Oud Bruin Recipe Critique

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specharka

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I apologize for the repost, but seeing as I never received responses in a separate sub forum, I'm leaving this here. Looking for feedback on my first attempt at a Flanders sour brown ale. I'm trying to emulate Russian River Supplication on this one.

O.G. 1.070
F.G. < 1.010
IBU < 10

48% Pilsner
30% Vienna
11% Unmalted wheat
4% Caravienne
4% Caramunich
2% Special B
1% Chocolate malt

2.0 oz Aged lambic hops (1.2% AAU @ 90 min)

Imperial Organic Yeast Sour Batch Kidz (F08)

Single infusion mash at 154F. Pitch yeast blend to primary. After 3-6 months, rack to secondary with wine-soaked French oak, dark cherries, and bottle dregs (if additional souring is desired). Age another 6-12 months until desired character is achieved, then bottle with fresh yeast.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

EDIT: Currently weighing a few decisions.
1) Should I moderate the amount of bittering to account for the low IBU tolerance of LAB? There's no published data on the yeast blend I am using but I'm guessing it's only capable of < 10 IBU.
2) Should I add pediococcus to the fermentation schedule? Russian River uses it in Supplication, but it's not stylistically appropriate.
 
I haven't Brewed many sour Browns so I won't comment on the grain bill but I would personally throw the wine in fresh from the bottle alongside the oak cubes.
Red wine goes pretty awful after 3/4 days once opened but adding it to the beer before it has a chance to oxidise on its own seems to counter this effect.

Good luck!
 
Bookmarked - I plan to do something like this pretty soon (a sour brown)

I am on vacation in Florida at the moment. I think I have a 2-3 books with Oud Bruin Recipes at home. If you want feedback I can tell you what I find and plan to do when I get back home. The sources I have are Wild Brew, World Beer Cup (Charlie Papazian) and Jamil Zainasheff's Brewing Classic Beer Styles.

I was thinking of making do one of these Kentucky Common or the Belgian Types. I haven't made my mind up yet. Mine will not be employing a long souring technique. I read about Petrus Oud Bruin and this is a blended sour brown. I won't blend, I won't do a long post boil sour either.

Here are the two Kentucky Common's that I have considered; (these two fellows are perpetuating the sour myth) so would I.

http://yeastandapples.blogspot.com/search/label/kentucky common

http://www.ipass.net/mpdixon/Homebrew/Kentucky Common.htm
 
Bookmarked - I plan to do something like this pretty soon (a sour brown)

I am on vacation in Florida at the moment. I think I have a 2-3 books with Oud Bruin Recipes at home. If you want feedback I can tell you what I find and plan to do when I get back home. The sources I have are Wild Brew, World Beer Cup (Charlie Papazian) and Jamil Zainasheff's Brewing Classic Beer Styles.

I was thinking of making do one of these Kentucky Common or the Belgian Types. I haven't made my mind up yet. Mine will not be employing a long souring technique. I read about Petrus Oud Bruin and this is a blended sour brown. I won't blend, I won't do a long post boil sour either.

Here are the two Kentucky Common's that I have considered; (these two fellows are perpetuating the sour myth) so would I.

http://yeastandapples.blogspot.com/search/label/kentucky common

http://www.ipass.net/mpdixon/Homebrew/Kentucky Common.htm


Interesting...I have yet to try any examples of a Kentucky Common and it sounds like a fascinating beer. I would be happy to hear more input. I am planning on brewing this next weekend.

What I am still weighing is whether I want to add any pediococcus to the fermentation. The yeast blend I am using doesn't have it, and it's considered stylistically inappropriate -- but RR Supplication uses it and it was better than any Belgian Oud Bruin I've tried. Which would necessitate 18+ months to mature. Hmmm...
 
