blending sour belgians

[henrychinaski]

i've got a flanders red in secondary that i brewed on 1/1/08. as enticing as it would be to make it a yearly brew, i'm getting impatient. i'm thinking of brewing a fresh batch to blend and bottle, while also feeding the "starter."
anyone have experience with blending? i haven't been able to find much literature on it.

 

[Bokonon]

This might interest you from NHC 2007:
Matt Brynildson, Creating Flavors Through Blending
http://www.beertown.org/events/hbc/presentations/MBPresentation.pdf

also:
Vinnie Cilurzo, Brewing Sours Beers at Home Using Traditional & Alternative Methods
http://www.beertown.org/events/hbc/presentations/VCPresentation.pdf

 

[Hoosierbrewer]

I would suggest calling a brewpub that focuses on Belgian beers if you have any questions. There is one in Indianapolis. Brugge's. THey should be very helpful in this. I read something in an older BYO the other day, but I think it was just describing the style.

I know someone in Michigan that brews Belgians. I am not sure if he is a member here though.

 

[landhoney]

I recently blended and bottled my first batch of Flanders and have blended a couple other sour beers(see recipe under my avatar for one of them). What are your questions? At 4 months its proably a little early to blend and bottle now, but I don't think that's what you're asking. For the style, you generally blend old and new beer. The old for the sourness, the new for the malt and sweetness, or something aproximating that. My 'blend' was two that were ~1 year old and one that was 4-5 months old. I'm not sure what you mean by 'brew a fresh batch to blend and bottle'?

 

[henrychinaski]

thanks for the advice everyone.
bokonon, those lecture slides were useful. i always like to see what vinnie cilurzo has to say about beer.
wow, hoosier, i live in texas now but i have a good friend that used to be the head chef at brugge's. i only know their beer through him, and heard that they're thinking of expanding or opening a new location for bottling(?). and is the guy from michigan that you mention the same one that randy mosher talks about in radical brewingwho keeps a 50-gallon barrel of sour beer for blending? now that is inspiring!
landhoney, i'm wondering about the quantities to mix and the relative freshness of the two batches. i was assuming that i could brew a batch with a begian ale yeast such as wlp 500 or 550 and when it finishes out (after a few weeks in secondary), blend it with the one that's already inoculated with the bugs. the type of blending i'm considering would involve pulling a certain amount (say 3/4 of the total being the old beer to 1/4 from the younger beer) and bottling it, while leaving the other (1/4 old to 3/4 young) in secondary to age and develop again. after looking at your recipe (looks nice), i should note that i fermented the older beer solely with the wyeast lambic blend. i tasted it last night, and it has plenty of sour and vinous quality that now needs some malt and esters to go along with it.
how did your blend turn out? was it two 5-gallon batches?

 

[landhoney]

i'm wondering about the quantities to mix and the relative freshness of the two batches. i was assuming that i could brew a batch with a begian ale yeast such as wlp 500 or 550 and when it finishes out (after a few weeks in secondary), blend it with the one that's already inoculated with the bugs. the type of blending i'm considering would involve pulling a certain amount (say 3/4 of the total being the old beer to 1/4 from the younger beer) and bottling it, while leaving the other (1/4 old to 3/4 young) in secondary to age and develop again. after looking at your recipe (looks nice),

Well the difficulty lies in the gravity of the two beers, unless of course you're kegging(in which case you can make whatever blend you want, and don't need to worry). The problem with blending sour beer with non-sour is that the wild yeast/bacteria will work on the unfermentable sugars in the non-sour beer and cause overcarbonation or bottle bombs. The other problem is that at 4 months the gravity on your Flanders is probably too high to bottle yet even on its own. For example, Gueze is a blend of 3,2, and 1- year old lambics, they don't use priming sugar, but rather the un/fermentables left in the one year-old lambic to do the priming. You could try this method, but the chances of success are low. Your Flanders has to reach its final gravity before bottling, you can't really predict how low it will go(unless its below 1.004, probably can't get much lower). The other option is to try to kill the 'wild' yeast/bacteria to make it stable, through pateurization or you could try the campden tablet approach which may or may not work. You really can't rush sour beers, especially if you plan to bottle condition. Unless you drink them all in a month before the become overcarbed. As far as blending, I just take samples and blend till I get the taste I want, then make the same general mix with the big batches. But these were beers that had reached their final gravities, if I were blending with 'new' beer I'd have to take into account that beers gravity and I would have to try to predict where it would finish ultimately and blend accordingly.