Is This Infected??!??!

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Evan!

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Yes. Yes it is. :fro:

I just racked my Flanders Red (1.070 -> 1.020 w/ S-05) to secondary on top of 0.6 oz of oak chips and dumped in Wyeast's Roeselare Blend. This is my first sour batch evar, so I'm excited. Unfortunately, my excitement will have to wait till this time next year, but hey, what can you do?

The best part is that when I smelled the empty smackpack, it smelled like Lambic. My mouth was watering...

Anyway, wish my bugs luck...they have a long road ahead. :tank:
 
Yes. Yes it is.

This alone is what I want to say in almost every other thread that starts with that title.

I very highly recomend that you listen to the Brewing Network's Sunday Session from last Sunday, the most informative show they have ever done and it's all about sour beers. Tastings of every strain of Brett seperately, aging times and what kinds of sour you can look forward to from your blend.
 
Evan, are you aging in glass or plastic? I don't even think you have any plastic...are you going to use a dowel to allow a little oxygen in there?

Did you make a starter or anything? I'm also trying to look up info on this.

I'm going to hit mine up in a couple weeks. I'm still debating on using Cal Ale first then Roeselare, or just using straight Roeselare to get it more sour.
 
Evan, are you aging in glass or plastic? I don't even think you have any plastic...are you going to use a dowel to allow a little oxygen in there?

Did you make a starter or anything? I'm also trying to look up info on this.

I'm going to hit mine up in a couple weeks. I'm still debating on using Cal Ale first then Roeselare, or just using straight Roeselare to get it more sour.

First off, yes, I do have plastic, but no, I'm not using it here. I may shove a dowel through a bung at some point, but I'm waiting to hear back from our resident sour expert, landhoney, on that issue.

Second, I did not make a starter. According to JZ, it's not necessary. There's no ester production or off-flavors to worry about from stressed yeast, nor are you concerned about lag time. I just smacked the pack several days ago, and it swelled up to full size after 3 days.

Third, I did it per JZ. Fermented out with S-05 (Cal Ale), racked to secondary, and then added the Roeselare. It's not as much an issue of the level of sourness as it is a matter of funk. Think about it...once you pitch the Roeselare, you have to leave the beer on it for quite awhile. Now, the Roeselare has some Cal Ale in it, but not that much...and if you pitch it right out of the gate, it will compete with the Brett. Then, after all is said and done, it will sit on the cake for awhile, and the Brett will eat the dead Cal Ale cells (sort of like Autolysis) over the course of the year. With a normal beer, autolysis will produce nasty horrible flavors, but if the Brett does it, it produces barnyardy, funky characteristics. This is what you would expect from a Gueuze or Lambic, but not from a Flanders Red....FR should be cleaner with less funk. Thus...when you ferment it down to 1.020 or so with the Cal Ale, all the sugar that's fermentable by the Cal Ale is gone, and so the Cal Ale cells that are present in the Roeselare blend never get a chance to metabolize or reproduce because they have no food left. So in the end, the Brett takes hold, and since the Cal Ale hasn't repro'd, there's less funk produced from Brett eating dead Cal Ale cells.

At least, that's how I understand it from the Jiggaman.

Now, if you want a funkier beer (see: Hanssen's), then pitch the Roeselare initially and leave everything in the primary for a year. But you'll be making more of a Gueuze or Lambic than a Flanders Red.
 
Did you do the Flanders Red from the Brewing Classic Styles book? I've got 5 gallons of that going, except that I used the White Labs yeast that's similar. I couldn't get the Roeselare.

edit - and I just peeked under the airlock. There's a nice pelicle on there now.
 
Did you do the Flanders Red from the Brewing Classic Styles book? I've got 5 gallons of that going, except that I used the White Labs yeast that's similar. I couldn't get the Roeselare.

edit - and I just peeked under the airlock. There's a nice pelicle on there now.

Not from BCS, but pretty much that same thing, I just used JZ's recipe from his podcast. From what he says, it's ALL about the roeselare. I have some little white spots this morning that I think are the start of a pellicle. If so, damn, that was fast!
 
Well, those white spots haven't really gotten any bigger or smaller over the last few days. I'm not at all concerned (the Roeselare activator pack swelled up nicely), just wondering if someone with experience here can shed some light on how long it might take for my pellicle to form.
 