Just took a peek at Wild Brews, The East Flanders (Oud Bruin) Style Guidelines has sach, lab and ped as the microbes per the style. (Reference pg 16)

Both recipes are very similar... grist being the difference

NOTE: None of this is my opinion.... This is all sited from Jeff Sparrow's Book Wild Brews

He uses maize anywhere 5-10% of his grit. Not seen in your recipe.

Flemish Provision Brown Ale
- From pg 259 (Flemish Provision Brown Ale)

25 IBUs Hallertauer all bittering
OG 1.074

70% Pilsner
0% Munich
0% Unmalted wheat
10% Caravienne
10% Caramunich

0% Special B
0% Chocolate malt
10% Maize

Primary Ferment: Wyeast #1007 or Whitelabs WLP001, (1-Week)

Secondary Storage: Wyeast #4335 & 4337 or Whitelabs WLP672 & WLP661 (~ 2 years) Pitching Two Strains Regardless.

Options After 1 year;

1) Add/Blend Cherries or Rasperries (Potential Kriek or Framboise)
2) Blend with previous batch
3) Serve unblended: Bottle & Prime



Flemish Session Brown Ale
- From pg 260 (Flemish Session Brown Ale)

20 IBUs Hallertauer all bittering
OG 1.048

75% Pilsner
0% Munich
0% Unmalted wheat
5% Caravienne
15% Caramunich

0% Special B
0% Chocolate malt
5% Maize

Primary Ferment: Wyeast #1007 or Whitelabs WLP001, (1-Week)

Secondary Storage: Wyeast #4335 & 4337 or Whitelabs WLP672 & WLP661 (~ 2 years) Pitching Two Strains Regardless.

Options After 1 year;

1) Add/Blend Cherries or Rasperries (Potential Kriek or Framboise)
2) Blend with previous batch
3) Serve unblended: Bottle & Prime
 
Just took a peek at Wild Brews, The East Flanders (Oud Bruin) Style Guidelines has sach, lab and ped as the microbes per the style. (Reference pg 16)

Both recipes are very similar... grist being the difference

NOTE: None of this is my opinion.... This is all sited from Jeff Sparrow's Book Wild Brews

He uses maize anywhere 5-10% of his grit. Not seen in your recipe.

Flemish Provision Brown Ale
- From pg 259 (Flemish Provision Brown Ale)

25 IBUs Hallertauer all bittering
OG 1.074

70% Pilsner
0% Munich
0% Unmalted wheat
10% Caravienne
10% Caramunich

0% Special B
0% Chocolate malt
10% Maize

Primary Ferment: Wyeast #1007 or Whitelabs WLP001, (1-Week)

Secondary Storage: Wyeast #4335 & 4337 or Whitelabs WLP672 & WLP661 (~ 2 years) Pitching Two Strains Regardless.

Options After 1 year;

1) Add/Blend Cherries or Rasperries (Potential Kriek or Framboise)
2) Blend with previous batch
3) Serve unblended: Bottle & Prime



Flemish Session Brown Ale
- From pg 260 (Flemish Session Brown Ale)

20 IBUs Hallertauer all bittering
OG 1.048

75% Pilsner
0% Munich
0% Unmalted wheat
5% Caravienne
15% Caramunich

0% Special B
0% Chocolate malt
5% Maize

Primary Ferment: Wyeast #1007 or Whitelabs WLP001, (1-Week)

Secondary Storage: Wyeast #4335 & 4337 or Whitelabs WLP672 & WLP661 (~ 2 years) Pitching Two Strains Regardless.

Options After 1 year;

1) Add/Blend Cherries or Rasperries (Potential Kriek or Framboise)
2) Blend with previous batch
3) Serve unblended: Bottle & Prime


Thanks for the information! I already brewed this last week, ended up with 5.5 gallons of 1.070 wort. The fermenter is still bubbling away happily, so I'm going to wait until it knocks off, then pitch a few bottle dregs.
I find it interesting that so many Oud Bruin recipes make use of maize, since it's actually a New World crop. I don't know what effect that its exclusion would impart (maybe drying the finish).
Right now I'm trying to procure a used wine barrel for use as a secondary vessel (10G). Despite all of the neighboring vineyards they are surprisingly difficult to source locally.
 
