Belgian IPA with Brett

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http://to-ol.dk/home/the-beers/sans-frontiere/sansf-2/

Image from To Øl brewery

My interest in beers with Brettanomyces has grown over time.  Initially my experience with Brett was not one of great fondness.  At the time, I had recently discovered New Belgium’s La Folie, the great American-face-punching-brown-sour and was so captivated that I was looking for anything else like it.

I ended up trying any of the potential “sour” beers that showed up in Texas and ran into a number of American farmhouse beers that utilized Brett.  Anyone who has tasted La Folie will know that there isn’t a hint of “classic” Brett flavors or aromas, even if Brett is employed in the creation of La Folie.  None of the “horse leather, sweat, funk, cheese” nose that can come from some Brett strains.

It was exactly those overly peppery, funky, sweaty flavors that had turned me off of Brett beers.  But as with hoppy beers, which I didn’t originally enjoy, eventually your tastes change.

At this point, I can say that I’m having a similar transition from avoiding Brett beers to being completely enamored with any beer that utilizes Brett in any form.

One of the beers that literally changed my mind about Brett was the Sans Frontiére beer from the To Øl brewery.  I received this great beer from the Rare Beer Club and initially was quite hesitant with the description.  Hoppy Belgian but fermented with Brett.  I decided that I would drink the beer as soon as possible to minimize the Brett character.  What I encountered was an amazingly complex, dry, hoppy Belgian beer that fundamentally changed my outlook on Brett.

Earlier this year I was looking for something in the Belgian Blonde category for a local Pro-AM competition so on a whim, I sent an email to the To Øl brewery asking about Sans Frontiére and to my surprise, Tore Gynther, the head brewer there, (who started brewing with Mikkeller in Chemistry class) replied with the recipe.  Fantastic!

Now that I’ve got a few strains of Brett around at the Woxford Brewery I figured it was time to see how well an all-brett hoppy beer would turn out.  So let’s see how this one goes.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
5.3 gal 60 min 62.8 IBUs 6.2 SRM 1.058 1.006 6.9 %
Actuals 1.046 1.01 4.7 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
Belgian Specialty Ale 16 E 1.03 - 1.08 1.006 - 1.019 15 - 40 3 - 50 2.1 - 2.9 3 - 9 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Brewer's Malt, 2-Row, Premium (Great Western) 8.602 lbs 75
Oats, Flaked 1.032 lbs 9
Crystal, Medium (Simpsons) 7.34 oz 4
Munich Malt 5.5 oz 3
Candi Sugar, Clear 1.032 lbs 9

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Herkules 0.71 oz 60 min Boil Pellet 18.5
Hallertauer Mittelfrueh 1 oz 10 min Boil Pellet 4.3
Tettnang 1 oz 1 min Boil Pellet 4.5
Columbus (Tomahawk) - 2012 Crop - Purchased 20130220 1 oz 10 days Dry Hop Pellet 15.3
Styrian Goldings 1 oz 10 days Dry Hop Pellet 5.4

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Abbey Ale (WLP530) White Labs 78% 66°F - 72°F
Brettanomyces Bruxellensis (WLP650) White Labs 70% 65°F - 72°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Saccharification 148°F 90 min
Mash Out 168°F 10 min

Notes

To Ol - San Frontiere recipe

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Summer Time, Saison Time

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Nom!

Das Wunderkind – Saison from Jester King Brewery

During the hot summer months of Texas I really get into crisp, clean, dry beers.  My craft beer pallet has been shifting, and I’m definitely enjoying beers that have a lower finishing gravity than higher.  I’m a member of the Rare Beer Club which sends two exceptional beers once a month and even with such exceptionally good beers, there are quite a few that I must share since I cannot drink more than a sample; the sweetness of some of the Belgians overwhelm my tastes.

I suppose then it’s a good thing that I have a fantastic source of dry, sour beers so close to Austin, Texas.  Out at the Jester King Brewery, of which I am a huge fan, they have a wide selection of amazing beers.  With the recent changes in the arcane Texas Beer laws it’s now much easier to sample and obtain the great beers that are brewed and aged out at that farmhouse brewery.

Sweet Pineapple and Mango!

Brett Drie sample from Jester King

When I volunteered for bottling day at Jester King a few months ago one of the bits of information I picked up was the use of Brettanomyces for bottling yeast.  I had been reviewing a really exciting thread on Homebrewtalk about using Brett Drie, the strain isolated from Fantôme  brewery in Belgium.  I immediately recognized the name and the flavor profile that it had be contributing to the aged bottles of Jester King.  Jeff Stuffings, the head brewer at Jester King, graciously agreed to share a sample of their Brett Drie so I could make use of it.

