The OFFICIAL 11-11-11 Old Ale Thread - The HBT Anniversary Series

I'm a little confused. Where does the Brett come in? I thought that's what made it a sour beer. Is the Brett in the 9097? If I'm not using the 9097, then this is something I don't have to worry about, right? See, the reason I've never made a sour beer is becuase I don't understand them

strat_thru_marshall said:

So you only took ~7 gallons of runnings total and added 2 gallons of water to the boil? I wonder what the impact would be of just running off the extra 2 gallons from the sparge, were you measurably close to over sparging and extracting tannins or were you just playing it safe?

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I batch sparge so it wasn't a matter of just running off more. I only add the amount of sparge water I want and run it all off. I hav eextremely high boil-off rates on the order of 23-25%/hr so I usually start my boils a little over 8 gallons. This one started at 8.5 gallons and boiled down to around 5.75 over the 90 minute boil. Since everyone's system is different, we can't really say "start the boil with 7 gallons" or whatever since that obviously wouldn't have worked for me. And just because I started with 8.5 gallons doesn't mean everyone should do that. You really just have to adjust the recipe to your system.

In the past I always double batch sparged and I believe it was causing me to get some tannins in my beer. At that time I was getting 85-90% efficiency. My current process for all my beers (not just the 11.11.11) is to single batch sparge with just a little more water that what I used to mash with. The rest of the water I need to hit my preboil voume is heated up with the sparge water, and added straight to the first runnings. For the 11.11.11, I just used 2 more gallons than usual at that point. Since I only boiled the 2 gallons of first runnings to about half a gallon, my preboil volume ended up around 8.5 gallons instead of ~8.25 like normal and I increased my flame during the boil to get it down to where I wanted it.

But don't base your procedure off mine if it won't work for you. Brewing is all about adjusting your system to best fit your needs.

TMI?

Jason_Merritt said:

I'm a little confused. Where does the Brett come in? I thought that's what made it a sour beer. Is the Brett in the 9097? If I'm not using the 9097, then this is something I don't have to worry about, right? See, the reason I've never made a sour beer is becuase I don't understand them

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9097 is a mixture of a saccharomyces and a brettanomyces strain.

Got it. Thanks KingBrian.

Jason, give Orval and Ommegeddon a try to see what brett can do to a beer. You'll have to imagine the character in an old ale, if you can, because these styles are very different from the one we're brewing. I've never seen a commercial example of a brett olde ale.

I'll give em a try. I've never had an Old Ale though so my imagination will be working overtime! ha

Jason_Merritt said:

I'll give em a try. I've never had an Old Ale though so my imagination will be working overtime! ha

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Hah, just don't mix Orval and Old Peculiar. Or maybe...

Damn! My yeast is back ordered.

jmo88 said:

Jason, give Orval and Ommegeddon a try to see what brett can do to a beer. You'll have to imagine the character in an old ale, if you can, because these styles are very different from the one we're brewing. I've never seen a commercial example of a brett olde ale.

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I wonder if the Odell Saboteur 'Brett Barrel Brown Ale' would be a closer example? Looks like I'll get to try it Saturday at any rate since I'm going to The Bricktop in Lincoln NE for the Mikkeller Yeast Series event and they have the Odell on tap currently (according to their website).

I brewing this beer Sunday. My 9097 will be here tomorrow. This will be the first time for a starter, so should I do the starter Friday night or Saturday morning?

SCARYLARRY said:

I brewing this beer Sunday. My 9097 will be here tomorrow. This will be the first time for a starter, so should I do the starter Friday night or Saturday morning?

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Either way would be fine! As long as the yeast has 24 hours to replicate, you'll be good. Giving it more time certainly wont hurt.


Got my yeast in the mail today, cant wait to brew this soon. I'll take some pics during the brew and share here.

Im definatly getting in on this brew.....

Can someone help me out with the Treacle? I don't know exaclty what it is or how to use it.

Jason_Merritt said:

Can someone help me out with the Treacle? I don't know exaclty what it is or how to use it.

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It's basically the British version of blackstrap molasses. You can probably find it at your LHBS, at a local gourmet or British Isles grocery, or on Amazon. Or you could just go with blackstrap molasses and you probably won't be able to tell any difference. Just weigh out 8 oz. of the stuff and dump it in your boil kettle. I boiled mine the whole 90 minutes.

