A few questions on a Flanders Red

Working on a recipe for a Flanders red right now my buddy and i are going to brew up in a few weeks.

Based off of a few recipes i have seen and wild brews.

OG 1.052
IBU: 12ish

Vienna 50%
Munich 15%
Caramunich 7%
Maize/white wheat 10%
Special B 3%

Hallertauer to get to correct ibu's


Thought i would ask people with some experience if it looks good, i probably could of just gone pound for pound from someone else's recipe but what the hell, might as well do something different haha. We are going to brew up 15 gallons of this and secondary it in a sanke keg in my parents "cellar" (partially underground garage closet that stays pretty consistent temps lol). Primary we are thinking of fermenting in 3 carboys, 2 pitched with us-05 and the 3rd pitched directly with roselare.
opinions? thoughts? concerns? criticism? haha

thanks!
-Josh

edit: also planning on adding some oak cubes to it that i have been saving all my bottle dregs in.

Sounds like you've got the right plan. I like the idea of doing two primaries with US05 and one with roeselare. I've never liked the recipes that pitch roeselare from the get-go because they always turn out far to sour in my opinion. I typically ferment in primary with US-05 until it's about 80% done, then I'll pitch brett, pedio, and lacto in seperate strains.

I've had the opposite experience, I've never been able to get much sourness without pitching the bugs up front. That concern is doubled with US-05 since it is such an attenuative strain.

The recipe looks fine to me, although honestly the details of a recipe aren’t nearly as important with a sour beer as most other styles since so much of the character is from the lactic acid bacteria and Brett.

Good luck.

I think there are two camps on this one. You either mash near 160F so that the wort is too dextrinous to have the US05 completely ferment out or you pitch all strains up front. Beer yeast usually works too quickly to try timing the addition of souring bugs IMHO. What does "too sour" mean?

This has been one of my concerns as well. I am personally a fan of a more sour beer compared to one that is less. But the main reason we are only pitching directly into one is our lack of carboys we want to make permanent for sours. I know some people use carboys for both and have no problems but we decided to play it safe. I forgot to mention i plan on mashing high on this one. Last time i did this i mashed around 157 and luckily had it stall out around 1.02 before i added the bugs. I plan on doing the same on these ones and hope the combo of a higher OG and 1/3rd of it being pitched directly will result in something that is sour enough but not overly sour. Thanks for the replies guys.

Can't say I have a ton of experience, I have brewed a lot of sours that still are aging. But based on other people's beers I've sampled, and the samples I have pulled from some of my sours - I am definately in the camp of people who say you don't get enough sourness when you pitch regular ale yeast first. I have an Oud Bruin that I did a 4 day primary with WLP001, then added WL Sour Mix for secondary. It's almost 3 months old, and still barely a hint of sourness. It is so common that I hear about undersoured beers, and very rare that I hear about oversoured beers. I say add them both at the same time, or be prepared to wait 3 years or more for a good level of sourness. And I would definately pay close attention to anything "Oldsock" says - check out his blog. He has probably brewed more sours than the rest of us combined.

Yeah i get what your saying. I might rethink my process and see if can at least get 2 carboys that are directly pitched. Thanks for the advice man. oh and yeah i do read his blog, it is very helpful!

Bobby_M said:

What does "too sour" mean?

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I say if anyone thinks any beer is too sour, they should stick to Budweiser and leave the delicious Belgians for me!

haha nice. So if i stick with my 2 carboys with us-05 and 1 with roselare. At what time should i transfer them all to the sanke keg. My original thought was to wait for us-05 ones to be done then combine them all. But then i was wondering how long most of you leave your directly pitched roselare beers in primary? obviously i know this varies but i guess more general guidelines are what im looking for. I dont want to take the roselare off its yeast cake to soon. Im thinking i should just wait until they have all pretty much slowed down but thought i would ask. I hope that jumble of terribly worded sentences made sense lol.