I couldn’t think of a better way to test it out other than to brew up my interpretation of their Das Wunderkind saison.  Recently they’ve been blending their aged sour beer back into their young beers, effectively creating new beers with resounding success.  For this recipe I wanted to attempt the same thing.  Thus, here I am with 11 gallons of saison and plans to ferment half of it with just French Saison Yeast (Wyeast 3711) and then to blend it with the other half that will sit on oak cubes, brett and souring bacteria.

The original plan was to use my 5 gallon barrel that now has been patched with barrel wax.  However, since it’s had lots of time to sit with water in it I’m not entirely confident that I’ve removed the mold that may have developed before I found out that I should be using “holding solution”, a combination of potassium metibasulphate and some citric acid.

Multiply my lovely sourlings!

Brett B. Trio, Pedio, and Lacto starters

In the barrel’s stead, I’ll pitch in 1.5 oz of french oak cubes along with an array of souring organisms while the saison ages.  In a few months, I’ll start the blending process.  If this process is successful, then I’ll brew another batch of this recipe and pitch the young beer into the carboy and let it ferment with the old, sour beer.

My interpretation of Das Wunderkind.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
11 gal 90 min 24.7 IBUs 5.3 SRM 1.041 1.004 4.7 %
Actuals 1.047 1.006 5.4 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
Saison 16 C 1.048 - 1.065 1.002 - 1.012 20 - 35 5 - 14 2.3 - 2.9 5 - 7 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pilsner (2 Row) Bel 11.938 lbs 68.26
Brewer's Malt, 2-Row, Premium (Great Western) 2.388 lbs 13.65
Wheat Malt, Ger 1.273 lbs 7.28
Oats, Flaked 1.1 lbs 6.29
Caramunich I (Weyermann) 12.65 oz 4.52

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Goldings, East Kent (2011 Crop - Purchase FHBW 20130220) 1.66 oz 60 min Boil Pellet 5.6
Saaz 1.1 oz 15 min Boil Pellet 7.6
Cascade (2012 - Nikobrew 2012-11-23) 2.2 oz 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 5.9
Columbus (Tomahawk) - 2012 Crop - Purchased 20130220 1.1 oz 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 15.3

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Calcium Chloride 2.30 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 2.30 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Epsom Salt (MgSO4) 0.30 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Yeast Nutrient 2.00 tsp 5 min Boil Other

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Belgian Saison (3724) Wyeast Labs 87% 70°F - 95°F
Brettanomyces Bruxellensis Troi (WLP644) White Labs 70% 65°F - 72°F
Lactobacillus Bacteria (WLP677) White Labs 70% 65°F - 72°F
Pediococcus Cerevisiae (4733) Wyeast Labs 67% 60°F - 95°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Mash In 152°F 60 min

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Have barrel, will fill

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Mmm, whiskey...

Used Whiskey Barrel from Farmhouse Brewing Supply

What to do when you have an empty whiskey barrel?  Recently I emptied my whiskey barrel that had a favorite Russian Imperial Stout recipe, Black Metal Stout, from my favorite local brewery, Jester King.   With the RIS out of the barrel I knew that I needed another beer to occupy the space fairly soon, lest my barrel turn sour or worse, start leaking.

To temporarily keep the barrel clean and leak-free, I’ve kept some vodka inside and rotate the barrel every few days.  But the real solution is to brew another beer.  In this case, I eventually decided that I should pursue another take on one of my favorite Strong Scotch Ales, Old Chub from Oscar Blues brewery.

Previously I had soaked oak spirals in Isle of Islay single malt scotch whiskey.  To continue that concept I decided that we’d age some Old Chub in the whiskey barrel.  This Friday I’ll be brewing up Old Chub, 11 gallons of it, and pitching a 4 Liter starter of White Labs Cali Ale (001) and then in about two weeks I’ll rack everything that fits into the whiskey barrel.

The first beer in the barrel stayed about three months and pulled a significant amount of whiskey flavor and aroma.  I decided that I wanted enough flavor and aroma to stick around for a while since I bottled half of the batch in 750ml containers for long term storage and natural carbonation.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes to get a nice whiskey aroma and flavor in the Old Chub; I’m guessing roughly the same time since Old Chub is less roasty than a RIS.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
11 gal 90 min 46.9 IBUs 23.1 SRM 1.079 1.017 8.2 %
Actuals 1.046 1.01 4.7 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
Strong Scotch Ale 9 E 1.07 - 1.13 1.018 - 1.03 17 - 35 14 - 25 1.6 - 2.4 6.5 - 10 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Brewer's Malt, 2-Row, Premium (Great Western) 28.224 lbs 83.11
Crystal Dark - 77L (Crisp) 2.344 lbs 6.9
Munich Malt 1.554 lbs 4.58
Special B Malt 12.73 oz 2.34
Smoked Malt (Weyermann) 9.28 oz 1.71
Chocolate Malt (Thomas Fawcett) 7.37 oz 1.36

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Nugget 1.8 oz 60 min Boil Pellet 13

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
American Ale (1056) Wyeast Labs 75% 60°F - 72°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Mash In 152°F 60 min

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Needs more sour…

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sour-mash-in-blichmann-pot-1024x768

Sour-mashing 12 gallons of work in a Blichmann 20G kettle. Heat-belts and temp controller to keep temp between 115 and 120F.

