Batch Eleven update #2

My friend Rick transferred out 'top-secret' collaborative beer today.
We are splitting the batch into two 3 gallon carboys and each doing our own thing. For starters, each of us is adding a different fruit - mine is cherry and his is blackberry.
In another week or two when the yeast has fermented most of the sugars in the fruit purée, it'll be time to oak my half of the batch.

Red Flanders update #2

Yesterday I removed the cherrywood stave from my flanders red that had been given to me by my friends Rick and Daniel.

I had read about how traditional lambic/sour brewers use infected barrels to inoculate batch after batch of their beers with the same microorganisms, and how homebrewers have had success doing so with chips and cubes.

I let it air dry while I was at work and then loosely wrapped it in some wax paper for storage. I will use this stave, which was soaked in wort with Roesalaire blend as well as some bottle dregs, in my next sour in lieu of dregs or commerical cultures.

All dressed up with nowhere to go (for now).

Grape growing

I spent this Saturday building a trellis system for my nano-vineyard.

I'm starting small with just 3 plants this year, a Pinot Gris, Traminette ( a cold-hardy Gewürztraminer hybrid), and eventually a Merlot or other red variety.

They will have a very small yield this year, but I hope to at least get enough for a small batch of wine or fruit lambic.

Local lambic update

A couple weeks ago, I brewed my first true lambic. In addition to an extended boil and a turbid mash, I also planned on using wild yeast to supplement the Wyeast cultures.

I pulled off enough wort while transferring to the carboy to fill a 12oz. jar. I covered it with a fine mesh bag to keep out any bugs, birds, etcetera and left it outside for a few days.

On the 3rd day I already had signs of activity. I smelled and tasted the wort and it seemed fine, so I left it for a couple more days just to make sure nothing too gross was growing in the jar. On Tuesday, I noticed the yeast had slowed down and the krausen was beginning to fall. I took a final taste test - it smelled fainly lemony, with a bit of a woodsy, funky, earthy smell that I can't quite describe. It had an otherwise unremarkable, fairly neutral taste as well. Since I didn't see any red flags (mold, vomit smells/tastes, and such) I went ahead and pitched it into the carboy.

The wild yeast seems to have kickstarted a second round of fermentation, with the same smells that I got from the jar. I don't know if I managed to capture any wild bacteria/brett, but I'm hoping that I did. I won't know if this was a good or bad idea for at least a few more months, so I will try and taste it every few weeks and make sure it is progressing nicely.

Batch Eleven update

The mystery ingredients.

Today I went over to Rick's house to add the final ingredients to our 'top secret' collaboration brew.

Last week I took 2 ounces of cacao nibs and 2 vanilla beans (split down the center to expose the caviar) and placed them in a jar with a half cup of rum and a half cup of vodka. Not only will the spirits help to kill anything that might be living on/in the nibs/beans, it will also extract additional flavor, as I've found that steeping the cacao nibs in high-proof alcohol first seems to give you a fuller, longer-lasting chocolate flavor.

The plan is to let these marinade in the beer for a month or so, and then bottle this concoction for the upcoming AHP collaborative homebrew competition.

Brewday: Local lambic

As I venture deeper into the rabbit hole that is sour beer, I find myself wanting to brew more-and-more challenging styles. I have had limited success souring beers I had brewed, but haven't brewed many beers that were made for souring. I decided after a recent Cantillon tasting that my next beer would be a fruit lambic.

On Saturday, I finally got around to brewing my psuedo-lambic. Even though it's my first attempt at the style, I tried to stay as on-style as possible - I used a very simple recipe of flaked wheat, pilsen malt, and a touch of munich to give the bugs more food to chew on. I also lucked out, as the homebrew shop was clearancing out some 1.5% AA hops, perfect for a sour beer. Aged hops would have been better, but they don't sell any. Thankfully I bought a few extra packs that I plan on leaving out in the open to age for the next sour beer I brew.

Never heard of 'hopsteiner select' but hey, 1.5% AA.

The entire brewday took well over seven hours, as not only did I do an extended boil to really drive up the dextrins in the wort, but I also performed a turbid mash to leave a lot of extra unfermentables in the wort as well.

Mashing In

Half-way through the boil.

Cooling.

After a 2.5 hour boil, I cooled the wort down - I didn't use whirlfloc or whirlpool the wort since it will be aging for so long, plus the brett and bacteria can eat the trub and hot break so I wasn't too worried. I actually overshot my gravity by about 10 points, but I also was a gallon short on volume so I topped off with chilled RO water in the carboy.

Rather than risk an entire 5 gallons of beer on a hunch, I am being a bit more controlled with this first batch of lambic. I played it safe and pitched a smack pack of Wyeast lambic blend.

However, I have had a lot of beers that used only the cultured yeast/bacteria blends and it's a very one-dimensional final result, so I also filled up a sanitized jar with some of the wort during transfer. I covered the jar with a mesh bag and set it out overnight in the hopes of capturing some wild yeast and bacteria. If I'm lucky, I will catch some bugs in the jar, and I plan on smelling and tasting whatever ends up in there to make sure it isn't anything nasty. If it seems up to snuff, I plan on pitching that into the beer to add some additional complexity. If not, I'll probably culture up some dregs from a Drie Fontainen or a Cantillon.

In 8-12 months, I plan on adding about 3 pounds of fresh boysenberries and letting that ferment for a few more months before bottling.

Hop Farming

Now that I finally have the space to do it, I'm going to take a stab at growing my own hops. I spent six hours on Sunday digging through some VERY rocky topsoil to build an enclosed planter on the south side of the house. After I framed it in, I filled it with some moisture control soil and planted my rhizomes - one Cascade and one Centennial. I hope that I get enough this harvest season to wethop a Pale Ale or an IPA.

This is the first of many backyard projects I'll be working on this spring. Next up, I'll be planting some wine grapes and building a training system with some wooden posts and steel wire.

I didn't take too many pictures, but here's a couple:

Watering, after the planter was built. The two mounds are the rhizomes after planting.

That was the last of three wheelbarrows full of rocks and gravel.