Back to back

April 18, 2018April 19, 2018Leave a comment

Over the winter I’ve been brewing a series of darker beers to age for next winter. These have included Flanders Red, Oud Bruin, Stock Ale and Old Ale. The second two were brewed to top up the first two when I racked them off the primary yeast cake, using low hopped portions of the wort. I’ve also brewed them to reuse my wild yeast blends. The Flanders Red was split and half was fermented with traditional commercial yeast and half fermented with wildflower yeast Blend 2. The Oud Bruin was also split with half fermented on the commercial yeast cake from the Flanders Red and the other half fermented with Blend 3 wild yeast. The stock ale was fermented with Sussex yeast in the primary and Brettanomyces Clausenii in the secondary. The Old Ale was then intended to use all three wild yeast blends (Blend 1, Blend 2 and Blend 3 from 2017) and therefore act as a yeast bank.

I brewed the Old Ale on 14 April. It ended up being another marathon brew day with back to back brews starting at 3pm and finishing at 3am… The first brew was a trial run for my cousin’s wedding this summer; a pale, sessionable, ale with shed loads of locally grown English Chinook and American west coast yeast. The second brew was the Old Ale and I wanted to make a better job of brewing a strong ale after winging it with the Stock Ale and not achieving the desired volume. It went pretty well but my mash tun is too small for that quantity of grain so I struggled to get it up to the desired mash temperature. I tried draining off portions and heating them up in a saucepan, which raised the temperature to 66 deg C but not 68 deg C as intended. The recipe’s below:

OG:1.078 ABV:8.6% SRM: 34 IBU: 50

61% Maris Otter
32% Munich Malt
2% Carafa 1
3.5% crystal malt (30L)
1.5% dark crystal malt (120L)

Mash at 68 deg C for 60mins. Boil for 150 mins.

I sparged 25 litres and split this, using 6.5 Litres for the Oud Bruin top-up and and 18.5 litres for the Old Ale. The Oud Bruin top-up was boiled for 1 1/2 hours with Bullion hops to 10IBU. The Old Ale was boiled for 2 hours with equal weights of Bullion hops at the start of the boil and 30 mins from the end of boil. After racking, the gravity was only 1.072 so it was put back in the kettle and boiled for a further 30mins (150 mins in total).

The Oud Bruins were both tasting nice still slightly sweet with mellow smokiness from the cherry wood smoked malt. The commercial yeast portion had a pH 4.3 and the Blend 3 portion was at pH 4.4 so not very acidic yet; hopefully that will go lower with time. The gravities were 1.010 and 1.008 respectively. Both were chestnut brown.

11.5 litres of Old Ale was racked onto the wild yeast blend of blends. After 24 hours fermentation started in earnest, shooting through the airlock.

About 2 litres of wort remained once the carboy were filled; a mixture of Old Ale and the Oud Bruin top-up. This was used as starters to feed Blends 1, 2 and 3 for a future pale ale.

I now feel I’ve come full circle. The wild cultures from 2017 are now house cultures for 2018 and will continue to be experimented with. The seasons have passed by and spring has arrived again. It’s been a slow, cold start for a few weeks primroses were the only flower, uncontested. Then wood anenomes slowly gathered momentum. But in the last week much of the flora and fauna has woken up. This included the birds and subsequently me. The dawn chorus woke me up at 5:30 the other day but it was worth listening to.

An area of woodland near the house was cleared last year. It needed doing but it left a stark scar. Now, however, it is being reclaimed. Plant that I haven’t seen there before are taking over: primrose, wood sorrel, violets, garlic mustard and wavy bitter cress. This motivated me to collect my first wild flower yeast captures of 2018. I realise I looked pretty weird out in the woods at 2230, head torch on, carrying a stainless steel bowl full of 18 centrifuge tubes and a pair of tweezers…. a possible error was to use the same tweezers for each flower so cross contaminating the samples.

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Last year I didn’t generate much sourness. This is mainly do to over hopping the brews but I though I would try an experiment to optimise lactobacillus production. I took 6 samples of each flower and half the centrifuge tubes were treated like last year – filled 2/3 full with 1.035 gravity wort, aerated and left at room temperature. The work was unhopped pale malt extract. The other 9 tubes were filled a little more, not aerated and then places in a thermos flask water bath at just under 40 deg C. I will leave them for a few days as if sour worting before allowing to cool to room temperature and aerating. Maybe this won’t work because it is not a pure lactobacillus culture and the high temperature may encourage off flavours or other bacteria – no harm in trying though. I also read somewhere that ground dwelling plants have stronger lactobacillus cultures, which is why cabbages lactoferment so easily. We shall see.

