Double Flanders?

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FoundationFunkwerks

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...any advice?
I'm thinking of doing 5-10 batches in the next 3 years. (Blending to follow...) I'm fairly experienced in practical non brett brewing. That being said, I'm new to bugs, but have a huge resource in information to withdraw from.

I'm wondering, have any of you tried a true "Burgundie of Belgium?" Blended or strait.

The goal is to shoot for some wine like characteristics, but stay true to the Flanders Red Ale flavor.
Mainly 10% or more ABV.

...I know using brett above 6-7% has and is being done.
I just want to keep myself inline before I whip up a 1.100 OG dud.
Cheers, Mates!
:pipe:
 
Have you had any De Dolle beers? Oerbier is a sour red around 9% and the Oerbier Reserva is barrel aged and over 12% (if you can find it and then force your wallet open to pay over $1/oz). Both put the awe in awesome.

Good luck!
 
Only trouble you face is that the bacteria's really struggle when the alc% gets that high. They basically struggle to do their work at the strength's of Oud Bruin's. You wouldn't get much sour Flanders character with a beer that big unless you pre-soured the wort before main Sacc/Brett fermentation.
 
Thanks!
That's the info I was forgetting, the higher ABV, hindering the brett's job.
I thinking of doing a batch every 3 months. (4 a year.) For a blending to be done in 3 years.
So in that time I will have
-4 3year old's
-4 2year old's
-2 1/2year
-2 fairly fresh
So I could blend 'em the way the "pro's" do.

Sit on the blend for 6 ish months (add fruit / wood / herbs / etc.)
Then bottle.
Each batch would vary the yeast strains ( I can think of 8-10 yeast strains off the top of my head from Wy, and WLP)
...and keep a fairly consistent recipe.

2Row Dexatrene base
10% Flaked Maze
10% Unmalted wheat
8% Special B
5% Corn Suger
(maybe a little something else?...)
One addition of a whole leaf hop (90 min boil) mild, very low AA, not American citrus kind...

I'm liking this already!!!!
:D
 
Depending on the level of crystal malts (if you want residual sweetness and body you need a lot) 1.080 should net you a 10% beer with out a sweat. The trick to ensuring sourness would be to pitch bacteria first and get the beer warm for 3-5 days. Then you can pitch the remainder of the culture. So if I were you I'd buy pedio separate or if you have the lab skills/resources just isolate the culture's bacteria on your own. This is how I did my 10% oud bruin and it's sour but not in your face sour.
 
I know 1.100 would get me around 12%. I'd love to shoot for 15% but in a basement homebrew set up, it would be difficult. (Let alone getting some true to style sourness out of that kind of ABV.)

Thanks @smokinghole, I'm planning on doing a variety of brews (IE WLP Amer. Farmhouse, Flemish Ale Blend, Belgian Sour Mix 1, Wy's Roeselare would be lower gravity 5-6% with strait pitching.)

Then make some higher gravity batches using your method. (Blend in 3 years, as per plan.)
 
Thanks!
That's the info I was forgetting, the higher ABV, hindering the brett's job.

Brett is a yeast and isn't as alcohol sensitive as souring bacteria (Lacto/Pedio). Look at Crooked Stave, Chad knocked out a 10% Baltic Porter with 100% Brett fermentation. No issues with gravity for Brett, it'll chew through it and due to the low finishing gravity you don't have to go as high with SG to get the alc. Remember the beer will probably finish at 1.010 or under. Adding bacteria first before any alcohol is produced is the best way to go to control the level of sourness. Chucking all the cultures in at once will end up with one result and that one only. You need only look at fermenting a Berliner Weisse with lacto first and then an ale strain compared to pitching both together.
 
I've done a 1.085 O.G. Flanders Red with the Roeselare blend. It soured up nicely, the same as my 1.060 version. It also finished around 1.015 and had a very vinous quality. After 1.5 yrs I bottled half straight and added a lb of elderberries to the other half for 2 months. They are currently carbing up- so I can't wait to try them.

My recipe is here (the Super Flanders was just the first runnings diluted to 1.085)
http://jeffreycrane.blogspot.com/2011/07/sour-beer-2011-flanders-red.html
 
Brett is ok up to about 18%. However, it doesn't sour.

Lacto and pedio are ok to about 8%, although there seems to be strains that can go higher.

Lacto hates hops. Anything above zero (some say 10 IBUs) will inhibit growth.

You want to make a strong sour. I'd suggest:
a zero hop wort with lacto kept at 100 F for about 5 days. That should decently sour the wort. kept at 100 F
 
Brett is ok up to about 18%. However, it doesn't sour.

Lacto and pedio are ok to about 8%, although there seems to be strains that can go higher.

Lacto hates hops. Anything above zero (some say 10 IBUs) will inhibit growth.

You want to make a strong sour. I'd suggest:
- A zero hop wort with lacto kept at 100 F for about 5 days. That should decently sour the wort. kept at 100 F.
- Boil all or part of the soured wort with hops.
- Aerate and add yeast and fresh bugs (Brett & Pedio, or a basic mix).
- Leave alone for a couple of years.
 
I did a sour mash for 4 days on a Berliner Weisse and it was tart! I'm not sure how the timeline on a lacto pitched wort would differ, but 5 days sounds super sour. Yesterday, I listened to part of the Sunday Session interview with Dan Carey from New Glarus and there is some good info on lacto fermentation and sour mashing in there. He recommends getting a wine acidity test kit to measure % acidity instead of ph.

