#67 Koschei Imperial Stout

Eureka, this is by far the most insane batch I have ever made and probably the last post for this year. Plus a recipe brewed not so long ago like the ones I posted recently… Anyway, I am a big fan of Imperial Stouts and I am still working on some recipes to get myself a really great example of the Imperial Stout style. Sure I have made some really tasty examples in the past such as two versions of the legendary Rusalka Imperial Stout. I even did a re-brew of the Rusalka Imperial Stout and let a part of if mature on Islay Whisky soaked wood chips. I added the Whisky to get yet another flavor compound. Islay Whiskys are well-known for their peaty character. The distillers on Islay (a small Scottish island) use peat to dry the green malt. This gives the Whisky a very peaty, smokey and phenolic taste. You either love or hate it. And I really, really like this character in the Islay Whiskys. Luckily for me, I can get my hands on some Islay malt. The smokiness you get from this particular smoked malt is very distinct to the one you get from the normal Bamberg smoked malt (Weyermann Rauchmalz). The smoked malt from Bamberg has huge smoked ham character. The Whiskymalt adds a very subtle smokiness to your beer. And not the overpowering smoked ham character. I will certainly post the tasting notes of the Whisky soaked Imperial Stout in the future.

Back to the Koschei Imperial Stout. Instead of just going with some unique malts or any other unusual ingredients to improve the aroma and flavor profile of an Imperial Stout, I used a different approach: Higher alcohol content. Alcohol can influence a character of an Imperial Stout in many ways. If the alcohol is not boozy but well incorporated in a beer it can help to improve the whole character of a beer. I basically used the Rusalka Imperial Stout recipe and went from there. I first added additional base malts to increase the original gravity and then adjusted the roasted malts. My target original gravity was around 27°P without any additions of sugars. I wanted to get an all malt Imperial Stout here. However, the lower efficiency forced me to add some sugar to get to the target original gravity…

About the name Koschei. I keep naming all my Imperial Stouts after dark characters from the Slavic mythology. Further information about the Koschei character can be found on Wikipedia. Lets have a look how my recipe for the Koschei Imperial Stout looks like:

Recipe:	Koschei Imperial Stout
Numbers:	Volume [L]	51 (13.5 gal)
	Original gravity	27.4°P
	Terminal gravity	7°P
	Color	Around 230 EBC
	IBU	86 IBU
	ABV	> 12% (v/v)
Grains:	Pale malt (6.5 EBC)	19.6 kg
	Wheat malt (4 EBC)	2.5 kg
	Roasted barley (1150 EBC)	3.15 kg
	Carafa 1(900 EBC)	3.15 kg
	Cara Munich 2 (120 EBC)	1.1 kg
	Brown sugar (0 EBC)	2 kg (added during primary fermentation)
Hops:	Northern Brewer (10% AA)	134.8 g and boil for 90 min
	Northern Brewer (10% AA)	103.7 g and boil for 30 min
	Northern Brewer (10% AA)	50.8 g and boil for 15 min
	East Kent Goldings (5.1% AA)	156.7 g and boil for 15 min
	East Kent Goldings (5.1% AA)	233.1 g and boil for 3 min
Yeast:	Wyeast’s	#1086 Irish Ale
Water:	Burgdorf	Mash: 26 L (6.9 gal), sparge: 20 L (10.6 gal) @78°C (172°F)
Rest:		Mash in @65°C (149°F), 90 min @65°C (149°F), 10 min @ 78°C (172°F)
Boil:		Total 90 min
Fermentation:	Primary	11 days @20°C (68°F) in plastic fermenter
	Secondary	In Whisky oak barrel for 5 months
Maturation:	Carbonation (CO2 vol)	1.5
	Maturation time	Months to years

Fig 1: Koschei mash

10/14/12: An insane brew day begins with milling roughly 30 kg of malts (66 lbs). I had to mash-in in three different kettles! I filled my 50 L kettle (13 gal) and two other kettles with a volume of approximately 20 L of mash (5.3 gal) each. This made my wonder how I sparge such a huge amount of mash later on. Anyway, I left the mash rest at 65°C (149°F) for 90 min. I chose a lower temperature range for the rest to decrease the body of the beer later on. After the 90 min rest, 10 min rest at 78°C.