Spring awakening

March 16, 2018March 21, 20185 Comments

To recap, back in November I went to the London BrewCon and took part in the MegaBlend. For this Brewlab took away participants’ wild cultures, house cultures and bottle dregs, screened them, propagated the blend and distributed it around the world. My wild flower yeast blend 1 and 2 went into this. They did this all free of charge so it was an amazing effort by them. Last weekend I made my first brew with the culture and Emma Inch, a journalist and home brewer who had taken an interest in the project, came round to see what I was doing. The brew day was a week later than planned because of snow, which meant that the ingredients arrived too late and we were snowed in.

The brew day was a bit chaotic. I’m learning I’m not as good at multitasking as I would like. I attempted two overlapping brews – starting the second mash once the first was complete – and, with talking to Emma at the same time, my timings and attention to detail were a bit off. In the end the first brew went fine, the second was salvaged and the kitchen looked like a bomb site. It was really nice to meet Emma though and I look forward to reading her article.

Pellicle on the starter

For the MegaBlend culture I wanted to brew a pale farmhouse ale with some complex fermentables from unmalted grains and some extra body and mouth feel from rolled oats. Call it misplaced nostalgia but I also wanted a varied grain bill to add some preindustrial complexity and a sense of making do with what was available. The recipe is below:

OG:1.055 ABV:6.6% SRM: 7 IBU: 8

67% Maris Otter
10% Wheat Malt
10% Spelt Malt
8% Flaked Oats
5% Flaked Wheat

Mixed Bushel of Hops Heritage hops at 60mins and flame out
60min mash at 69deg C

I intended to add a little Epsom Salts and Precipitated Chalk to aid fermentation, as both magnesium and calcium are low in our moderately soft water, but I forgot… I also added 10 minutes on to the boil because the Protofloc went in late…

I had made a starter for the MegaBlend to ensure it was vigorous. Alison from Brewlab had told us it was big enough for 20 litres so cell count should have been fine. Because of the snow delay the starter had a week in the fridge following a week fermentation but it quickly became active again once I took it out. The aromatics coming off the starter were really appealing: there was an acetic acidity and depth of funk. Possibly wrongly, I didn’t pour away the starter liquid, mainly because the yeast was still active in suspension and also because the aromatics were so good.

Within 24 hours the airlock was very active and I opened the window to keep the room temperature below 20 deg C. After a few days the airlock had slowed to a regular bubble.

For my second brew I wanted a wort of similar colour, strength and character to top off the Flanders red. I had also become interested in stock ales from reading Country House Brewing in England by Pamela Sambrook and drinking Burning Sky’s Stock Ale. I intended to draw off 15 litres of wort and use 5 litres low hopped for the Flanders Red and 10 litres high hopped for the stock ale. I took far too little wort and so, post boil, ended up with 5.5 litres of stock ale and 3 litres to top up the Flanders red. I realised I had residual sugar in the mash so remashed and made a 5.5 litre batch of bitter. The mash had been left dry for at least an hour so I don’t know whether this will affect it. I think there was still residual sugar in the mash also. I clearly need to do some homework on brewing strong beers and parti-gyling. I started with the intention of brewing an entire ale and ended up parti-gyling. I realise I was winging it, messed up the volumes but I think the character and strength of the stock ale, flanders red top-up and bitter should be fine. I imagine the malt for country house brewing would be a bit less uniform than what we have today so I’ve used a mixture of Maris Otter, Chevalier (a heritage variety) and crisp amber malt to provide a varied complexity to the taste.

Flanders red top up OG:1.073 ABV:8% SRM: 24 IBU: 11
Stock ale OG:1.078 ABV:8.5% SRM: 23 IBU: 70
Bitter OG:1.040 ABV:4.0% SRM: 17 IBU: 45

39% Maris Otter
39% Chevalier
11% Crisp amber malt (25L)
5.5% crystal malt (30L)
5.5% medium crystal malt (75L)

60min mash at 67deg C.

