Bruin Porter

January 24, 2018January 25, 20181 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.

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

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

January 2, 2018January 25, 20181 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

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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.

Blending into Autumn

November 9, 2017January 25, 2018Leave a comment

Since the last post the seasons have shifted into autum, the valleys have been cloaked in mists and now the first frost has come. The blackbirds chime together a tinking call like an engine cooling down after hard effort. The leaves have turned through a spectrum of colour and now mostly fallen, as have the apples, starting with our early tree and finally the cooker. I’ve retained some for cider if time permits. The woodland trails are a wonderland to run through; the hollow-ways carpeted in leaves, providing a secret solitude. Beachy Head Marathon was an exhilarating highlight of the last month. The view from the top of Windover Hill was stunning, with clear cold blue skies and the perfect undulations of the Downs unfolding to the sea.

The ale has been biding its time, slowly changing it’s character. A pellicle formed on Blend 1. I think this was because I ran out of carboy bungs so for a few days it was sealed with cling film allowing some oxidation. Some fermentation recommenced as different gravities combined with the different strains of yeast.

In the last month I have opened bottles of Gorse, Primrose, Wild Apple, Blackthorn and Dandelion, which were bottled on the 9 September. My tasting notes are below.

Primrose

Wild Apple

Dandelion

Date	Originating Flower	Tasting Notes
13 Oct 17	Gorse	Low – moderate carbonation. Pale gold. Aroma of heady funk. Floral, marzipan, coconut, pea flower – gorse. Not distinctly sour.
21 Oct 17	Primrose	Moderate carbonation. Pale gold. Floral and something almondy like meadowsweet – an astringent raw nut.
28 Oct	Wild Apple	Moderate carbonation. Gold. Fruity, clean.
4 Nov 17	Blackthorn	Moderate carbonation. Pale gold. Marzipan, softened by the carbonation
6 Nov 17	Dandelion	Yellow gold. Indistinct but floral aroma. Bitterness. Spiciness. Slight astringent aftertaste. A bit acidic – slightly mouth-watering pH 4.3 however.

On the 4 November, after two months in the carboy I bottled half of Blend 1 into 32 375ml bottles. At this stage it had a gravity of 1.003 and a pH of 4.25. There were aromas of marzipan as well as some higher alcohol /estery notes. The flavours were of pale fruit like apple or grape. The other half of the blend was split into two demijohns: one with 8g of medium toast American oak chips and one to eventually blend with Blend 2 and 3 once they are ready.

The same day I sampled and blended the next four demijohns – Garden Apple 2, Broom, Hawthorn and Rowan. They were sampled first at room temperature and then chilled.

Garden Apple 2

Hawthorn

Rowan

Broom

Originating Flower	Gravity	pH	Tasting Notes
Garden Apple 2	1.003	4.0	Clear. Golden. Hoppy, floral aroma. Dryer than the other samples.
Hawthorn	1.004	4.3	Clear. Rose gold colour. Not distinctly aromatic. Stone fruit. Creamy flavour. Chilled – Deep fruity.
Rowan	1.004	4.3	Clear. Straw gold. Subtle roselike aroma, stone fruit. Spicy Chilled – Astringent
Broom	1.007	4.0	Clear. Straw gold. Honey aroma, pea-flower. Tangy compared to the other samples. Chilled – Some medicinal, petrol aromas

4 x 375ml bottles of Garden Apple II, 4 of Hawthorn, 3 of Rowan and 2 x 330ml bottles of broom were taken from the demijohns. I bottled straights from the demijohns with granulated sugar in the bottles. While I normally decant what I’m bottling into a bucket with sugar syrup, it seemed logical with such small quantities to add dry sugar to each bottle. I also filled the bottles first so as not to disturb the trub at the bottom of the demijohns. I took a different number of bottles from each demijohn because I saw, half way through, that I was not going to fill the carboy if I filled 4 bottles of each. This left 2.5l of Garden Apple II, 2.5l of Hawthorn, 2.875l of Rowan and 3.34l of Broom to fill the 11.4l carboy. I was not aiming for a specific ratio for blending because each ale had a similar acidity and structure. The dregs from each demijohn were combined for the next brew. As I wasn’t able to brew the same weekend I have prepared a 500ml lightly hopped starter.

