Old sour brown

This is my Sour Brown, that I did not sour. It really has a lot of chocolate/porter-es flavor, Im hoping it will mellow out but its per-dy good.

and this is the other half souring, in Corny + 1oz Oak chips. the smell is awesome...but the flavor has some time to catch up.



Recipe: Sour brown 1.0_11gallon
Style: 17C-Sour Ale-Flanders Brown Ale/Oud Bruin

Recipe Overview

Wort Volume Before Boil: 14.25 US gals
Wort Volume After Boil: 12.35 US gals
Volume Transferred: 11.40 US gals
Volume At Pitching: 11.40 US gals
Final Batch Volume: 10.45 US gals
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.044 SG
Expected OG: 1.051 SG
Expected FG: 1.011 SG
Expected ABV: 5.3 %
Expected ABW: 4.1 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 24.5
Expected Color: 53.8 EBC
Apparent Attenuation: 76.9 %
Mash Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Duration: 75.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 70 degF

Fermentables
Belgian Munich Malt 11lb 6oz (50.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
Belgian Pilsen Malt 5lb 11oz (25.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
Belgian Special Aromatic Malt 3lb 13oz (16.7 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Chocolate Malt 15.20 oz (4.2 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Caramel 60L Malt 15.20 oz (4.2 %) In Mash/Steeped

Hops
UK Fuggle (4.5 % alpha) 1.90 oz Loose Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
UK Fuggle (4.5 % alpha) 1.90 oz Loose Pellet Hops used 30 Min From End

Other Ingredients

Yeast: White Labs WLP575-Belgian Style Ale Blend

Mash Schedule
Mash Type: Full Mash
Schedule Name:HERMS
Step: Rest at 110 degF for 15 mins
Step: Raise by direct heating to 135 degF for 15 mins
Step: Rest at 135 degF for 30 mins
Step: Raise by direct heating to 156 degF for 15 mins
Step: Rest at 156 degF for 30 mins
Step: Raise to and Mash out at 165 degF for 15 mins

Recipe Notes
Split 5 gallons and sour with bret, lactobacilis, pect. in secondary

Looks delicious, I have a "real" Oud Bruin with similar recipe souring right now. I used Roselare plus some bottle dregs. What are you using to sour the rest?

I used a vial of WLP655 Belgian souring mix, after I did the primary fermentation with Belgian ale yeast. I'm thinking of aging both beers together and doing a blend, but I really like the flavor of the un-soured beer, so i might just do a second batch when its fully soured. Then I will rack the soured beer and blend it with the half the fresh, and re-pitch the bugs in to the other half to sour.

This is my first sour beer, so I hope it goes well, the aging time can make it a harsh learning curve, but by the taste of this one I'm encouraged.

So I had a long train ride to Santa Barbara this weekend, and back, so lots of time to listen to pod casts from the BN, and from listening to the wood aging episode of Brew strong, I got a little concerned about pitching all those oak chips in to the mix, because it sounds like with Oak chips, it's best to keep a beer on chips for no longer than 6 weeks? and I plan on keeping this on the oak for a year...

I guess I should have done more research in to Oak products before just tossing oak in to the mix. All i wanted was a good home for my bugs!! But they where talking about aging finished beer, and this sour is still a work in progress right, so I just tasted it...

there is definitely some oak, but its not overwhelming yet, but they have only been in there for a few weeks. I'm thinking though with all the bugs in there that the oak flavor should will not over power the whole thing,because the Bret (et al), will eat most of the flavoring from the oak, as well I'm thinking in the end I will blend the aged beer with a young beer to get the flavor where I want it .

Oh well, It's all an experiment...

What made you decide to oak and Oud Bruin?

Tonedef131 said:

What made you decide to oak and Oud Bruin?

Click to expand...

My thinking was that these beers traditionally are stored and soured in Oak barrels, and that the Oak provides a surface for bret, lactobacilis, and pect to colonize and and sour the beer.

But I found this at beer tutor under flemish sour, so I guess I'm not to style...Shoot.

"These beers exhibit little to no hop or alcohol flavors and the sour flavor often turns sweet in the finish. The Red Ale variety are often aged for 2 years in oak barrels. Oud Bruin varieties are not oak barrel aged. ABV is typically between 4-8% and IBUs are 15-25. "

The confusion comes from the fact that the reds are aged in large oak vats (not barrels), whose wood flavors would have disappeared long ago. Ah, well...as I've often said, the great thing about brewing is that if you goof up a beer, it just turns into another beer!

Looks like things are moving along with this beer. I can see the pecllicle layer is starting to get thick. It kinda looks nasty, but it smells good

Well I checked my souring beer this weekend, as I was finishing up my fermentation/brew room, and noticed that the pellicle layer had fallen! I was thinking I must have mistaken my last post, and had not Identified the layer I saw as correctly as the pelicle layer. But today I was perusing Brewing classic styles in the sour beer section, and noticed JZ wrote...

" If your impacient, you can go with a higher temperature of up to 80ºF, and the beer will finish in as little as a couple months,but the results will not be a complex or as tasty..."

Click to expand...

SO I took a taster, and sure enough JZ was right, it was done nice and sour, but really lacked the sweet/sour quality I was looking for.so then I did a blend off the keg that was not soured and the soured.

It is done at a 1/3 soured to non sour, and is vary good. the Oak quality is vary subtle, slightly dry and astringent finish, but the body an aroma are vary pleasing. Sweet and slightly sour taste, with a nice mouth feel. The chocolate is still a little to pronounced, so I think I will cut back on it in the next batch.

The plan now will be to, transfer to bottles at close to 1:1 ratio,and refill the keg with the second batch. now that I have the room finished I can keep the keg at 68ºF, which should improve the flavor.







So I took a

Looks gorgeous. What was your FG on the soured version?

The sour beer got down to 1.004, and the non soured beer was down to 1.011.

This has me thinking that I might be making bottle bombs if I blend the two beers and bottle them without filtering the sour beer? If I do a 50/50 blend then my gravity will be ~1.007.5 the carbonation will be about 1.5% after blending. I wonder if this will be a problem?