Stock ale hops:

50:50 East Kent Goldings and Mixed Bushel of Hops Heritage hops at 60mins (49 IBU)
Mixed Heritage hops at 30mins (18 IBU)
Mixed Heritage hops at Flame out

Flanders red top-up hops:

Mixed Bushel of Hops Heritage hops at 60mins (11 IBU)

Bitter

50:50 East Kent Goldings and Mixed Heritage hops at 60mins (29 IBU)
Mixed Heritage hops at 30mins (22 IBU)
Mixed Heritage hops at Flame out

I took samples of the Flanders red before topping up. The batch fermented on commercial yeast was racked when I made the Oud Bruin. It tasted fine but not quite happy in its skin yet. It wasn’t very smooth and hadn’t developed much acidity. Hopefully the addition of fresh fermentables from the top up will feed the bacteria as well as the yeast. The batch fermented on my wild flower Blend 2 was a lot smoother. Still a bit sweet and young so I hope it becomes more savoury with age. It took a couple of days for these to start fermenting. As is consistently the case, the wild yeast ferments slower and for longer, and this is still the case compared to the Roeselare Blend.

I also recently bottled Blend 3 and the reuse of Blend 1. A portion of Blend 3 has been kept back for blending with Blend 1 and 2. Blend 3 had a gravity of 1.004 and a pH of 4.3 with a spicy, Turkish delight taste. Blend 1 reuse had a gravity of 1.003 and pH of 4.4. The taste still had some body, which was surprising for the gravity, and the taste was clean but tangy.

Tasting notes…. Blend 2 has a strong nail varnish aroma, which is probably beyond pleasant. I will leave it a few months and see if it improves in the bottle. Elderflower has a floral aroma, a biscuity taste and creamy mouth feel. I particularly liked this one. Dog rose had a softer floral aroma than elderflower, a slightly darker colour and a taste reminiscent of Turkish delight. Heather ale was pale gold, tasted of flower honey with a tangy finish. The head quickly diminished.

I am concerned about the oxidation from blending and head space. Blend 2 has definitely suffered because of this and Blend 3 might be affected. While I’ve enjoyed drinking Blend 1, the single flower ferments have a cleaner, less creamy taste to them. This year I will only Blend if the ales will benefit from balancing out. I will still Blend the yeast though.

The first flowers are now out with a scattering of snowdrops and clumps of primrose. It feels like spring is breaking through. The birds are more active and the dawn chorus streams through the window in the mornings now. I might revisit primrose after using them last year. I read somewhere that veg near to the ground has more lactobacillus present. I’m wondering whether the same is true with flowers and will try and encourage a sour culture from them soon.

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

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.

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…

My delight on a shining night

July 25, 2017February 14, 2018Leave a comment

I’ve been meaning to collect meadowsweet and yarrow for a week or so. Meadowsweet especially as it’s been around for a while whereas the yarrow has some time yet, I think. With one thing and another it wasn’t until half ten on a Monday night that a slightly exasperated me set out into the woods to collect some. That night turned out to be such a rare treat, emphasised by my lack of expectation. I had never heard a nightjar before but as I walked further into the woods the repetitive cricket-like churring became louder and louder. The bird was in the bracken and I skirted round it passed the stream to where the meadowsweet grows. I didn’t find any yarrow but the meadowsweet, at chest height with a heady fragrance, was easy to feel for in the half light. I snipped flossy heads into sanitised centrifuge tubes. Something strange flew overhead that I still can’t place. It crackled and half roared like dragging a foot over gravel, reminiscent of a flare firing before it pops. It was maybe a bat or a large insect but not one I’m familiar with. I carried on over the hill and looped back round towards home. A juvenile tawny owl called and the soundless silhouette of the owl’s steady wing beat moved across the sky. I returned to the nightjars, which were now louder than before. One rose from the bracken, poised like a kestrel against the last light in the sky, before settling again into the undergrowth. One clapped its wings and moved its position when I got too close. As I headed home the full moon shone bright through traces of clouds and unseen creatures shifted their position, given away by the dry leaf litter.

That night I made a fresh starter for the elderflower and rose captured yeast with lightly hopped wort and also made a starter for some of the WLP 566 Saison Ale II, saved from last brew day. The dog rose had a moderate film pellicle on it and smelt of roses and perfume. I feel like that is stating the obvious but the dog roses had no significant scent when I picked them and are now two propagation steps removed from the flowers. Do any flower/fruit aromas come from the esters these microbes create? Clearly, I don’t know what I’m talking about and am stabbing in the dark (recently I picked up a satsuma with a mould bloom on it and the orange ester smell was amazing). The elderflower was floral but less distinct. One had a stonking pellicle, wrinkled and holding large bubbles. The other had a thin film.