I dunno, Seth might be on vacay or some sh*t...I axed him a question about oak dowels several days ago and he hasn't written back.

I remember reading in the Mad-ferm blog a whole section of experiments with Oak Dowels, so maybe in lieu of our resident, you may find some answers there....

I was just reading about his attempt at fermeting caramel with brett...pretty interesting.
 
I may shove a dowel through a bung at some point,

That's just the quote that I've been looking for. :D

I'm going to have to get brewing some more so that we can do some major swappage a year from now. Hopefully the string of Belgians that I'm planning for this fall will be good and ready by then.
 
That's just the quote that I've been looking for. :D

I'm going to have to get brewing some more so that we can do some major swappage a year from now. Hopefully the string of Belgians that I'm planning for this fall will be good and ready by then.

I'm seriously considering a beer gun, or at least trying out BM's ghetto-fabulous version. I've got so many batches that I kegged and were awesome, but I don't have bottles of to swap. Glibbidy sent me some bottles that he just bottled straight from a picnic tap, and they were very undercarbed...so I don't wanna just wing it. I've tried saving a small portion of each batch on its way into the keg and bottling that with carb tabs...but have had mixed results for some reason. But I'm definitely bottling my Old Ale. Speaking of which...that bastard "finished" in 4 or 5 days, and the krausen dropped, but now it's doing that whole "constantly offgas a very small stream of tiny bubbles" thing. Ugh. Gonna leave it in primary till it stops that mess. When I checked it at 5 days, it'd gone from 1.071 to 1.020...not that bad considering the high mash temp, and really what I was looking for. I've gotta check the grav again to see if it dropped.

When are you planning on brewing yours?
 
I'm seriously considering a beer gun, or at least trying out BM's ghetto-fabulous version. I've got so many batches that I kegged and were awesome, but I don't have bottles of to swap. Glibbidy sent me some bottles that he just bottled straight from a picnic tap, and they were very undercarbed...so I don't wanna just wing it. I've tried saving a small portion of each batch on its way into the keg and bottling that with carb tabs...but have had mixed results for some reason. But I'm definitely bottling my Old Ale. Speaking of which...that bastard "finished" in 4 or 5 days, and the krausen dropped, but now it's doing that whole "constantly offgas a very small stream of tiny bubbles" thing. Ugh. Gonna leave it in primary till it stops that mess. When I checked it at 5 days, it'd gone from 1.071 to 1.020...not that bad considering the high mash temp, and really what I was looking for. I've gotta check the grav again to see if it dropped.

When are you planning on brewing yours?

I'll be brewing it within the next couple of weeks. I've got Fuggles coming tomorrow and some EKG on the way :D.

I'm glad to hear that you finished at 1.020. Did you send me your grainbill on this, because I'm shooting to end up much higher at about 1.094 for this, and hoping to end between 1.026 and 1.030. The WLP022 that you used has an average AA of 71-76% according to White Labs. The WLP002 I'm using is in the 63-70% range. From the BJCP style description it should have a very thick and chewy mouthfeel, so an AA of 68% would put me right where I want to be at 1.028.

I'm going to leave it in secondary as long as I can, then I'll keg it, force carb and BMBF to Belgian 750ml bottles with corks and cages to store and swap, and 12 oz'ers to send to NHC '09.

What was you BU:GU? I currently have it at .489 but with the extended aging I'm thinking of knocking it up to .65-.7ish.
 
I've got 60 gallons of that recipe aging a barrel in my basement. It was fermented down to 1.018ish in individual carboys with 001 or US-05 first, then it was racked into an oak Cabernet barrel and 5 gallons of Brett starter was racked on top (actually one whole 5 gallon batch of the same recipe was only innoculated with two smack packs of brett. It's now 6 months later and the pellicle is rocking. A recent taste was moderately lactic and oaky. I even chilled a carbonator-capped it for a real insight into the final product and I'm psyched. It's quaffable right now but should be done in December.

I don't know about in a carboy, but there was absolutely no visible airlock action in the barrel on the Brett. It's just really slow and I think the oak is letting out the pressure very slowly.
 
I've been putting off making a Flanders Red for too damn long- it's going to be the next brew.

I really do love me sour beers. :rockin:

Soo- who has actually brewed and tasted Jamil's recipe? Sounds like Bobby is close with his!
 
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