Tag: Homebrewing

Spring awakening

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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.

Dandelion and apple blossom

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The more vigourous blackthorn flask

Manic springtime

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I returned home from a week away to balmy temperatures and spring in full swing. Driving back from the airport, the hedgerows were flush with new green leaf, the white of blackthorn and cherry and the yellow of primrose and daffodil. At home brambles on the track were coming thick and fast, the grass was needing a cut, and saplings are coming up in the lawn where the chickens had scraped a bare patch last year. Common dog violet have come up near the house in increasing numbers which are a delight.

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The garden will have to wait as I had brewing to do and mirroring natures activity outside it was a manic rush to get everything done. I completed my first double brew day, which was about 13 hours from start to finish. With only one set of equipment I overlapped the second mash with the first boil. A friend had asked me to brew for his wedding. I brewed a Vienna lager for him a month ago that is lagering in a fridge. This weekend I also brewed a light American pale ale, full of body and hoppiness but only 3.9% ABV in the style of Weird Beard Little Things That Kill. The second beer brew of the day was the base beer for the first set of funky flowers (gorse and catkins), which followed a saison recipe I had used before but with Vienna malt replacing Munich malt and a touch of Cara Munich added. Finally, if two brews in one day wasn’t enough, I bottled the wild portion of the meadowsweet saison that has been slowly bubbling for six months. (Note to self: check the size of the crown caps before you fill the bottles!…)

I had already had a sniff of the wild flower yeasts, which had been stepped up in a starter for two weeks, and decided to use just one of the two gorse flasks and ditch the two catkins. The most promising gorse flask smelt of pear drop, strawberry and coconut. The pH was 2.9. I gingerly tasted a small amount which tasted clean and sweet (not fully attenuated). I swirled and poured the flask contents, still containing gorse flowers, through a muslin into a 5litre demijohn of the base beer.  Next time I might step up the starter again to an intermediate OG rather than jumping from 1.035 to 1.060 (any comments on this?). As there didn’t seem to be much sediment I only inoculated the single batch and fermented the remaining 15litres with White Labs WLP 565 Belgian Saison I. I intend to “dry hop” 5litres of this with a heap of wild flowers in the secondary and see if I can get a secondary fermentation akin to the meadowsweet saison. Maybe I’m wrong on this, and overly confident after my initial successes, but this seems like a less risky way to introduce wild cultures as the fermented beer will protect itself from some beer spoiling nasties.

The second gorse was interesting. Similar to the first but also smelt like hospitals, with a sanitary, alcohol aroma. After swirling I t also reminded me of lambic. There was a big floating platform just below the surface. White, unblemished, and not furry, I’m tempted to say it was a pellicle rather than mould but it didn’t match any of the pictures on Milk the Funk’s excellent site. See photo. Any suggestions? I have strained the flask contents into a jar with some more wort for further inspection in the coming weeks.

Possible pellicle

The catkin flasks, which had been the most active, smelt of sweat and, as my wife’s experienced nose spotted, the nappy of a teething baby – acid nappy! It “singed the nostrils” as Ron Burgandy would say. Unsurprisingly this was dumped, and with the kitchen stinking I went outside into the cool night air to clear my lungs.

The blackthorn and primrose were ready to step up to conical flasks after two weeks in centrifuge tubes. I was excited about the blackthorn which had fizzed and given off aromas of spicy saison and cherry from the tube a week or so ago. When opened, three of the tubes smelt this way, plus a bit of nail polish. Two of these had a distinctive bubbly pellicle on top. The other three were woodier, earthy but not unpleasant. These were poured into two separate flasks with 250ml of aerated wort at SG 1.035.

Pellicle on blackthorn

The primrose were more neutral smelling. Some had a small beard of mould where the flowers were above the surface, which I removed. When shaken, two smelt earthier and funkier and three smelt sweet. These were added to separate flasks. Another smelling slightly of nappy and another smelling of cabbage were discarded.

Blackthorn and primrose

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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

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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.

 

First blog post – gorse and hazel catkins

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Saturday felt like the first proper spring day of the year. We walked through the woods and up to the ridge and it was a glorious still, warm and sunny day. With spring in the air I’m feeling optimistic and it seems like a good weekend to start the project.

I had a long run on Sunday so my wife picked the first flowers of the project. We started with gorse flowers and hazel catkins. While gorse is always in season and, I think, peaks slightly later in the year, it’s put on a bit of a spurt recently so now seems a good time to try it. I love the spot they came from. We live in Kipling country and the hill where the gorse is is Pook’s Hill in my mind. I like to think I’m bringing a little old world magic into my beer!

 

Once the flowers had been collected small bugs, such as thunder bugs, started emerging from the flowers. Next time I’ll collect the flowers into a small sanitised Tupperware and decant the flowers from there into the centrifuge tubes, having given time for the bugs to leave the flowers. This will also save carrying multiple tubes out for a walk.

Once cooled the wort was aerated by swirl/shaking the Erlenmeyer flask. Initially I used a pipette to transfer the wort but it wasn’t necessary – pouring worked fine.

The detail of my process is under the method tab.