Pellicle on rose capture

Pellicle on elderflower 2

That night I also racked the “Braison” off the strawberries. I had used 1.2kg of strawberries having read that there are 5g of sugar in 100g of strawberries. This quantity seemed in line with some recipes in Greg Hughes’s “Home Brew Beer”. This would have added 60g of sugar plus 140g of honey making the OG 1.062. Unfortunately I think the “Braison” is a failure. I knew I had put too much grain of paradise in and the flavour was very phenolic and reminiscent of pencil lead. I will leave it alone for a month and decide then whether to ditch it.

I squeezed in a brew day on Sunday (23 July). I tried to keep it fairly simple with a 20litre batch following the Burning Sky Saison Provision (one of my favourite beers), from Euan Ferguson’s Craft Brew. My recipe was as follows:

OG:1.052 FG:1.009 ABV:5.5% SRM:4 IBU:13 20L batch

85% Pilsner malt
5% wheat malt
5% spelt malt
5% caragold

16g East Kent Golding (5.92% AA) at 60mins
8g East Kent Golding at 15mins
17g each of Saaz, Celeia and Sorachi Ace at 0mins

The mash was held for 60mins at 65 deg C with a water grist ratio of 2.6 l per kg. 0.5g each of calcium carbonate and magnesium sulphate were added to the mash to improve my water profile for a heathy fermentation. pH was 5.5. I did an iodine test at the end of the mash to try something new and the starch was converted. 22l were sparged, which in retrospect was too little as the gravity was 1.020 and I only ended up with 18l at the desired gravity post boil and after liquoring back. This was enough however to fill four demijohns. Rather than chilling in the boiler I transferred to a bucket and chilled in there, which achieved a far better cold break. I struggled to separate the wort from the trub but I’ve read conflicting report of whether this needs to be done.

Pellicle on rose capture

Pellicle on elderflower 2

The four demijohns had rose captured yeast, elderflower 1 and 2 captures and WLP 566 Belgian Saison Ale II added respectively. The pellicles were really impressive again; wrinkly on the rose and bubbly on elderflower 2. Elderflower 1 had a very thin film.

Rosebay willowherb

Great willowherb

Black knapweed and meadowsweet

Tufted vetch and meadowsweet

Betony

Spear thistle

Creeping thistle

Grass snake

Hemp agrimony

Dandelion and apple blossom

April 18, 2017April 20, 20171 Comment

The Easter weekend provided even more time to wander the footpaths and inspect the hedgerows for plants and flowers of interest. I think I now know the difference between cow parsley, hog weed, hemlock and hemlock water-dropwort – the latter two are poisonous. I spotted Alexanders, lime green, in local abundance in Suffolk. Also heard and then saw a sky lark while there on an early morning run, which was a treat.

Back in Sussex I tried to find more Alexanders but so far without success. Between my wife’s extant knowledge and our smart phones we spotted a number of flowers, including coral root, red campion, vetch, dog mercury, archangel, townhall clock, herb robert as well as carpets of stitchwort and bluebells, which are almost at their best.

Coral root

Red campion

Archangel

Vetch

While my wife stopped to photograph a wild orchid, I collected dandelions and wild apple blossom for the next round of yeast collection. Both were in a meadow about a mile from the house and within our valley. I probably don’t want to exceed this distance to achieve the local, “terroir” specific, yeast that I’m aiming for. We spotted a few rowan saplings which would provide an interesting addition to the beer if they flower. I also now know where to find a wild cherry and possibly a damson for next year. They were both down by the river but the blossom had gone over.

One of the highlights this time of year is the nightingale. A few years ago we joked about naming our daughter nightingale if we heard it before she was born. When I came back from the hospital and stood in the driveway at 4am there it was, clear as a bell in the otherwise stillness of the pre-dawn night. Punctual as ever, I heard the nightingale last night for the first time this year. Some phrases of his tune warble, some stutter, some notes are drawn out as if longing for his mate. It’s a truly magical sound and a happy birthday to my daughter.

The apple trees in the garden are very old and I have made cider from them before using the naturally occurring yeast. On that note I tasted a bottle last night. I should call it the forgotten cider. They were 2015 apples, stored/forgotten over winter, fermented and racked to a secondary in early spring 2016 and then forgotten about until they were bottled at the end of last year. It’s not my best, pretty dry, but I like it and the dregs might be propagated to ferment a Saison as a side project.

