Flanders Red - Attempt #2

The second beer of my doctoral brewing/aging program is a Flanders red.  It's this style that really sent me down the path of sour beer; while I couldn't stand Duchesse, purportedly a great gateway sour, Rodenbach Grand Cru had me hooked from the first sip.  I've made one attempt at this style before, which, after a year of aging, unfortunately turned out a beer that had a light, pleasant pie-cherry aroma but a very bland taste (the extra gallon of wort fermented with raspberries and with a Ziploc bag in place of an airlock turned out to be far superior).

Given the spectacular failure of that first batch, a few alterations were in order.  The recipe changed, but more significant for this beer, the mash temperature was increased to leave more dextrins for the souring bugs to slowly devour over the next couple years.  Instead of using an oak peg, this batch will get cubes, which should be much more manageable for long term storage.  Avoiding a boneheaded move from last time, I'll also remember to toast the oak before it goes in the beer.  Out of necessity, the primary ferment will last a bit longer; we're on the road for a while, so this batch will have been sitting for about six weeks before being transferred off the the cake to age.  Primary is also happening in a bucket instead of a carboy; though this time will be relatively short in the life of the beer, it might be enough to allow for some extra oxygen pickup through the more permeable (than glass) plastic and encourage some extra acetic souring action.

There was no shortage of yeast that went into this batch.  Since different strains of yeast and bacteria grow at very different rates (with good ol' Saccharomyces usually coming out as the speed demon), making a starter of a yeast blend--in this case Wyeast 3763 Roeselare, originally from Rodenbach--can throw off the delicate balance of bugs and yeast in the packet.  Instead of a starter, two full smack packs went into primary.  As if that weren't enough, though--and it should have been--I also dosed it with the full Brett L yeast cake from my session sour.  Brettanomyces usually grows very slowly, but when used in place of Saccharomyces in primary it ferments much more quickly and cleanly.  In this beer it may hang back and let the Sacch from the Roeselare do the primary fermentation, then join in the funk-imparting process later...or it might do battle for dominance.

Evidence of the latter (or at least that there's just a whole mess of yeast in this batch) came in the form of kraeusen sputtering out the airlock, then the hole in the bucket lid as it filled the one and a half gallons of headspace in the primary with yeasty activity.  Before we left--on day four of primary--it had settled down a bit, and I replaced the stopped-up airlock with a fresh one.  By now, it's probably either blown off the second airlock or has settled down enough that it's out of that danger zone.  The fun will be not knowing until I get back in a few weeks.  This certainly won't be an uninteresting batch, though.

DMA Flanders Red
Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.066
Projected SRM: 14.8
Projected IBU: 13.8
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 88%

Grains
77.2% - 8 lb Malteurop 2-row
9.6% - 1 lb Weyermann Pale Wheat
9.6% - 1 lb Dingemans Cara 45
3.6% - 6 oz Special B

Hops
1 oz Hallertauer (4.3%) (60 min)

Yeast
2 pkgs WY3763 Roeselare Blend (no starter)
WY5526 Brett L (slurry)

Extras
1 tsp Yeast energizer (10 min)
Medium toast oak cubes, home toasted (secondary)

Water additions (mash)
10 qts RO water
1 g Epsom salts
1 g CaCl

Brewday: 15 June 2012
Mash: 158F for 60 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 6.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 12.8P (1.052)

Ferment in swamp cooler at 65F ambient
Strong activity by next morning

Update: 3 March 2013
Brewed right before leaving town for six weeks during the hottest part of the summer, we returned to find that this one hadn't stayed sealed, and had managed to develop a solid acetobacter infection.  I've left it alone in its fermenting bucket to see how it would develop.  Tried a sample a couple months ago; despite the infection, it's still just a pretty bland, non-funky, underhopped beer, much like my first Flanders was.  It's going to keep sitting around for now, and may stay in that bucket until graduation.  Maybe by then it will funk up and get interesting.

Secondary: 21 September 2013
Samples drawn over the past year haven’t been very impressive.  Needed the fermenter back for bottling, so transferred to several gallon jugs.  One jug got 1 oz bourbon-soaked second-use oak cubes, another got .5 oz, the rest were straight.  Will give it a few more months and see if anything positive develops from it.

Bottled: 12 April 2014
FG: 1.008
ABV: 7.6%
Bottled 4.3 gallons with 3.9 oz table sugar and rehydrated champagne yeast.

Tasting: 8 May 2014
Given this beer’s inauspicious start–fermenting at least semi-open for its first three months–it has really developed well beyond my expectations. Nice sharp sourness at the start, vinegar note that’s not overpowering, strong cherry later, and malty, bready finish. A bit thin and watery for a moment in the middle, but I don’t foresee any lack of enjoyment from drinking this beer. Definitely a testament to giving the bugs proper time to develop their signature flavours.