This is just a theory, but with your 3 carboy scenario, I think what would be good would be to first brew up just enough wort to fill your 2 "clean" carboys and pitch the neutral yeast. A few days later, brew up the rest of the wort that you would have added to the 3rd carboy, and add that plus the 2 you already have going to the sanke and pitch the Roselare into the whole batch. This way there is some fresh wort in there that hasn't been fermented by your neutral yeast already for the bugs to feast on, and you won't lose any Roselare goodness in a transfer. Like you, I would want to keep the beer on the cake once the Roselare is in there. I worry that if I transfer the beer, I will lose some of the souring bugs from the cake. Makes sense to me. Maybe someone else will chime in here and say I'm wrong, but the more I think about this, the more I like the sound of it.

Your ingredients only add up to 85%. Are you missing some pilsener malt? Looks very similar to the Jamil Z Flanders Red recipe.

I've got one going now. Quite sour, slightly tart. I added both oak and currants to mine. I just used the roeselare. It's really good. I'm gonna get another one going later this month.

AdamWiz said:

This is just a theory, but with your 3 carboy scenario, I think what would be good would be to first brew up just enough wort to fill your 2 "clean" carboys and pitch the neutral yeast. A few days later, brew up the rest of the wort that you would have added to the 3rd carboy, and add that plus the 2 you already have going to the sanke and pitch the Roselare into the whole batch. This way there is some fresh wort in there that hasn't been fermented by your neutral yeast already for the bugs to feast on, and you won't lose any Roselare goodness in a transfer. Like you, I would want to keep the beer on the cake once the Roselare is in there. I worry that if I transfer the beer, I will lose some of the souring bugs from the cake. Makes sense to me. Maybe someone else will chime in here and say I'm wrong, but the more I think about this, the more I like the sound of it.

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That does sound like a good idea. Ill wait to see what others say about this but it seems reasonable.

passedpawn said:

Your ingredients only add up to 85%. Are you missing some pilsener malt? Looks very similar to the Jamil Z Flanders Red recipe.

I've got one going now. Quite sour, slightly tart. I added both oak and currants to mine. I just used the roeselare. It's really good. I'm gonna get another one going later this month.

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Yeah good call! i cant read or type, my notes say 65% for vienna not 50%, so that is where my leftover 15% went lol. Thanks for the notice though, knowing me i would of gone from this and had no clue what went wrong haha.

AdamWiz said:

I say if anyone thinks any beer is too sour, they should stick to Budweiser and leave the delicious Belgians for me!

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Well...what is a good sour for you? I can drink things like la folie (extremely sour in my opinion), and I enjoy them. But...I'd prefer something like Rodenbach Grand Cru or New Belgiums Le Terroir. I like a subtle sourness that still showcases the recipe a bit. I think too many breweries are just throwing in a ton of bugs and letting it go...

I see sours taking a turn for the worst within the next few years. People are forgetting about the art of blending and conditioning and just letting stuff get funky.

I tend to like a higher level of sourness/funk than a lot of people. I get what you're saying about some American breweries just throwing bugs in but not taking the time to balance and blend them properly. For most breweries, sours are not a big enough part of their lineup to spend too mich time on. That is why I am so impressed with Jolly Pumpkin - for such a small brewery to invest so much time and effort barrel aging, blending, etc. is pretty amazing. Some folks wondered if they would be successful since they focus on sour beers, and I am really glad they have been. Their "La Roja" is about as good as a Flanders red gets IMO. And I am really looking forward to the next time Bell's has their "wild one" sour brown on tap. Rumor has it they are experimenting with bottling some 750 ml bottles of that one. Unfortunately, we can't get New Belgium here in Michigan, so I have never had La Folie - but have heard really good things( it's great that there is such increasing demand for craft beer, but what a bummer that it has led to less and less breweries widely distributing). I like Duchesse de Borgeone and Petrus Oud Bruin, but to me there's just something kind of "artificial" about a beer that is pasteurized and back-sweetened. After a glass or two, it feels a little sugary in my gut. I prefer something a little more raw.

Not too many sours available in my area, so I have to brew them myself to try them. I should get there early next year; I'm brewing every recipe from jamil's book to develop my palate and brewer skills.

Interested to see how this turns out