I haven’t been blogging much lately, but that’s because I’ve been busy experimenting with my beers. I’ve brewed 6 batches of beer, plus started my own yeast bank and played around with sour beer program a bit.

I did a lot of research for my sour beer program. I started in this back in August with my first Flanders Red and Lambic, but I’ve added two more reds, a Berliner Weisse, Oud Bruin, and a Sour Farmhouse Ale that used a split primary fermentation to give the lacto a headstart. In addition to the sours I have made a Robust Porter and a Schwarzbier and kept all the different strains used in the yeast (and bug) bank.

The most recent Flanders Red batches were brewed as a single batch and the recipe was based on the one in Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff. It was brewed as a full batch and fermented for in the primary with Wyeast 1056, but then split between two secondary fermenters with the larger part getting the Wyeast Rosaelare blend and the other part getting the Wyeast De Bom. They’re now aging with a bit of oak in the fermenters.

The Berliner Weisse was done as a no boil/no hop batch. Michael Tonesmeire talks about this in his book, American Sour Beers. I asked him about the hops, which his recipe show being added in the decoction part of the mash and he suggested that the IBU levels were so low that your could forgo them, so I did. I also didn’t do a decoction mash, just a single infusion. Lacto, half pack of Brett L., and a clean ale yeast (house culture of Wyeast 1056) added. The main fermentation went well and its now resting and hopefully getting delicious.

The Sour Farmhouse Ale is the one I’m looking forward to the most. I dream of kicking back in the heat of summer with a few bottles of this. This was originally split in two and had lacto in one half and WPL566 Belgian Saison II in the other. The lacto part was kept warm (pitched at about 100 F) on a heating pad and after a couple of days when both were going full on they got combined and had a third of a pack of Brett Brux. added. The ferment took off and is quite vigorous as I’m typing. I will slowly warm this a bit as it starts to finish to make sure it drys out good.

My Oud Bruin was fermented out for a week with the same house culture of Wyeast 1056 as the Berliner Weisse (large starter split between the two) and half a pack of Brett L. Then racked onto about 500mL of the lacto half of the Sour Farmhouse Ale and then had Pedio and a half pack of Brett Brux. Hope to try this in the summer and maybe drink it in the fall or winter. We’ll see how it comes along.

My Flanders Red from last August has a nice profile, but was a bit lacklustre in both the complexity and the sourness. It is sitting at SG 1.006, which says to me that it’s probably pretty much done the ferment, so I’m guessing the sourness is pretty locked it, and the one-dimensional level of complexity is probably more-or-less set as well. So, I think that this can use some new fermentable and judging by the flavour I’m thinking cherries and probably some fresh bugs to chew on them. Its 6 months on and another 6+ months with cherries should build up the complexity I’m looking for.

The Lambic tastes good. I was a bit afraid with this one because it was brewed and just had the Wyeast Lambic Blend added, capped off with and airlock, and left untouched. I had no idea what to expect, and I was please it didn’t taste like vomit. It actually tastes like a traditional lambic, more or less. It’s young and some more age will help, but it’s right in the ballpark already. I am happy with this one so far. But, because I fell like experimenting, I think that half of the batch will get put onto raspberries and aged another 6+ months. The SG is 1.002 and if thats going to hold steady I will bottle up some to drink this summer (I’m thinking I will leave some to age longer for later blending).

I must admit, I’m having fun with this sour program, but it takes forever (it seems) and I’m really looking forward to drinking these beers. Look for more updates and it moves along.

Cheers!