Houston.....

[GuitarLord5000]

We have Flanders:



Cheers,
Dave

[triple-oh_six]

<---------- likes this

[aleguy]

[GuitarLord5000]

I brewed this beer six gallons at a time over three days. The first two batches used the same recipe, and the third batch used a slightly different grain bill. I pitched Roeselare yeast/bugs into them, and allowed the alcohol fermentation to fully finish. It's been two months, so I racked them into their new home:

All of the beers started out at about 1.060 OG. The two identical batches ended their alcohol fermentation at 1.025, and the third ended at 1.030. So there should be plenty of residual sugars for the acid bugs to munch on for the next year or so.
The beers right now range from lightly tart, to a very nice sourness that I was surprised to taste this early into the fermentation. I noticed that the least sour beer had no pellicle formation yet, and the most sour beer had a thin, dusty pellicle on about 1/4 of it's surface.
I was also surprised to note that there was such a large variance in the sourness of these beers, given that were brewed within days of each other, pitched with the same yeast, and fermented at the same temps. The only clear difference between them was the amount of aeration they received. The most sour beer, with the largest pellicle, didn't get any aeration at all. The least sour beer, with no pellicle formation, got about 30 minutes of vigorous shaking in the carboy.
That's it for now. I'll check this beer again in a few months to see how it's developing.

[eMan]

Stupid sexy Flanders

[yeastmeister]

Oxygen is needed for the sour flavor to develop. Since you now have them in bulk aging, you should remove the airlock and put in some way for O2 to get in. Many folks use a oak bung to allow the bugs to breath. I've used a sterile air filter as well, but some say thats too much air. I didn't think so, but I switched to the bung when one literally fell into my lap one day.

[GuitarLord5000]

This comes from Raj Apte's site:
http://www2.parc.com/emdl/members/apte/ ... dale.shtml

Tank--------------------------------- Volume [L]--- O2 cc/L.year
Burgundy barrel ----------------------------------- 300 ---- 8.5
Rodenbach tank, wood, small -------------- 12,000 ---- 0.86
Rodenbach tank, wood, large -------------- 20,000---- 0.53
HDPE bucket ----------------------------------------- 20---- 220
Homebrew barrel ----------------------------------- 40 ---- 23
Glass carboy, 30cm vinyl immersion tube ------ 20 ---- 0.31
Glass carboy, silicone stopper ------------------- 20 ---- 17
Glass carboy, wood stopper --------------------- 20 ---- 0.10

Given these numbers, I figured that the oxygen permeability was already built into this rig, since the container material is HDPE plastic. I figure with about 1/6th of the surface area still exposed, I should get close to the same permeability that a Burgundy Barrel gets. Between that micro oxygenation, and the macro oxygenation that it'll get from opening it every couple months for tasting, there should be plenty souring potential without the need for a wooden bung. If I see the souring is not going as planned, I can always pop one in later.

[GuitarLord5000]

The 15th of this month will make a year since I brewed this beer. I thought it was going to be really difficult to leave the beer alone for this long, but so far it hasn't been all that difficult. Last time I was home, I took a small sample, and it was nearly everything I could hope for. The aroma is all fruit and tartness. The sourness is there, but obviously lacking the slight acetic bite that I tasted in Duchesse. And without the sweetness, of course. Though I've never tried one, I would assume that the flavor is more similar to an Oud Bruin than a Flanders Red. But what do I know? I've only ever tasted the Duchesse (thanks, Trip!).
I plan on leaving the beer alone for another 8 months or so, and then kegging/bottling 10 gallons worth. I'm going to fruit the remaining 5 or 6 gallons.
I'd like to bottle up 3 or 4 bottles worth as soon as I get home so I can see what it tastes like carbonated, and also bring a couple bottles to a meeting. Has anyone tried those carb drops? Will they work well enough to get a few bottles of sour beer carbed up?

[aleguy]

Be very careful with those bottles. The thing about wild beers is that they're unpredictable. Once they're carbonated, put them in the fridge, and drink them within a month or so. Even so, I would consider keeping them in a sealed ammo box in the fridge, just in case.
Also, keg it up when it's the way you want it. If you wait longer, the beer may develop in ways you don't care for. Wild beers are very much an art form, and you need to move when the beer is ready, not just circle a date on the calendar.

[GuitarLord5000]

I get what you're saying, but I'm honestly not that concerned about the whole thing. This is the first sour beer I've brewed, and it's only the second I've tasted. TBH, I'm not really sure at what point the beer is supposed to be 'ready'. If the beer ends up tasting less appealing at 20 months than it does now, it's not really that big of a deal to me. I chalk it all up to more beer knowledge. The whole thing has been a really awesome learning experience for me though, as I've had the opportunity to see how the flavor has changed throughout the process (and boy, has it ever changed!).
While I'm certainly not circling a date on the calender, I am trying to allow ample time for the beer to ferment out at, or close to, terminal gravity. This should just about eliminate the chances of bottle bombs. This especially since I would like to put some aside in champagne bottles for long-term storage, to see how the flavor changes over time.
What I don't want to do is halt the process. Once the sour beer is fermented and in the keg, my plan is to make some extremely full bodied, sweet beer for blending with the sour. With that and a bit of simple syrup, I should be able to put a pretty convincing product in the glass.
As for the bottles that I want to bring to the meeting....I dunno. They might have the capacity to be bottle bombs at this early stage. I haven't checked the gravity, so I don't really know where they'll stand yet. I think that they should be okay, but I might just take your suggestion of packing them away in a toolbox or something, just to be on the safe side.

[aleguy]

I'm Okay with you leaving it as long as you like. I do think it would be a shame to blend it with sweet beer and/or simple syrup. True sour beers are awesome in their natural state. Pasteurized, sweetened products such as the Duchesse and the various "lambics" available in Louisiana are really horrible next to the real thing. I also would NOT blend any sour beer you plan to age in Champagne or Belgian Ale bottles regardless of whether your taste runs to sweeter beer. Over long-term aging, they most likely will explode.

[GuitarLord5000]

What I mean to say that I'm going to make a sweet beer to keg separately, and do all the blending in-glass. That way, everybody can blend to their liking. If you like really sour unblended beer, you can have it. If you like candy sweet beer with just a touch of the sour stuff, you can do that too.
As for the champagne bottles, I'm waiting until the beer is just about fermented out before corking those up. No blending involved. They should be good to go for long aging.
I'd love to taste one of the unsweetened lambic or flanders commercial beers. I'm pretty sure they'll taste good, but I don't know if I really want to drink 15 gallons of that type of beer. A paint strippingly tart beer could be good every once in a while, but is not something that I would drink more than one of in a day. I like some sort of balance in my beers. The added sweet beer or sugar should add drinkability and balance out the tartness, which I want. I think blending in the glass is going to give me the best of both worlds.
So, where are you guys getting your commercial sour beers from? I can't find anything like that around Lafayette.

[aleguy]

Specs in Houston has a few. Oud Gueze, Oud Kriek, etc. Some of the better ones are available in Ohio . . .