I’ve also retained the dregs from Blend 1 and a third of the dregs from the four demijohns (Blend 2) and fed them with 250ml of lightly hopped malt extract for the BrewCon London Megablend. Also, as part of brewCon London’s Homebrew Week , I’m taking a bottle of Gorse and a bottle of Dandelion along to Bring the Funk at Redchurch Brewery. I love their Urban Farmhouse range so it will be interesting to hear what people think of my brews.

Over the year I have recorded notes in this blog but it’s difficult to quickly reference and see how one observation has flown into the next. I have created a flowchart to chart my sensory tasting notes and brewing and blending process. I hope this creates a visually clear reference. A pdf is here and I will keep it up to date.

Tipping point

September 13, 2017January 25, 2018Leave a comment

It often feels like September can go two ways; an Indian summer or plunge straight into Autumn. This year the weather seems to be doing a bit of both, changing the mood, as it does. @circleofpines on Instagram quoted Tove Jansson from The Summer Book, better articulating this tipping point:

“It is still summer, but summer is no longer alive. It has come to a standstill; nothing withers, and fall is not ready to begin”.

A few flowers are still holding on: water mint, perennial sowthistle, common fleabane and heather are still providing colour. On the flip side there are now plenty of mushrooms and the apples are falling. I started collecting the apples this weekend. I love the peace of this annual ritual for me. There is always a stillness in the air after the buzz of summer, broken only by the occasional robin or blackbird pipping in the tree next to me. There is the smell of dampness, soil and decay in the air and I enjoy the meditative repetitive action: pick apple, inspect, wipe, bag, repeat. The apples will be juiced, I’ll make some cider and make some beer with the lees.

The family left me on my lonesome for the weekend, which gave me the space and time to blend and bottle a few of the single flower ferments from the spring and brew a batch for the yeast / trub left behind.

Before blending I took samples from the first seven demijohns, took gravity reading and pH readings before tasting. I tasted at room temperature and then again after they had been in the fridge. The findings were as follows:

Originating Flower	Gravity	pH	Tasting Notes
Gorse	1.010	4.6	Clear. Golden. Aroma and taste of honey and slight petrol (like some rieslings). Sweeter than blackthorn. Not much acidic structure. On second (chilled) tasting, marzipan/coconut-like gorse flowers. A slight astringency.
Primrose	1.005	3.8	Clear. Yellow gold. Flowery. Marzipan. Less zingy than Wild Apple. Honey like. Less marzipan like.
Blackthorn	1.005	4.8	Clear. Yellow gold. Less distinct. Most sloe gin-like marzipan character.
Dandelion	1.003	4.5	Clear. Golden. Really nice perfumed floral aroma. (this might be the higher hopping). Zingy hop bitterness.
Wild Apple	1.003	4.2	Clear. Golden. Slightly dirty on first tasting but this might have been in comparison to Dandelion. Pleasant fruity tang. Fruitier than Garden Apple 2.
Garden Apple 1	1.002	4.6	Clear. Golden. Zingy tang again. Fruity. Not as sweet as Wild Apple.
Garden Apple 2	1.006	4.0	Slightly cloudy. Sweeter than Garden Apple 1. Bitterness. Less aroma than first three.

Overall I was pleased they were drinkable and slightly surprised by the lack of variation. That said there were only three base brews for the seven samples and the recipes were similar. The Nelson Sauvin was the most distinct because of the relatively high rate of hopping. The level of hop bitterness in all three batches had likely inhibited lactic acid production and in future I need to be bolder and braver and reduce the hop level below 10 IBU. I knew it was too high but I wanted to replicate saison recipes that had previously been successful. The multiple sensory tests before the main brew probably also account for the lack of off flavours and funkiness. They are also still fairly young. More savoury brett character might develop over the next six months. There are also another eight single flower based ferments to blend over the coming months.