I brewed my first sour-mashed Berliner Weisse back in January this year on my dreaded double-brew day which involved doing a quick 30 minute boil and chill while trying to mash a Flanders Red. Patience grasshopper. I aged the first Berline Weisse, MomoSuppai on 10 pounds of frozen peaches resulting in a very nice, light, peachy beer. The only real criticism was that it needed more sour to it. The original had about 48 hours of time with a pure Lactobacillus culture at 120F degrees. In my notes, I said next I’d let it sour longer.

That time as come. In addition to the desire for more tartness, I also wanted more volume. The first 5 gallons went way too fast, so the only thing to do was to bump up the volume. The challenge was how to sour mash the larger volume. The sour mash process I follow has the mashed wort held at close to 120F for as many days as you like after pitching a pure culture of Lactobacillus. The pure culture helps ensure that many of the off-flavors that can come from other bacteria don’t make it into the beer versus the traditional method of pitching in uncrushed grain which carries tons of bacteria.

I picked up some additional heat belts which I’ve used before to ensure proper temp control for the sour mash and they worked very well… almost too well as this time around I ended up pushing the temp up to 130F, not on purpose. I ended up toss in two handfuls of some uncrushed grain just in case the higher temp killed of the lab lacto. The result after 5 days was an intensely sour wort, hitting 3.2 pH.

On the offical brewday, the wort was boiled for about 30 minutes with a tiny addition of cascade, chilled to pitching temp and that’s it. The next challenge for this beer was getting fermentation going. I originally pitched one package of S-05 dry yeast. I had seen in many places that dry-yeast packets tend to have significantly more yeast cells than liquid yeast. The yeast pitching rate calculator indicated that I needed just over 250 billion yeast for 12 gallons of 1.031 S.G wort. Surely one packet would be enough. After two days though there was no sign of fermentation.

While I wasn’t panicking, I was worried. Looking around, I saw some more discussion about making sure you pitched heavily in an acidic environment so I promptly pitched another 3 packets of dry-yeast. A day later, I was rewarded with a nice krausen on the surface.

dai-momo-berliner-weisse-fermenting-1024x768

Thin krausen forming after pitching 5 packets of S05 dry-yeast.

After a week of fermentation, the beer is down to 1.010 S.G, so a little more to go. After terminal gravity, I’ll split the batch and age on BlackBerry and Apricot puree to try out some new fruit flavors in the beer.

The recipe is just a scaled-up version of the original.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
10 gal 30 min 4.0 IBUs 2.7 SRM 1.029 1.006 3.0 %
Actuals 1.03 1.01 2.6 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
Berliner Weiss 17 A 1.028 - 1.032 1.003 - 1.006 3 - 8 2 - 3 2.4 - 2.9 2.8 - 3.8 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Brewer's Malt, 2-Row, Premium (Great Western) 6.667 lbs 57.14
White Wheat Malt 5 lbs 42.86

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Cascade 0.57 oz 30 min Boil Pellet 5.9

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Calcium Chloride 8.10 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 8.10 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Epsom Salt (MgSO4) 0.70 g 60 min Mash Water Agent

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Saccharification 148°F 90 min
Mash Out 168°F 10 min

Notes

DO NOT BOIL

V2:
Pitched 2 vials of WLP Lacto into 12+ gallons of 1.031 wort. Low on C02 so blanket wasn't as good as I'd like. Initial temp was 105F, in 12 hours was at 124F. Heavily wrapped with bottom heater and two layers on the side.

Checked temp again after unwrapping blankets, and temp was up to 125. I opened up the top and stirred, temp rose to 130F as the heat got distributed.

Sanitized two ice bottles and left in for 2 hours to bring temp down to 113F. Plugged all 3 controllers back in and set temp for 117F.

Wednesday morning (48 hours) ph is 3.77 @ 28C. Taste is slightly acidic, very light, not enough punch. New batch of co2 used to blanket it and also added two handfuls of 2-row grain uncrushed hoping to kick up some more bacterial activity.

Friday Morning, ph is 3.28 @ 23C. Taste is decidedly sour. on it's way to being quite potent. Nose is lactic with some buteryc funk... probably from tossing the the 2-row. Hoping to push the tar over the top by 6PM tonight.

Saturday, ph is 3.29 @ 23C. No ferm activity. Pitched second packet of yeast.