FYI your FG should be considerably lower than that.
Looks good otherthan that.
soak your oak cubes in some nice red wine for a couple of weeks, and add it direct in there. IMO no need to rack after 3-6 months, it wont be complex enough, you could add your oak/wine straight away, and give your bugs somewhere to liv as well.
 
Yeah I agree.
I would say that the wine in oak cubes will oxidise and go nasty.
Better to add oak and wine directly to the fermentor.
 
Generally not IME.
Especially if you boil your cubes first.

According to Sam Calagione at DFH Brewing, he bakes them at 300F for 30 minutes . Cools, then pitches them into wort adds yeast.

Boiling leaches out residuals that would add flavor. If they burn it's not a bad thing either. I did this once, and they did not burn.

The distilleries flame the barrels. Thinking of Tennessee and Kentucky. Soak the chips in cheap alcohol and light them while in a cookie pan. Eventually cover them with tin foil. The between the alcohol and flash heat should kill much of the microbes.
 
After 3-6 months, rack to secondary
personally, i like to rack to secondary much sooner: when primary is mostly done. this means that there is plenty of CO2 in the beer to help flush out any O2 in the secondary vessel. also:

with wine-soaked French oak, dark cherries, and bottle dregs (if additional souring is desired).
3-6 months might be too early to determine if you've achieved enough sourness. you might have sourness, but if you do it might not indicate how much you'll have in another 6 to 9 months. and if you have no sourness after 3 months, doesn't mean that you won't have any in 9. that being said, throw in those dregs anyways (makes for a better and more complex beer, IMO). beware that some dregs might have pedio in them.

so letting the beer sit in primary for 3-6 months in order to taste it and make adjustments isn't a realistic plan, IMO.

2) Should I add pediococcus to the fermentation schedule? Russian River uses it in Supplication, but it's not stylistically appropriate.
depends what you're going for - the oud bruin style, or a clone of supplication. you can't have both, since supplication isn't an OB.

FYI with the use of 2 bretts in that yeast blend, along with other bugs in the dregs if you add them, plus a highly attenuating saison yeast, means that you are unlikely to end up with a stylistically correct OB. the style calls for a lot of malt character with just a little acidity. brett = no malt, all those bugs = a lot of acidity. traditionally, if you want to make an OB you should use a medium- to low-attenuating yeast, and lacto. no brett, no pedio.
 
personally, i like to rack to secondary much sooner: when primary is mostly done. this means that there is plenty of CO2 in the beer to help flush out any O2 in the secondary vessel.
I've got a Flanders Red, which is 18 months plus on the primary yeast cake.
So no harm in leaving it longer. especially if your using your bugs as a primary fermentation (Roselare Melange 665 etc. all have a Saccromyces yeast as pert ofthe blend.)


traditionally, if you want to make an OB you should use a medium- to low-attenuating yeast, and lacto. no brett, no pedio.
since when? Traditional Oud Bruins and Flanders Reds, used numerous bacteria, including Pediococcus, and brettanomyces. the Pedio is what gives it that complex sourness, rather than a simple lactic bite. the difference with bruin is additional malt, so it appears the sourness is less pronounced.
 
I've got a Flanders Red, which is 18 months plus on the primary yeast cake.
So no harm in leaving it longer. especially if your using your bugs as a primary fermentation (Roselare Melange 665 etc. all have a Saccromyces yeast as pert ofthe blend.)



since when? Traditional Oud Bruins and Flanders Reds, used numerous bacteria, including Pediococcus, and brettanomyces. the Pedio is what gives it that complex sourness, rather than a simple lactic bite. the difference with bruin is additional malt, so it appears the sourness is less pronounced.

