Month: January 2018

Bruin Porter

1 Comment

It’s dark, damp and misty out there. Still, the sky’s are lightening as I leave the house each morning and there are even a few flowers knocking about. Gorse is indefatigable, snowdrops are coming through and I think catkins count as flowers. With the full vibrant richness of summer stripped away I can also appreciate the subtler points that can now stand clear: The lichens are diverse in colour and texture; Moss carpets horizontal oak branches above the road; The pattern formed by the tips of branches are unique and distinctive.

 

 

My taste in beer tends to follow the seasons so at this time of year I have a yearning for darker ales: porters, old ales, stock ales, Flanders reds and oud bruins. I need to get better at brewing a desired style in advance of wanting to drink it. I’d love to be drinking my recent brews now but, with a bit of discipline, I will leave them alone until next winter.

45CABE11-8401-44C7-8FFA-2D2F433D7901

The weekend just past was a marathon session of blending bottling and brewing. On Friday night I started by bottling the demijohn of Blend 1 on American oak chips. It had a soft, smooth, vanilla aroma and floral notes. The oak character might be better if it was more subdued. Let’s see how it develops in the bottle. I will be putting some of the blend of Blends 1, 2 and 3 onto oak but I might try light toast French oak for a subtle, more spicy character.

Blend 2 had developed a mega pellicle since November. I bottled 17 375ml bottles and retained a gallon demijohn to blend with Blend 1 and 3. There was a nail varnish and cherry aroma, though not unpleasant. Looking back I reported the same when I was propagating the the Rowan capture.

 

November
December
January

The remaining five single flower ferments were taste tested for blending. These were elderflower 1 and 2, rose, meadowsweet and heather. Again the character of each can be traced back through the stages.

Originating Flower Gravity pH Tasting Notes
Elderflower 1 1.006 4.9 Clear. Light gold. Aroma of pea flower. Did not taste due to high pH. BINNED
Elderflower 2 1.006 4.5 Clear.  Light gold. Astringent flower and honey aroma. Spicy taste. Slightly harsh aftertaste.
Rose 1.005 4.6 Clear.  Light gold. Soft floral aroma. A bit soapy in the mouth. The most floral.
Meadowsweet 1.009 4.4 Clear.  Golden. Somewhat unusual but pleasant aroma – like tutti frutti. Also sweet biscuit and honey. Fairly clean in the mouth. The most interesting.
Heather 1.006 4.0 Clear. Golden. Not so distinct after the Meadowsweet. The most honey-like

64CFB639-96BC-429F-8E22-89EF6DB91961

These demijohns were then blended and some bottles taken. As before there was no great contrast in acidity to balance out so I went for roughly equal measures. I bottled 4 Elderflower II, 4 Rose, 3 Meadowsweet and 2 Heather. The reason for the different number of bottles was that the 2.5 gal carboy wasn’t filling up enough. Elderflower I was binned because the pH was not low enough to be safe and the aroma of pea flowers wasn’t amazing. Some of the dregs from each demijohn were retained for the following brew. The dregs from the Heather had been kept in the fridge since it was racked off the plant matter.

Saturday morning was brew day. I wanted to brew something close to an Oud Bruin but with a nod to a brown porter that I brewed last year. That had been a clean fermentation but I had kettle soured half of it and it worked rather well – a sort of chocolate yoghurt; rich, smooth, cleanness.

For this brew I wondered if a bit of smoke flavour would add a nice complexity. I was concerned that I could end up with harsh, phenolic bitter flavours from the smoke, acidity and bitter roastiness so I asked others on Milk the Funk and Great Brettanomyces Facebook forums. I decided upon 15% cherry wood smoked malt. The consensus of opinion was that too little smoked malt would be indistinct and phenolic and the fruit wood smoked malts were less bacony. Oak smoked wheat was another strong recommendation. I also used Carafa I for a debittered roastiness.

Before Christmas I went to an open brewery event at Cellarhead, which is just down the road. The brewer, David Berry, recommended A Bushel of Hops. I’m so pleased and excited to discover this. Dorothy Hallamby is growing heritage varieties of hops and she’s based in my village. I’ve now got a big step closer to brewing local. I bought a blend of old English varieties that included Mathon, Cobbs, White Grape, Early Bird and Fuggles.

The recipes is below:

OG:1.060 FG:1.009 ABV:6.6% SRM:33 IBU:10 20L batch

44% Munich malt
26.5% Maris Otter malt
15% smoked cherry wood malt
5.5% Caramunich malt
2.5% Special B malt
1.5% Carafa I
5% rolled oats

18g Old English Blend (5.92% AA) at 60mins
Mashed at 68 deg C for 60mins. Boiled for 70mins.

 

Once chilled the batch was split, racking half on the slurry from last month’s Flanders red and half with with the combined wild slurry from Elderflower 2, Rose, Meadowsweet and Heather. The Flanders red was racked to secondary just before. To recap, this slurry was WLP565 Belgian Saison 1 and WLP665 Flemish Blend, which includes Saccharomyces and Brettanomyces yeasts with Lactobacillus and Pediococcus bacteria. I have read that the bacterial souring can increase when the slurry is reused so it will be interesting to see. It will also be interesting to see whether my wild yeast changes its character and whether it becomes more sour.

