount of hops and hop extract in it.  The fermenter was sticky with hop extractives when I transferred to the secondary .

Calculated ABV was 9.7%.

When transferring from primary to secondary (9/19/19) when the first of the dry hop additions was done it had a harsh flavor and a “burn” in the throat. This greatly smoothed out later.

Taste was great when kegged and served.