Wild apple

Garden apple

Dandelion

The wild apple, garden apple and dandelion were collected in the same way as before. Following a recommendation on Milk the Funk Facebook group I will remove the flowers after 24 hours. I have been collecting the flowers in freezer bags rather than carrying many tubes in my pocket, for convenience but also giving the insects a chance to escape. While I’m keeping the types separate, this does give the flowers time to muddle together, preventing each yeast capture from being isolated and unique.

The gorse batch of beer took off at a rate of knots within 24 hours and was spewing out of the airlock most of the week. After seven days it has calmed but is still bubbling persistently.

One of the flasks of primrose starter doesn’t smell so good. One of the more vigourous blackthorn flasks smells of nail varnish but not unpleasantly. I’ve read this can be caused by fermentation at high temperatures, unhealthy yeast, or brett fermenting in the presence of oxygen. The latter is certainly possible, there was a lot of air in the flask. Unhealthy yeast is possible and I will add yeast nutrient in future. Brewing Reality said that ethyl ethanoate can be found in lambic in high level due to two wild yeast strains. The other blackthorn and primrose smell ok if less distinct.

The more vigourous blackthorn flask

Blackthorn and primrose

March 27, 2017March 28, 20171 Comment

After a wet week it was another glorious, sunny weekend with many spring flowers coming into bloom. A trip across the South Downs on Saturday showed the county at its best, with the sunlight and shadow highlighting the soft contours. With 4 weeks to go to the Southampton Marathon, a 20 mile run first thing Sunday morning took me half the way to Pevensey Bay and much of the route was lined with a riot of primrose, wood anemones, milk maids / cuckoo flower and lesser celandine. There were also a few early dandelions that, with any luck, will be fermenting in April!

The activity in the test tubes had slowed earlier in the week, after about 10 days, so it was time for the sniff test and to step them up to 250ml in conical flasks. Most of the gorse flowers, which had fermented less vigorously, smelled of coconut from the flowers and a little of pear drops. They were promising and so kept. One smelled of cabbage and was binned. A starter wort of 1035 SG was prepared, cooled and aerated. The three that smelled most similar were poured into one flask and the two that were a bit weird were placed in another.

The catkins, which fermented more vigorously were less promising. Three smelt of nappy / dustbin so were binned. The remaining three were a bit weird and earthy but not necessarily bad so they have a stay of execution until the next round of judging, at which point it might be me that gets killed off by drinking them. This could be a short running blog in that case!

To keep things sanitised I rinsed the conical flasks with boiling water, rinsed all equipment with no rinse sanitiser (which again I rinsed off!?). Following a tip from Ales of the Riverward I also used a spirit lamp to try and keep the air clean. I was making sour dough earlier in the day so there was plenty of other microbes floating around. As an aside, Wild Beer Co have made a tasty beer from sour dough culture so that might be another project to mimic in the future.

Primrose

The next pair of flowers were also collected this weekend. What I think is wild cherry has been lining many of the roadsides in the last few weeks. If I could find it near the house, away from the road and positively identify that it is wild cherry I would have used it. Maybe next year. I was, however, in no doubt about spotting primrose and blackthorn. I learnt a good bit of country lore from my wife, “blackthorn is flower before leaf and hawthorn’s leaf before flower”. They were bagged up, insects given some time to vacate, and placed in tubes as before. The spirit burner was used to try and keep the air clean and the starter wort was 1025 SG.

First bubbles

March 16, 2017March 28, 2017Leave a comment

It’s finally daylight again for my early morning runs so it’s nice to have a better view of the countryside around me. I can see flowers in the hedgerows now and my mind is filled with brewing possibilities. Primrose and wood anemone were flowering and I think I saw the first milkmaids. I think primrose is the only one that’s edible. Wood anemones are part of the buttercup family, which are generally toxic. I was also reminded of where I picked meadowsweet for last year’s saison. There was a dense fog at the bottom of the valley, submerging it as if an ice-age had returned. It really brought the contours to life. What is normally another indistinct hill in the landscape was now a sharply defined spur enveloped by cloud. The dawn chorus is now at the same time as the run, so another seasonal treat.

The test tubes are looking promising. The catkins are certainly more active but they’re bigger and dustier so no surprise really. Bubbles are forming on the surface and the catkins have trapped submerged bubbles. Some of the tubes are cloudier. There is a bit of sediment at the bottom of the tubes. I gave them another shake and one tube hissed pleasingly.