Oud Bruin - First Attempt

[BRGriffith]

Hello all,

So I'm planning my first attempt at making an oud bruin this weekend and I thought I'd get some feedback on the recipe and process I've got.

Final Recipe:

Malt:
6 Lbs. Light DME
8 Oz. Special B
4 Oz. Aromatic
4 Oz. CaraBrown
8 Oz. Chocolate
4 Oz. Caramel 60L

Hops:
None. No Boil.

Yeast / Dregs (Co-Pitch):
WYeast Roeselare Blend
Lindemans Cuvee Rene Oud Gueuze
Wicked Weed Genesis Blonde Sour

Extras:
1 Cup Med Toast American Oak (Secondary)

OG: 1.056
IBU: 0
SRM: ~22.66

Bucket primary ~ 3 weeks.
Better Bottle secondary.

I like my bruins good and sour, like New Belgium's La Folie, hence the low IBU for an oud bruin. Thoughts on all this?

Cheers!

 

[Weezy]

I'd cut the hops in half still if you want it really sour.

Have you grown up your dregs at all? They might not have much impact after the saison and roeselare blend if the culture is just dregs.

I'd grow up the dregs a little and pitch them first, to let them get a leg up, for a day then add the rest. I wouldn't bother with a primary and secondary, personally. Let it sit on the trub.

Cheers! Good luck!

Edit: as far as recipe... If sooner use pilsner myself but not critical. You're like 18% or something like that. I've never used that much in a sour.

 

[BRGriffith]

Any opinions on the pros and cons of a no hop no boil version? If I cut down to 5 IBU, it just feels kind of silly to do a 60 minute boil to avoid infection when that's my exact intent.

Also, not sure I follow exactly what is the 18%?

 

[Mainer]

Been considering doing one of those myself.
Following along at home.

 

[burninator]

Personally I'd skip the Belle Saison. Your Roselare pack includes a sacc strain, and whatever it doesn't eat will eventually be consumed by the other yeast strains in the included dregs. Plus, this will let things go a little more slowly, and allow your bacteria to produce sourness.

Hops look fine to me, as I assume those dregs will be acclimated to a low-to-moderate IBU level.

 

[Weezy]

Any opinions on the pros and cons of a no hop no boil version? If I cut down to 5 IBU, it just feels kind of silly to do a 60 minute boil to avoid infection when that's my exact intent.

Also, not sure I follow exactly what is the 18%?

Sorry, 18% crystal malt. It might be fine. I really don't know on that.

And no hop is a fine alternative. 10 is just higher than you want if you're relying on rosealare to sour a lot. None would be fine.

You only really need to boil to pastuerize and isomerize hops in an aged, mixed fermentation beer. Without hops, just boil for 15 minutes.

 

[BRGriffith]

Hmm, okay then. So after doing plenty of reading from this article among several others:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/mash-sparge-hopping-no-boil-beers-of-all-kinds.html

I've decided to go ahead and try a no hop, no boil method. The updated procedure will be to simply steep the grains for 30 minutes, then combine with the DME and pitch all the bugs. There should be no concern of DMS since I'm using Light DME.

I like them good and sour, so hopefully this method will be more conducive to that.

I should note that we've really moved away from a traditional Oud Bruin here. It's more like a(n) (American) Sour Brown at this point. Someone please correct me if I'm mistaken in classification.

Unless there's something I'm missing, I'll be updating this thread with the "brew" day this weekend and fermentation notes as we go along.

Thanks for all the opinions and info so far!

 

[BRGriffith]

Here's another good article:

http://hivemindmead.com/no-boil-sour-brown-ale-beer/

 

[BRGriffith]

"Brew" day today couldn't have gone any better. Everything took me an hour total. Pitched at 90F, so after correction, it's at 1.056 OG.

It's got a really nice dark brown color with a super chocolaty and biscuity flavor without too much roast. This is exactly what I was going for.

Pitched Roeselare, Cuvee Rene Oud Gueuze dregs (Grown up in a farmhouse cider), and Wicked Weed Genesis dregs (Amazing by the way).

Hoping to have fermentation starting up pretty quickly.

Cheers!

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[Weezy]

Pitched at 90F??

 

[BRGriffith]

Yep, 90F. Warm is better for the lacto

 

[Elduder]

Warm is also not that great for everything else, but it sounds like that ship has sailed. Keep us posted!

 

[sweetcell]

sounds like this will make a tasty brew. my first sour ever was along these lines (dark wort, roesalare, dregs) and it turned out great.

super-nerdy nit-pick alert: oud bruin might not be the best style descriptor for the resulting beer. a proper oud bruin should be malty with sourness taking a back seat, and no brett funkiness. the bretts will likely dry this beer out too much, and provide some funk. just an FYI in case you're considering entering this in a competition - would probably do better as an american wild ale, but obviously it will come down to how the beer turns out

It's got a really nice dark brown color with a super chocolaty and biscuity flavor without too much roast. This is exactly what I was going for.

be forewarned that depending where the bugs take this brew, there may not be any chocolate or biscuit left after they're done.

 

[BRGriffith]

So I racked my Sour Brown today into a 5 gallon Better Bottle on 1 cup of Medium Toast American Oak. There was already a small pellicle developing in the primary!

The aroma is incredible. Some funk, bright acidity - you can smell this stuff from a few feet away. Very happy so far. I didn't have quite enough to get a gravity read, but I did get a taste. The lactic acidity is well developed with no hint of acetic. At only a month old, I would easily say this is going to be the most complex thing I've ever made.

The plan is to bottle this when it's time into 24 Belgian style cappable bottles, probably using oxygen absorbing caps. I also harvested two bottles of slurry for use on future batches. Now we wait...

Cheers!

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[sweetcell]

So I racked my Sour Brown today into a 5 gallon Better Bottle on 1 cup of Medium Toast American Oak.

1 cup of oak? that's a lot of oak. how long are you planning to leave it on there? with that much wood in there, i would be concerned that it would get overly oak-y, and relatively quickly (like a month, if that). but maybe you like highly oaked beer?

 

[BRGriffith]

Well, you might be right. Maybe I do like oaky beer because 1 cup is my go-to amount for things. But if it does end up overdone, I could pretty easily blend it back to a good level.