According to Wild Brews, Oud Bruins contain: Saccharomyces, Lactobacillus, and Pediococcus, but no Brettanomyces while Flemish/Flanders reds contain: Saccharomyces, Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, Acetobacter, and Brettanomyces.
 
According to Wild Brews, Oud Bruins contain: Saccharomyces, Lactobacillus, and Pediococcus, but no Brettanomyces while Flemish/Flanders reds contain: Saccharomyces, Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, Acetobacter, and Brettanomyces.

Fair enough, I understand the lack of Brettanomyces, i do find it hard to fathom ,that a wild yeast like brettanomyces would not be present.
but hey, im no expert.
 
Fair enough, I understand the lack of Brettanomyces, i do find it hard to fathom ,that a wild yeast like brettanomyces would not be present.
but hey, im no expert.

I think it has to do with Oud bruins being inoculated instead of being spontaneously fermented like lambics. It might also have to do with them being fermented in steel fermenters instead of wooden barrels like lambics or Flemish reds.

It's possible that 200 years ago Oud bruins did contain Brettanomyces, but modern Flemish browns typically don't contain any. The book Wild Brews refers to Flemish brown ales as the most "simple" of the Belgian sour beers, probably due to the lack of Brettanomyces, Acetobacter, and them not being aged in wooden barrels.
 
Yeah I think it's based on modern examples of oud Bruins.
Historically I think they would of had to. I heard something about yeast not being isolated prior to Fleming who was working in the early 1900s.
Maybe someone could confirm that though.
 
I've got a Flanders Red, which is 18 months plus on the primary yeast cake.
So no harm in leaving it longer. especially if your using your bugs as a primary fermentation (Roselare Melange 665 etc. all have a Saccromyces yeast as pert ofthe blend.)
my concern isn't the yeast cake (brett means that autolysis isn't a concern), it's the potential exposure to oxygen. for primary, you want a good amount of headspace. but unless you are 100% confident in your stopper/air lock combo, some O2 could creep in over 3 to 6 months. admittedly i'm paranoid about acetic, i can't stand that flavor.

when i transfer a sour to secondary, i generally bring along at least part of the cake. plus, that early on in primary, there is plenty of everything in suspension. within a month or two a cake will accumulate.

since when? Traditional Oud Bruins and Flanders Reds, used numerous bacteria, including Pediococcus, and brettanomyces. the Pedio is what gives it that complex sourness, rather than a simple lactic bite. the difference with bruin is additional malt, so it appears the sourness is less pronounced.
if you're talking traditional versions of OB - as in, 100+ years ago - maybe. i don't know a whole lot about what OB used to be.

but if you are talking modern incarnations of OB, including what the BJCP defines the style as, brett doesn't belong (and hence neither does pedio, since you don't want to use pedio without brett). OBs are the maltiest of all the sours, and brett generally won't allow for a lot of malt flavor and malt sweetness (especially when long-aged). adding more malt won't make a maltier beer, the brett will just chew right through it.
 
my concern isn't the yeast cake (brett means that autolysis isn't a concern), it's the potential exposure to oxygen. for primary, you want a good amount of headspace. but unless you are 100% confident in your stopper/air lock combo, some O2 could creep in over 3 to 6 months. admittedly i'm paranoid about acetic, i can't stand that flavor.

when i transfer a sour to secondary, i generally bring along at least part of the cake. plus, that early on in primary, there is plenty of everything in suspension. within a month or two a cake will accumulate.

Would you not be just as paranoid of O2 exposure when transferring to a secondary? You'd probably flush most with CO2, but after awhile that still dissipates. I use PET Carboys with airlock and stopper, and haven't had an issue thus far. I racked onto Plaums and cherries about 4 months ago., so it's about ready to bottle up now. I check the official date of brewing and I'm sitting at 20months. so a 16 month primary.

