Flanders Brown Fermentation/Conditioning Schedule

I brewed a Flanders Brown on Saturday, along with pitching a single vial of the new WLP665 Flemish Ale Blend. It is sitting in my fermentation chamber at an ambient temp of 68F right now. From what I read, a starter or multiple vials was not necessary with this blended yeast.

I've read that I'll want to primary this for somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 weeks then rack to secondary to age for 1-1.5 years. I've also read a bit about the oak dowel rod in the secondary instead of an airlock to allow a little oxygen in for the bugs.

Can someone with more experience than I help me with a more definitive fermentation and conditioning schedule for this one? Do I rack at 6 weeks, or is there some sort of pre-pellicle I should be looking for or a certain gravity threshold I should hit before I rack??

I'm a very experienced brewer, but this is my first sour, so any tips on properly fermenting and conditioning this one would be appreciated!!

Dang. You beat me to the WLP665!

For a Flanders Brown, I would not use an oak dowel as there shouldn't be as much acetic acid in there as a Flanders Red. I wouldn't worry about a pre-transfer pellicle, it'll develop in time. I would primary as usual (4-6 weeks for me), then secondary it until you're happy with the flavor profile. Had you pitched a clean yeast before the WLP665, I would try and rack around 1.020 or thereabouts, but since you pitched it in from the get-go, there shouldn't be any problem in transferring at 4-6 weeks.

For reference, my experience with Flanders is this: I made a Brown, pitched US-05 in the primary, transferred at ~3 weeks when it got to 1.030, aged for 10 months, racked onto cherries, and then when I wasn't looking, my airlock ran dry. Sh*t. So it was less of a Brown and more of a Red. Won a few ribbons as a Red w/ fruit, but not one of my favorites. Too acetic for me!

AmandaK - How much cherry and what type (puree, whole, etc) did you use in the secondary? Also in your experience, how long do you keep the beer on the fruit? I've got a couple of Flanders Reds in the basement on oak. I'm planning to brew up a brown or 2 or 3 this winter but have no experience with the style.

Hey Topher, how's your batch smelling? The reason I ask is I just brewed a Brown on Sunday and it's definitely smelling funky; sulfur and funk. It seems like one of the strongest sulfur smelling brews I've ever made. I started out at 71F. Just wondering if you're getting strong sulfur too.

Yeah, it's a funky fermentation, inside and out! Gotta love it!!

TopherM said:

Yeah, it's a funky fermentation, inside and out! Gotta love it!!

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Ok, good to hear it's not just me. I figure this thing is going to be aging long enough to clean up after itself, but it still kind of caught me by surprise.

We have funky pellicle!!

Oh that's nice!

I take it you'll be racking to glass soon? And did you taste it?

Did not taste it yet. I'm at week 3, so I'm going to rack in the next week or two.

The bucket is going to allow some O2 to get in, which is alright for a little while. I would transfer it to a glass carboy for long term aging.

Definitely!! I have a glass carboy with this Flander's Brown's name on it!! It'll be in it's new home in the next 7-10 days or so, then banished to a dark closet until about June!!

So I just sampled this guy Saturday. There's a BJCP Sour/Lambic event coming up in mid June that it will be entered into. A couple pro brewers that are always BLUNT with constructive criticism had glowing remarks and stated that they would be surprised if it didn't place in the upcoming event.

Diggin it! :rockin:

TopherM, did you ever hit it with more yeast or just the single vial from the start and that was it through all primary and secondary, etc? Did you secondary on to fruit or no fruit? I brewed a brown yesterday that I'm thinking of hitting it with a pack of Roeselare and maybe racking on to some fruit and oak cubes in a secondary and forget about it for a while. I haven't put any yeast in yet though.

microbusbrewery said:

Hey Topher, how's your batch smelling? The reason I ask is I just brewed a Brown on Sunday and it's definitely smelling funky; sulfur and funk. It seems like one of the strongest sulfur smelling brews I've ever made. I started out at 71F. Just wondering if you're getting strong sulfur too.

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This is interesting! I just recently pitched the dregs from Monks Cafe Flemish Red Ale into a carboy and after a few days it started pumping out crazy sulfur too. I wonder what is up with flanders yeast that does this.

Dynobyte, I just did the single vial from the start, and that was it. No fruit additions or anything in secondary, just a straight traditional Flanders Brown!