What's in your fermenter??

[BREWsmith]

Ace in the Hole (India nearly-black ale)

http://hopville.com/recipe/1513884/amer ... n-the-hole

[Chris Norrick]

Has anyone messed with Flander's Red or Oud Bruin? Any success? I've got several 5 gallon carboys that need to be put to use. I'm thinking of stashing some away for a long while. I think it's time to get some funky bugs in the brewery.

[john mills]

Has anyone messed with Flander's Red or Oud Bruin? Any success? I've got several 5 gallon carboys that need to be put to use. I'm thinking of stashing some away for a long while. I think it's time to get some funky bugs in the brewery.

Go for it!
I've made a few Flander's Reds. I entered a blended one of 2yr old with 1 yr old & tart cherries that went to mini BOS last year at Brewers Cup. It was a great clone of Monks Cafe. I've also soured a pumpkin beer with dregs from a Jolly Pumpkin bottle. I haven't made anything with that stomach bile sourness of some lambics....yet.

[Chris Norrick]

I pulled a little less than a half gallon of the Dark Mild and put it on some old French oak chips I had laying around as an experiment. I decanted off of those and tossed in a few raw barley grains to inoculate it. The garage is around 80 F right now. We'll see what blooms.

I've committed to a sour. Probably a Flanders Brown. I think I have most of the ingredients for it sans the funky yeast/bacteria mix. I hear Wyeast Roeselare Ale Blend is good.

[Chris Norrick]

Oud Bruin Sour Ale went in the fermentor today. I'll actually secondary this batch (which I rarely do) for the sour formation over many months.

5 Gallon Batch, BIAB. 90 Min boil, 80% expected mash efficiency

OG 1.070

8lb 8oz German Pilsner Malt
3lb 8oz US Munich 10L Malt
10.5 oz German CaraMunich III
7.00 oz Belgian Special B
7.00 oz US White Wheat Malt
7.00 oz Belgian Aromatic Malt
3.50 oz German Sauer(Acid) Malt
0.80 oz US Black Malt

0.61 oz UK Golding 6.10% Bagged Pellet Hops 60 Min From End

1.50 oz Oak Cubes (Hunganian) In Fermenter

US-05 Yeast at 65F for 2-3 days then add dregs from commercial sour beer. Harvestable beer list: http://www.themadfermentationist.com/20 ... dregs.html

Or Wyeast 3763 Roselare Blend.

My water volume calculations were off on this batch. I don't know if it was the boil-off rate or what but I had too much water for this 90 minute boil. I boiled an extra 10 minutes to try and get the OG up but I was still low. I think the Auto Temp Correction in my refractometer is malfunctioning. At the end of the boil it said I was there but once cooled and heading into the fermentor I was way off at 1.058 and still had too much liquid left over that wouldn't fit in the fermentor.

[Dutch]

MINI-CIDERFEST TODAY
Courtesy of Jim M. from the West Side 20 gallons of raw cider today.
Will ferment 3 batches of 6 gallons tomorrow after camptden tablets do theri thing!

[Chris Norrick]

This is what I inoculated the Oud Bruin with. Dregs from a Lindman's Kriek, New Belgium "Lips of Faith" Vrienden, and a homebrew Flander's Red I magically pulled out of Cesar's cooler at the meeting. The commercial one's may or may not have been pasteurized so I might get nothing from them. The homebrew is PLENTY sour but didn't have much dregs. Time will tell what I get.

photo.JPG

[Michael Erwin]

Here's a cider... not quite in the fermenter anymore... it's in a keg, but it turned out pretty good, so I thought I'd share. Designed to be similar to a Woodchuck for my wife.

Two processes, fermentation and sweetening.