Down the line I am considering racking some of this onto Elderberries. It would be a nice nod to the source of the yeast. I think there is a dark elderberry ale called Ebulum but I’ve never had it. One to track down maybe.

London BrewCon Megablend update; Brewlab have packaged it all up and are sending it out so I need to plan what to do with it. It will be nice to see whether I can detect the character of my yeasts in the blend.

Year-end roundup

1 Comment

London Homebrew Week and the BrewCon were the week of the 6th Nov. It was great to meet the brewers, James and Jack, at Redchurch Urban Farmhouse Bring the Funk event. James felt the Gorse sourced wild ferment had lacked oxygen during primary fermentation and had a slight off flavour as a result. I wondered whether this could have also been down to a low pitching rate of yeast. I only propagated a 250ml starter for the gorse. The general consensus on the Dandelion was very positive so I kept the bottle dregs and will try to keep the yeast going.

The highlight of the BrewCon for me was the MegaBlend, meeting fellow home brewers and meeting the team from Brewlab. They put Blend 1 and Blend 2 under the microscope so I was able to see the wild yeast and bacteria in the samples. Good to have confirmation that they’re there!

Taken by Brewlab

305A52CA-BA29-447A-9D01-DEBBB1DD7439

About 15 – 20 samples were brought to the MegaBlend; a mixture of bottle dregs and wild captures. Brewlab took them away, will screen each sample and propagate the blend before sending it out to us. The story can be followed on the Facebook page.

Brewlab streak plate Blend 1
Brewlab streak plate Blend 2

I’m now drinking Blend 1 and some of the single source bottles that have gone into Blend 2. Tasting notes below and in the sensory testing diagram:

Date Originating Flower Tasting Notes
10 Dec 17 Hawthorn Low carbonation. Head ok. Rose gold rather than yellow gold. Medicinal aroma. Not astringent. Spicy fruity.
15 Dec 17 Rowan Light amber. Spicy, possibly slightly smoky. Rich fruitiness when aerated in the mouth.
20 Dec 17 Blend 1 Floral creamy notes. Spicy, sharp, clean, dry.
22 Dec 17 Broom Pea flower
1 Jan 17 Garden Apple 2 Little head. Low carbonation. Gold colour. Rose like aroma. Sweet and sour fruity taste.

I have wondered whether autolysis has influenced the flavour profile of the ales that went into Blend 1, which sat on the yeast for 5 months. If it has it is subtle and more akin to the positive attributes in Champagne making than brewing, where it is usually considered a bad thing. In Champagne it is associated with the creamy, buttery, biscuit and floral notes. In brewing it has been associated with marmite and rubber, which is not something I’ve detected in these ales.

On the 18 November I made some rosehip syrup. I did this after the first frost, which I have read can improve the hips, but this was the first opportunity I had had. I did this  to learn the process and experience the flavour. I want to drink the cordial but also add it as a priming sugar to ale. I researched a few recipes including these links from the Guardian and eattheweeds. 500g hips and 1 litre of water were simmered in a pan for 20mins. As they simmered the hips were mashed with a potato masher. They were then strained and squeezed through a double layer of muslin before adding the pulp back to the pan with 1/2 litre of water and setting the juice to one side. The process was then repeated with the pulp and water. The combined juice was then put back on the heat with 150g of golden caster sugar. The resulting cordial is a very good source of vitamin C and I have found it restorative, although I may have imagined this. The syrup tasted quite sugary so next time I will reduce it further with a vigorous boil and use a brown sugar.

Last a Friday night I finally managed to squeeze in a brew while my wife was out. I brewed a Flanders Red recipe based on Greg Hughes Home Brew Beer. And split the batch of 20 litres, using half with commercial yeasts and half with Blend 2. I’ve been fairly liberal with the traditional style. I am primary fermenting the commercial batch with a single strain saison yeast, to use it up and will add a roselaere blend to the secondary. The recipe was:

OG:1.056 FG:1.008 ABV:6.2% SRM:19 IBU:11 20L batch

57% Vienna malt
28% Maris Otter malt
6% Caramunich malt
5% wheat malt
4% Special B malt

13g East Kent Golding (5.92% AA) at 60mins
4g First Gold (6.63% AA) at 60mins

Mashed at 65 deg C for 60mins. Added hops at first wort. Boiled for 90mins.

Evening brewing went well, allowing for more family time over the weekend. With water filtered, grain weighed out and kit prepared in advance, I started the mash just before 8pm and was cleared up by 1am.

The brew was chilled, aerated, split and yeasts added. After a week fermenting with WLP Belgian Saison Yeast Roselare Blend was added to the fermenter. I intend to rack these to secondary rather than resting on the yeast cake.

Other adventures into fermentation in the few months have been sauerkraut and ginger bug which might make their way into my brews at some point. I have also made a deconstructed compound gin kit which I plan to use to gain a deeper appreciation of different botanicals.

After three months, I racked the Heather Ale off the sprigs of heather. A very thin film had formed on top among the floating fronds. This had been an experiment to see what would happen if I cut out the propagation steps and sensory testing. It was a bit of a gamble, a bit lazy but also a way to “dry hop” the ale with heather as well as add a source of yeast. The gravity was 1.007 and the pH was 3.9. The ale had mostly cleared and tasted of a floral honey.