I'm stoked about doing an old ale, this is gonna be some good *&@#.

AHS delivered last night, so I am taking half a day today to brew....

Did anyone find where to get the exact recipe in one place? Fer instance, I ended up having to get amber lme because I couldn't find Amber malt from someone that had the the rest of the ingredients. AHS came closest - cause of the 9097.

ISLAGI said:

AHS delivered last night, so I am taking half a day today to brew....

Did anyone find where to get the exact recipe in one place? Fer instance, I ended up having to get amber lme because I couldn't find Amber malt from someone that had the the rest of the ingredients. AHS came closest - cause of the 9097.

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I'm pretty sure all the big internet homebrew stores except Austin carry the amber malt. Amber LME isn't a good substitute. Amber malt is a darker kilned pale malt whereas amber LME is base malt and caramel malt. You can replicate some amber malt by toasting pale malt in your oven. How to Brew has a toasting section for more details.

ISLAGI said:

AHS delivered last night, so I am taking half a day today to brew....

Did anyone find where to get the exact recipe in one place? Fer instance, I ended up having to get amber lme because I couldn't find Amber malt from someone that had the the rest of the ingredients. AHS came closest - cause of the 9097.

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Brewmasters warehouse has the grain and the yeast should be in stock today. It was backordered I found out on wednesday/thursday. Anyhow I figured the treacle could be found locally and a similiar AA% hop can be used. I'll be using Nugget since I have it on hand in abundance.

Here is what I'm doing for this. Using marris otter for the base, using crystal 40 for the amber and for the dark just finished roasting some marris otter, for the hops going to use willamette. Doing my starter on the 9097 in a few and brewing on Sunday. I'll post some pics.

One last thing I have bourbon barrel lids that I'll cutting into strips for the oak should I put some bourbon over them to sanitize or just drop them in since this is already a bugged beer.

SCARYLARRY said:

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One last thing I have bourbon barrel lids that I'll cutting into strips for the oak should I put some bourbon over them to sanitize or just drop them in since this is already a bugged beer.

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soaking them in bourbon wont sanitize them. If you want to sanitize them use steam.

Do I need to sanitize? I thought that the bourbon and high alcohol content would

SCARYLARRY said:

Here is what I'm doing for this. Using marris otter for the base, using crystal 40 for the amber and for the dark just finished roasting some marris otter, for the hops going to use willamette. Doing my starter on the 9097 in a few and brewing on Sunday. I'll post some pics.

One last thing I have bourbon barrel lids that I'll cutting into strips for the oak should I put some bourbon over them to sanitize or just drop them in since this is already a bugged beer.

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Bourbon probably isn't high enough alc% to actually sanitize. I guess it depends on how the barrel ends were stored. I re-listened to episode 4 of brew strong and the suggestions were either use a pressure canner to sterilize or bring to a boil in a small amount of water in a microwave.

I mentioned in post 15 that just having brett present doesn't make it bugged, since brett is just another genus of Saccharomycetaceae. Saccharomyces is a genus of Saccharomycetaceae as well. For my bugged version I'm either adding Lactobacillus to the 9097 or using the Roeselare blend which contains Specific proportions of a Belgian style ale strain, a sherry strain, two Brettanomyces strains, a Lactobacillus culture, and a Pediococcus culture.

Yes, adding non sanitized oak could introduce all kinds of bugs other than Brett. It might come out really good...but its a total dice roll!!

Bourbon (or any other 80 proof ethanol spirit) is a plenty good sterilizer. In fact, I remember reading 40% ABV solutions are better sanitizers than 100% ethanol due to the fact that in higher ethanol solutions, the bugs will kind of clench up and not let the etOH into their cells.

KingBrianI said:

Bourbon (or any other 80 proof ethanol spirit) is a plenty good sterilizer. In fact, I remember reading 40% ABV solutions are better sanitizers than 100% ethanol due to the fact that in higher ethanol solutions, the bugs will kind of clench up and not let the etOH into their cells.

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Yeah but on a porous surface like wood there are plenty of places for the bacteria to hide that the bourbon wont get to. Bourbon will work great on a hard, non-porous surface for sanitation.

strat_thru_marshall said:

Yeah but on a porous surface like wood there are plenty of places for the bacteria to hide that the bourbon wont get to. Bourbon will work great on a hard, non-porous surface for sanitation.