Sunday, ph is 3.29 @ 23C. No ferm activity. Gravity shows some movement, 1.035 -> 1.031. Two packages is still under pitched according to new yeast calculators, so picked up 3 more packets (5 * 11.5 grams in total). Pitched the rest, stirred up fermentor to resuspend the yeast.

Monday, very thing, but bubbly krausen on surface of wort.

2013-07-11, Krausen thining out, gravity check: 1.008 @ 71.9F -> 1.010 S.G. Nose is lacto and some heavy funk, like stinky feet. Aroma fades to simple lacto, wheat, sour. Taste is very very nice. A bit think mouth feel, slightly carbed, excellently sour, peachy, wheat. appearence is nearly 2 or 3 SRM, quite cloudy, no yeast flavors. Carbonation and fruit will go very well. Hoping the funky feet aroma moves on or is over powered by fruit additions. No hop flavor or aroma.



V1:

- Mash normally
- Drain to Kettle
- Raise temp to 176 for 15 minutes
- Chill to 120F
- pitch a pure culture of lacto and let ferment for approx. 2 days, no more than 3, retain 120F.
- transfer the sour wort to the boil kettle
- do my boil as per usual
- chill to 70F
- pitch my yeast culture.
- After ferm complete, pitch peach puree

48 hour @ 120F after pitching lacto. Measured pH of 4.0.

Boiled for 30+ minutes, to hit target volume (6.5 post-boil/pre-chill). Got 6G in carboy.
Low on ice, so only chilled to about 80F, put in fridge to chill and pitched two packets of 1056 around 10PM.

Racked into 13G plastic fermentor and pitched 10# of peach pureee. After 2 weeks, a new lacto pelical formed. Racking the puree was difficult, lost about 1 gallon of volume. Next time need to use some sort of bag or figure out a better separator for the fruit.

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Bottling Day at Jester King

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jester-king-brewery-sign

One of my friends asked me to come down for a bottling day at Jester King Brewery in Austin, Texas this past week. He’s been a few times and knew the ropes and all of the hard work the volunteers put in to help out a favorite local brewery. I’m a huge fan of Jester King, the beers they make and the hand-crafted nature of their approach to making beer.  This appreciation provided a huge boost of enthusiasm to help cope with the over 100F degree temperature encountered during the 8+ hour work day.

With the help of probably 10 or so volunteers and some brewery employees we packaged 200+ cases of Funk Metal, a barrel-aged sour stout beer. Funk Metal has a special place in my cellar; it has displayed New Belgium’s La Folie as my favorite sour beer that I’ve tasted.

The work day began with assembling all of those boxes with inserts, followed by marking the boxes and placing inventory labels on each box in the 5-high stacks. We watched as the brewers readied the beer for bottling by recirculating the beer in the tank with sugar and healty pitch of Brett. Drie yeast for bottle conditioning. The light smell of tart, lactic, sour beer flooded the air, along with all of the crazy awesome Funk music blasting out the brewery speakers.

jester-king-bottles-on-pallet-1024x768

176 bottles per layer, 14 rows of 7 and 13 rows of 6. 7 layers per pallet combine to make over 1200 bottles. Yeah, lots of bottles.

Close to noon, the bottling line was taking form. I was placed at the bottle prep station where we unpacked pallets of belgian brown glass bottles, over 1200 per pallet. Each bottle was placed into a cleaning station where sanitizer was used to prepare the bottle for filling. As the filler pulled from the rack, we replaced a new bottle and then opened the valve to clean another set of bottles. This line ran continuously for 6 hours. As we used the bottles, we opened up the next layer (7 layers total) and eventually replaced the pallet with another one.

jester-king-bottling-line-1024x768

After the bottles were filled, the next station used a co2-driven capper and passed the bottle to a group wiping the bottles down and checking the fill level. Once the bottles dried a bit, the label station applied the amazing artwork labels Jester King beers are known for and the UPC and batch label. All of the bottles were then boxed and stacked on a pallet. Full pallets were moved back into cold storage for conditioning for a few months before being released into the market.

jester-king-salt-lick-sour-smoked-saison-1024x768

Jester King Salt Lick Smoked Saison — in a word? Amazing!

One of the great perks of working at the brewery is sampling of the great beer. All throughout the day the team sampled a few of the beers on tap. My favorite for the day was the Salt Lick smoked saison which is a blend of a young saison with some old aged sour beer yielding a very smooth, slightly smokey but tart, crisp finishing beer. It was a huge thirst quencher.

When we weren’t sampling the great beer at Jester King we were drinking some flavorful bottled rainwater. It’s amazing how much better that water tasted than the normally sterile store bottled water.

Heading home in the evening I was exhausted, hot, sweating, tired, but laden with beer-sweat-equity; some bottles of Funk Metal that didn’t make the cut.

At the end of the day, my friend asked me if it was worth all of the hard work, and all I could say was that even without the beer I would definitely do it again.

Thanks Jester King!