Fermentation Ingredients:

• 4.5 gallons of apple juice (I used something I found the grocery store) (make sure - no preservatives other than ascorbic acid/vitamin C)
  Frozen apple juice concentrate, thawed (buy 8 cans, it takes more than you think, and you can use leftovers later)
  Tbsp yeast nutrient
  Tbsp pectic enzyme
  5 Campden tablets
  Champagne Yeast (I used Lalvin EC-1118)

Fermentation Process:
1. Apple juice in fermentation bucket. Aerate. Drop in hydrometer.
2. Add concentrate to boost OG to get the ABV you want. I went for 1.060.
3. Add the yeast nutrient, pectic enzyme, and crushed Campden tablets. Stir.
4. Transfer to carboy. Wait 24 hours. Pitch yeast.
5. Ferment completely out. (Mine took more than two weeks at an average 74F).

Sweetening Ingredients:

• 5 Campden tablets
  Tbsp potassium sorbate
  7-8 cans frozen apple juice concentrate (thawed)

Sweetening Process:
1. Rack cider into bucket. Drop in hydrometer.
2. Add concentrate until you reach 1.029. (this is pretty sweet! like a woodchuck; adjust to your taste)
3. Add Campden tablets and potassium sorbate, keg and carbonate.

This is very simple if you're kegging. If you want to naturally carbonate in bottles, that's more complicated, and someone else will have to help you figure that out.

[JohnD]

Foreign extra stout, brewed yesterday. Needed a blowoff tube this morning.

[Chris Norrick]

I'm going to try and get one more brew in before SWIRCA. I very low alcohol, sour mash Berliner Weiße I think it will be. Basic Brewing Radio did an interview with Sean Coates who won 1st place with one and has a great blog post about the Sour Mash technique:

Do your mash. Let it cool but keep it warm, around 100 F. Add 1 lb of unmilled base malt to inoculate the lacto. Flood with CO2 to keep the oxygen critters from taking over. Taste test frequently until it's sour enough, perhaps 48 hours. Then proceed as usual. He only does a 15 minute boil and it ferments fast!

http://seancoates.com/blogs/berliner-weisse

[Chris Norrick]

Well, the sour mash technique is, shall we say, smelly AND slimy.

I let it sit for 48 hours with a heat pad wrapped around the mash tun and insulation around that. I still had to add boiling water two times to get the temp back up to 100. It had dropped to 88 both times.

This results in some interesting smells. It did get better smelling the second day. But it got really viscous and down right slimy. It took a strong heart to sample it. It got very sour.

When I went to sparge and boil, I had a hard time keeping the flies away. They swarmed me. I think they believe I had a rotting pig carcass for them.

I pitched on top of a yeast cake from the flanders red; US-05 and what ever bugs I got from the bottle dregs mentioned above. The flanders didn't have any sour that I could detect but had a slight brett smell to it. Disappointing. Hopefully the extended aging on my bench top at 80 F will get a good pellicle going and get some sour in there.

[JohnD]

I also made a berliner weisse. I recently saw an article in an old BYO and a recent podcast on Basic Brewing Radio. It is still in the mash tun cooling to 100-105F. Then I will throw in a pound or so of 2 row unmilled and let it set for 2 days, maintaining that temp with additions of boiling water. We'll see!!

[Chris Norrick]

Awesome John! We'll have to compare. Prepare for the slime! My fermenter is very milky. I'm not sure if it's going to clear in time for SWIRCA, but it's only been two days and I always have the magic gelatin if needed.

[FoamFace]

I've got an American Brown spewing in the newly built 'Son of Fermentation Chiller'. Hanging at a steady 68 degrees.

10 lbs. American 2-Row
1.5 lbs. Crystal 10L
.75 lbs. American Chocolate
.26 lbs. American Black Patent
.5 oz. Cascade (14%AA)
.3 oz. Cascade (14%AA)
.1 oz. Cascade (14%AA)
WLP001 California Ale

Looking good so far.

Thanks to all the OVHA members for sharing their knowledge and experience with others.

[JohnD]

The berliner weisse is definitely slimy and hard to sparge. Before fermenting it tasted like funky lemonade!! Really tart but with some sweet from the malt. After fermentation, the sweet will be gone. It's a style I like but if you don't like sour beers it could be a shock to the system. Does anyone know of a source for raspberry or woodruff syrup? I've never had a berliner weisse with this as an additive, but it is traditional in Germany to take the edge off the sourness.