I've been working on recipe for a Dark Strong / Weiss wine hybrid and was thinking about brewing today, but I'm tempted to stretch the protein rest out to a couple days. If you haven't soured mash or wort before, keeping it CO2 purged is the key in my book.
 
Thanks gang!
I'll be doing some further education and starting this in January.
...feel free to add anything to this post about "higher gravity sours" as you feel appropriate.
(Y'all rock!)
:rockin:
 
Calder said:
Lacto and pedio are ok to about 8%, although there seems to be strains that can go higher.

Lacto hates hops. Anything above zero (some say 10 IBUs) will inhibit growth.

It is not true that all lacto is not hop tolerant. I have a strain that contributed serious acidity in a 35ish ibu wort. I actually am working on isolating the strain out of the culture. Also lacto strains can produce ropy viscosity just like the Pedio everyone is familiar with. Now I do understand that what is normally repeated is typical of the easily available commercial strains from wyeast and whitelabs. There are other sources of bacteria like yogurt, sausage cultures, and some wine cultures as well. These alternative sources may not behave as what everyone has read and repeated.
 
smokinghole said:
It is not true that all lacto is not hop tolerant. I have a strain that contributed serious acidity in a 35ish ibu wort. I actually am working on isolating the strain out of the culture. Also lacto strains can produce ropy viscosity just like the Pedio everyone is familiar with. Now I do understand that what is normally repeated is typical of the easily available commercial strains from wyeast and whitelabs. There are other sources of bacteria like yogurt, sausage cultures, and some wine cultures as well. These alternative sources may not behave as what everyone has read and repeated.

Not to stray to far off topic, but have you played with any Fermtech stuff? I've got some FRM-25 to make Spanish Chorizo and Salumi with and the though had crossed my mind.
 
I haven't played with fermtech but when I make some fermented goat sausages (hopefully before too long) I will try some. The bacteria species are different than what is typically referenced for beer making. I suspect that might be due to the influence of the yeast labs choosing Pediococcus cerevisiae or Pediococcus damnosus and sticking to those strains. The other factors for their choice may be off flavor production by the other species such as diacetyl. While the current cultures are considered heavy diacetyl producers there's a possibility that the species in the sausage cultures produce way more diacetyl than the standard beer strains.
 
Aren't there any issues with "pre-souring" with lacto as far as the pH of the wort is concerned? Can't the lacto drop the pH too far to prevent the other organisms from doing their work over the next year?

Also, does anyone have a good resource for the classification (taxonomy) of all these wild beer microorganisms? There seems to be a lot of talk about just pedio and lacto, and not necessarily talk about the species level as we do with sacch and now more so brett.
 
Presouring with bacteria in these cultures shouldn't really cause much problems. The beer will still attenuate because the brett is very acid tolerant. The sacch may have a rough time depending on how long you let the bacteria go first. Eitherway you're just giving the sourness a chance before you add the different species and strains of yeast to the party. The only effect I could see is that the presoured wort may leave more extract for the brett to consume increasing the brett flavors. The reason for the increased extract for the brett to consume would be a pH effect on the saccharomyces and subsequent decrease attenuation by saccharomyces. However most belgian strains of saccharomyces are very acid tolerant as are some of the more robust american ale strains like WLP001.
 
I've done a 1.085 O.G. Flanders Red with the Roeselare blend. It soured up nicely, the same as my 1.060 version. It also finished around 1.015 and had a very vinous quality. After 1.5 yrs I bottled half straight and added a lb of elderberries to the other half for 2 months. They are currently carbing up- so I can't wait to try them.

My recipe is here (the Super Flanders was just the first runnings diluted to 1.085)
http://jeffreycrane.blogspot.com/2011/07/sour-beer-2011-flanders-red.html

I'm into my first attempt at a Flanders Red. I made it on 11/24 (4 days ago). The OG was 1.073 and 19 IBUs. I used both Wyeast Roeselare and WLP Flanders Ale mix because I had them on hand. I pitched at about 67F, but overnight the temp dropped in my house to about 55F. There's no bubbling in the airlock, but there is a nice aroma in the closet where the plastic bucket fermenter is sitting. With your experience, anything to worry about?
 
So you haven't seen any activity since pitching 4 days ago? No bubbling or positive pressure in the airlock?

You do want the Sacc yeast in both of the blends to ferment the bulk of the sugars, mostly to drive up the alcohol and kill off more of the bad tasting bacteria that could have made it into your beer. More than likely you are fine, but if you didn't see any activity for that high of a starting gravity you might want to add more Sacc yeast. Anything will work, I prefer a fruitier Belgian strain, but if you have some on hand I'd pitch that.
 
So you haven't seen any activity since pitching 4 days ago? No bubbling or positive pressure in the airlock?

You do want the Sacc yeast in both of the blends to ferment the bulk of the sugars, mostly to drive up the alcohol and kill off more of the bad tasting bacteria that could have made it into your beer. More than likely you are fine, but if you didn't see any activity for that high of a starting gravity you might want to add more Sacc yeast. Anything will work, I prefer a fruitier Belgian strain, but if you have some on hand I'd pitch that.

You are right, everything was ok. I finally got some dry yeast and was ready to pitch it, but there was no need. I moved it to a glass carboy and there was good yeast growth, with a cake at the bottom. Just one of those cases where no activity in the air lock, must have been a small leak somewhere in the seal. Thanks!
 
On two occasions I've taken sours to 11% and 30+ ibus by pitching active starters of JP dregs. Their bacteria seem to be very aggressive as well as alcohol and hop tolerant.

Don't know how free they are with sharing info, but maybe shoot a note over to Upland. Gilgamesh is their double red and is soured well.
 
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