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That's why I always let the oak cubes soak for a couple weeks in the spirit. I've never had this lead to an infection.

Well damn...

This thread probably explains why Ed was out of 9097.

chumprock said:

Well damn...

This thread probably explains why Ed was out of 9097.

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I may have gotten one of his last ones! Sorry.

No problem. I've been busy with work and didnt even see what you were brewing in this thread until now. Enjoy!

I would love to be in on this. Sounds like a fantastic recipe. I think I'm going to use my home-made Dark Candi Sugar instead of the treacle.

I went to grab a beer out of my fridge today only to find that somehow my pack of Old Ale blend yeast for this batch had been moved to the back of the fridge, in front of the port that blows cold air.

The packet was partially frozen.

Crap.

I figure it's probably better to buy a new pack than to gamble that everything is OK in the slushy partially frozen smack pack. Oh well. I had to order the Brown and Amber malts today anyway. Hope to be able to brew this within the next week or so.

strat_thru_marshall said:

. . . my pack of Old Ale blend yeast for this batch had been moved to the back of the fridge, in front of the port that blows cold air. The packet was partially frozen.

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Had four kegs and a carboy stuffed in the beer fridge. Went to draw a pint and just a trickle comes out. I fiddle with the connections and eventually get beer. Next day same thing, but this time I realize the the beer line is right in front of the chilling vent and frozen.

Just pulled a gravity sample to check the 1 week progress. It's at 1.028 with the saccharomyces fermentation appearing to be at an end. The sacc may take it down another couple points but probably no more than that. I'm really happy with that since it leaves some room for the Brett to work, but will hopefully not let it dry out the beer too much. If the Brett takes it down to 1.016-1.020 I'd be very happy. That way there is still some malty sweetness remaining.

The gravity sample tasted very interesting. Still quite a bit of suspended yeast muddying the flavor but already it is very complex. Not as sweet as you would expect for 1.028, probably due to the abundance of dextrins from the high mash temp. The malt is very layered, lots of flavor in there. At this point it's hard to pull each out but theres some toastyness and some caramel immediately apparent. There's also a bit of tartness there already too, possibly from the Brett. A bit of fruitiness in there too. It's still way too early to get a good impression of how the beer will turn out, but it seems to be coming along very well!

I was wondering if it's ok to bulk age this beer in a corny keg or is there something about Brettanomyces fermentation that requires the use of a carboy?

That's a good question because I was wondering the same thing. Then again if the brett keeps chewing on sugars for six months or more I'd keep an airlock on the fermenter.

Any chance of getting this thread and the recipe thread stickied? The 10-10-10 one is up there, seems like this one should be too.

EDIT: Just realized the recipe is in the recipe database, so you obviously can't sticky that here. I think this thread should still be stickied, though.

orangehero said:

I was wondering if it's ok to bulk age this beer in a corny keg or is there something about Brettanomyces fermentation that requires the use of a carboy?

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Since I'm doing six 4-gallon batches I'm going to do both primary and bulk conditioning in cornies. :rockin:

I'd like to split my batch and age one with oak and one without. Any suggestions as to what type of oak, what toast level, what ratio of oak:beer, when to add, and how long to leave the beer on the oak?

Finally getting around to posting. Brewed mine 10 days ago. the brew day was long it took me about 2.5 hours to boil down. It was so thick at the end got it down to about to just under .5 gallon. It hit my numbers dead on, but ferm temps got away from me a little hope anything weird goes away with the amount of aging involved

SCARYLARRY said:

Finally getting around to posting. Brewed mine 10 days ago. the brew day was long it took me about 2.5 hours to boil down. It was so thick at the end got it down to about to just under .5 gallon. It hit my numbers dead on, but ferm temps got away from me a little hope anything weird goes away with the amount of aging involved

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I'm ready for a long brew day this Sunday as well. Good to know you hit the OG without problems.

I'm having a hard time tracking down Amber malt locally, I typically deal with one of the 3 close LHBS. I can get the brown malt but when I asked if they carry Amber, one LHBS directed me to brown (told me it was the same thing), another said "We have amber malt" and showed me some Belgian biscuit, and the other has a bin labeled "Amber/Carastan" (Carastan is actually crystal 35). Ugh, maybe I'll try to put some MO in the oven, but I don't have a mill. It's either that or delay the brew day another week and wait for my grain to ship from BMW.