Following the tasting I decided to leave Garden Apple 2 to further clear and develop over time and to blend equal measures of the other six to combine the floral/marzipan aromas with the fruity zingy hop character, making 21 litres. That left two 375ml bottles of each unblended for comparison and yeast storage and 1000ml of yeast slurry / trub for the next brew. I used 400ml of this slurry in 10l.

1 litre of yeast slurry and trub from the first six demijohns

Next year I need to try and focus on a lactic acid culture in some of my wild capture starters. I will read up about it but I will probably minimise hop bitterness, exclude oxygen and keep the temperature around 40 deg C.

Standing forgotten on a shelf were four 250ml conical flasks from at least a month ago. Musk mallow had developed a thick gelatinous cap and fluffy mould so was binned. Blackberry 1 was cloudy and had an aroma of spicy fruit. The gravity was 1030 and the pH was 4.8. Blackberry 2 was clear with a thick gelatinous cap. Initially it smelt slightly cheesy but this passed. The gravity was also 1030 and the pH was 4.5. As little alcohol or acidity had been produced I decided to bin both. That left the final flask. The meadowsweet was clear and had the aroma of nectarines. The Gravity was 1008 and the pH was 3.6. The taste was tart, astringent and fruity – definitely a keeper.

For my next brew I decided to take elements of the grain bill from the 8-wired Nelson Sauvin recipe used in batch 3 and the European hops from the Burning Sky recipe used in batch 5, making a few changes to use up the grain I had available. My intention was to use 10 litres for the blended yeast slurry from the first six captures and 5 litres for the meadowsweet yeast capture and, for the final 5 litres, I collected a couple of large handfuls of flowering heather and put them straight in a demijohn. I thought it would be interesting to skip the propagation steps, increase the quantity of flowers, hopefully adding flavour as well as yeast and bacteria. The base recipe was as follows:

OG:1.056 FG:1.009 ABV:6.0% SRM:6 IBU:17 20L batch

53% Maris Otter malt
24% Pilsner malt
11% wheat malt
2% spelt malt
4% flaked wheat
4% caragold
2% acidulated malt

18g East Kent Golding (5.92% AA) at 60mins
18g East Kent Golding at 15mins
15g each of Saaz, Celeia and East Kent Golding at 0mins

I mashed at 65 deg C for an hour then sparged to 22 litres when the gravity was 1.010. 7 litres evaporated or were absorbed by the hops during the boil and, in a rush, I liquored back to 20 litres without taking gravity readings. When I then checked it was 1.048, so the ABV will be 5.1%, but I’m not going to loose sleep over it. I should have sparged a few more litres before the gravity fell below 1.010. Looking back over my brewing calculator the efficiency was set higher than I would normally set it, so that’s probably why. There was a couple of hours pause between chilling and racking to fermentors. While I would have preferred to avoid this it did allow the cold break to settle really well, allowing clear wort to be siphoned off.

So what next? I don’t intend to collect anymore flowers this year. I will continue to blend the beer I have when it is ready, bottle it, propagate the yeast and and report back on that process and the results. If the beers from the blended yeast is successful I will get a barrel and start ageing them – fingers crossed. Over the autumn and winter I would like to give a bit of time to pale ales, bitters, porters and maybe a stronger stock ale and will report back if I think they’re relevant to the blog. Looking ahead I have had some thoughts for next year but I think I will leave that for another blog post in a few months time.

And finally, proof that not every brew is a success. The braggot with saison yeast, strawberries and grains of paradise from a few months ago was a “Braison” failure. 5g of grains of paradise were added rather than 0.5g. I hope it might improve but it reached tipping point…

Funky Flower beer project

Tag: blending beer

Bruin Porter

Year-end roundup

Blending into Autumn

Tipping point