I love seeing all the different ways people brew beers. and learning different techniques etc.
Particularly sour beers, as there is no real "right way to do it"

I'm part of a group of people who have a red barrel as well, we are onto Version 3 in the barrel, from red to brown, and now funnily enough a golden sour. which should be interesting in a red barrel especially seeing what sort of colour we end up with.
and that process is 1 week primary, then rack to barrel. so different strokes for different folks i guess.:mug:
 
Would you not be just as paranoid of O2 exposure when transferring to a secondary?
no, because when i brew sours, i transfer to secondary when there is still a little primary activity left, and the beer is full of CO2. sometimes i even put in a spoonful of sugar to kick up a little more fermentation. what little O2 might get in, the awakening brett will take care of.

You'd probably flush most with CO2, but after awhile that still dissipates.
i fill my secondary all the way up, to within an inch of the stopper & air lock. that leaves very little headspace in there, and very little surface area exposed to it.

I love seeing all the different ways people brew beers. and learning different techniques etc.
Particularly sour beers, as there is no real "right way to do it"
me too, and agreed :mug:
 
Thanks for the input, everyone. A couple of general comments:

1) I don't necessarily think that oxidation is a huge issue. Most sours benefit from some mild oxidation as a result of barrel aging, and I don't think that Oud Bruin is atypical. The sherry notes will help accentuate the dark cherry and plum notes in there. I'm going to use a secondary, but only for the purposes of adding fruit + oak.

2) Now, more than ever, I'm convinced that pedio is necessary to achieve the aggressive souring and barnyard funk that I'm looking for. I understand that traditionally, Flemish brown ales aren't as aggressively sour or funky as spontaneously fermented lambics to preserve some of the malt integrity. But at the same time, there are plenty of modern breweries that flaunt that tradition in favor of bolder flavors (see Allagash, New Belgium, Deschutes, etc).

I'm still contemplating the beer aging and fermentation schedule. I think I should give the Brett and pedio a 3-6 month head start before racking to secondary with cherries, oak, and wine, just so the souring bugs take over before adding more fermentables. But I'm still toying with it.
 
I'm still contemplating the beer aging and fermentation schedule. I think I should give the Brett and pedio a 3-6 month head start before racking to secondary with cherries, oak, and wine, just so the souring bugs take over before adding more fermentables. But I'm still toying with it.

If your gonig with a rpimary fermentation schedule. I'd suggest you leave it in Primary, until your ready to rack onto fruit. so a 3-6month frame proabably isn't long enough. but taste and asses over a period of time.
especially if your using a first generation vial or smackpack of commercial bugs. the souring will not be overly aggressive, and unless you add bottle dregs it'll take considerably longer to mature.
I'd suggest more along the lines of a 12 month primary, then rack to fruit for final flavoring components.

but like is said, im sitting on a golden sour coming up 2 years soon, and i only racked to fruit 3-4 months ago. so it goes to show you, the time involved sometime, and how long some of these beers can actually take.

but like i said, taste and evaluate at 6 months or so, and you may have a better idea of where your at.
but IMO 6 months won't be longenough.
 
Just added some bottle dregs (Urban Family Kriek, 2015) and checked the gravity for kicks and giggles. Down to 1.014 in a two week span. Absolutely no detectable tartness, but there's definitely an odd funky aroma which might be from the trub blowoff. The initial fermentation was rather vigorous. I'm hoping the mild roast malt flavors dissipate in time.
 
Just added some bottle dregs (Urban Family Kriek, 2015) and checked the gravity for kicks and giggles. Down to 1.014 in a two week span. Absolutely no detectable tartness, but there's definitely an odd funky aroma which might be from the trub blowoff. The initial fermentation was rather vigorous. I'm hoping the mild roast malt flavors dissipate in time.

Best of luck.
Keep the tasting going. (not too much obviously) but something to consider in the future, would be adding some malto-dextrin, this can give the bugs something to chew on and get it more sour..... that's if its not sour enough of course.
 
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