This is a continuation of my Flanders Project which I hope to brew a Flanders Style Ale every 6 months for 3 years and then start blending. I have a Flanders Style Ale v. 1 that I brewed 7 months ago that I had left in Primary on a huge yeast cake. This is more similar to how a Lambic is aged, as Flanders Red's are typically fermented in Primary for only a few weeks, and then transferred off the yeast cake. See, the Bretta eats up the autolyzed(dead) yeast and I wanted to increase the amount of Bretta for this beer. I'd created a nice Funk Factory for this to age on.......In this yeast cake was Wyeast 1056, Wyeast Roselare blend, dregs from various sour beers I've drank in the past 7 months(Jolly Pumpkin, Trinity, Russian River, Le Proef), a full bottle of each of my Saison Bretts containing Brett L., Brett C., and Wyeast 3711. I'd say I have a dozen to two dozen different strains of Yeast and souring bacteria in this Yeast cake. I had this in a Better Bottle and surprisingly no pellicle had formed at all over 7 months although the brett aroma is very strong. The acidity is still not as high as I'd like it so I thought I'd add some fresh wort to kick things back up a notch.
With my second batch of Flanders Red Ale or Flanders Style American Wild Ale I brewed something very similar to Jamil's Flanders Red Ale recipe again. I made a couple of small but notable changes.
1. I brewed 6.5 gallons (so I could pour 1 gallon into my aging flanders to hopefully help the Pedio and Lacto work on something to acidify that beer in the next year or so.)
2. I transferred v.1 to a plastic bucket (to let more oxygen in) and poured v.2 directly on top of the 7 month old yeast cake from v.1. Now...I hope that 7 month old yeast cake with dozens of yeasts, and bacteria will ferment this bad boy out how I want. I have no idea about the proportions of brewers yeast, bretta, pedio, and lacto, in that yeast cake, but I've read that reusing yeast cakes from sour beers produces an increasingly sour product.
3. I used a small portion of unmalted wheat, did a cereal mash with that to hopefully create some extra food for the funk. (long chain sugars that aren't easily consumable by brewers yeast, but over a long period will get eatin 'tag team style' by Brett, Pedio, and Lacto.)
4. Mashed at 158 for 90 minutes for the same reason as using unmalted wheat.
Here's the recipe as brewed.
malt & fermentables
% | LB | OZ | Malt or Fermentable | ppg | °L |
30% | 5 | 0 | Vienna Malt | 36 | 3 |
30% | 5 | 0 | Belgian Pilsner Malt | 34 | 2 |
18% | 3 | 0 | Munich Malt - 10L | 35 | 10 |
9% | 1 | 8 | Light Dry Malt Extract | 45 | 8 |
3% | 0 | 8 | Wheat, Unmalted (Wheat Berries) | 34 | 5 |
3% | 0 | 8 | Aromatic Malt | 36 | 26 |
3% | 0 | 8 | Caramunich III | 34 | 56 |
3% | 0 | 8 | Special B Malt | 30 | 180 |
Batch size: 6.5 gallons
Original Gravity
1.068 / 16.6° Plato
Final Gravity ?
Color
16° SRM / 31° EBC
(Light Brown to Medium Brown)
Mash Efficiency
73%
hops
use | time | oz | variety | form | aa |
boil | 60 mins | 1.5 | Celeia (aged 2 years) | pellet | 1.4 |
boil | 60 mins | 1.0 | Goldings, East Ken | pellet | 5.0 |
Bitterness
15 IBU
Alcohol
7.5-8.5% ABV
Rant: I've been slowly trying to figure out how to make a proper sour ale....it takes time and I can understand why many brewers don't even want to deal with it. I absolutely can understand why a professional brewer wouldn't want to deal with aging beer for months to years. You see, brewing sour beers takes anywhere form 1-3 years. Most beers take 2-4 weeks before you can bottle them. It's quite the difference. Fermentation space is a huge consideration for professional brewers and most try to push fermentation as fast as possible by pitching huge amounts of healthy yeast and utilizing constant and accurate temperature control fermentation. Keeping the yeast happy helps them eat sugars. I'm lucky to have a bunch of extra Carboy's and Buckets and can't wait to keep brewing Flanders Red's every 6 months to eventually blend and drink. My Saison Bretts although not sour beers, are fantastic! Let me know if you'd like me to send you a bottle as I've got a ton!