I then transferred the whole mashes from the two smaller kettles in my lauter kettle (50 L, 13 gal) and sparged the first part of the mash and collected the runnings in a kettle. I stopped sparging as the kettle (25 L, 6.6 gal) was full (Fig 2). The color of the wort was already very, very black. I then emptied the lauter kettle and filled it up with the second part of the mash and collected the runnings until the 50 L kettle was full. I then went on collecting the runnings until half of another 25 L (6.6 gal) kettle was filled.

Fig 2: Koschei first runnings boiling

Once all the three parts of the worts were boiling, I added the hops according to the recipe above. I split the hops between the kettles based on the volumes.

Because I am very inquisitive, I could not stop to collect further runnings from the lautering kettle and measured the gravity. I was surprised, the original gravity was still at around 12°P (1.048). I therefore filled another kettle with the third runnings. I used these runnings for batch #68. Will post about this experiment in the future.

After the boiling time of 90 min was over, I cooled the wort down to approximately 22°C and pitched a huge yeast cake of Wyeast’s #1084 Irish Ale I had from a previous batch of Imperial Stout. The fermentation started after several hours already.

Fig 3: Filling a Whisky barrel with Koschei Imperial Stout

25/10/12: Racked the beer off the huge yeast cake directly into a small Whisky barrel (Fig 3). I recently bought a small barrel (50 L, 13.2 gal) which was custom-made for me. The wood for the barrel is from a real full size Whisky barrel. The wood is therefore not fresh anymore and soaked in Whisky. I had a huge smile on my face when I got the barrel and unwrapped it: The Whisky smell was insane. Unfortunately, the barrel was not filled with an Islay Whisky. So no peatiness… Anyway, I got the barrel just a day before and rinsed it with some water first and added a shot of Bunnahabhain’s Darach Ur Whisky (Bunnahabhain is an Islay distillery with the characteristic peatiness) to kill any kind of bad microorganisms in there. Next step, I flushed the barrel with carbon dioxide to displace any oxygen in the barrel.

Then added the fresh Koschei Imperial Stout. I even had to add another 10 L (2.6 gal) of a maturing Imperial Stout from another fermenter to fill the barrel. However, the barrel wasn’t filled up to the top after that as well. Adding water or anything else was no option since I do not want to dilute my Koschei Imperial Stout any further anyway. I keep my fingers crossed and hope no complications occur because of the small headspace in the barrel… Depending on how fast the wood and Whisky character are detectable in the beer, I might have to fill the barrel to the very top and leave the beer in there for several months.

Fig 4: Koschei Imperial Stout in Whisky barrel. Maturation in progress… Some sour beers in the back

11/01/12: Beer now one week in the barrel. Time for a first tasting. The beer has some very subtle chocolate, coffee as you would expect from an Imperial Stout. However, not very overpowering at this stage. Some alcohol was in the nose as well. What about the wood/Whisky? To be honest, I could not tell whether this beer matured in a Whisky barrel for a week or not. No wood or Whisky character in the nose. A first sip. And again, not a lot of wood barrel character. Just the normal stuff you would expect from a young Imperial Stout like chocolate, coffee, alcohol, bitterness. But not a lot of the Whisky and barrel. It seems the maturation will go on for some time. This gives me the opportunity to think about another batch to refill the barrel after the Imperial Stout…

22/12/12: The beer is now roughly two months in the barrel. Seriously I had to taste the beer from time to time and it is quite interesting to taste the changing character of the beer over time. The appearance is really dark and very oily. There is already a lot going on in the nose. I can detect lots of chocolate, coconut, vanilla and some alcohol as well. All in all a really nice nose already. What about the taste? Chocolate again, a hint of smoke, pepper, a decent bitterness and it finishes with a chocolate, coffee, bitter, roasted character. Maybe some cardboard in there as well… Warming sensation of the alcohol. The only thing that I am not really sure about is if the beer is oxidized. I am not sure if the cardboard taste originates from oxidation or from a different source. In addition, the beer is flat and it is hard to foresee how the carbonated version might taste like.

The beer is on the right track in my opinion. It seems that it the beer can handle some further maturation in the barrel. I am really looking forward to taste this beer in a couples of years in the bottle already… Stay tuned for further updates concerning this batch.

I am not sure if I post another post before Christmas or even before the end of this year. I therefore wish you all a Merry Christmas and happy holidays. I hope you can find some time to relax and enjoy the upcoming days with family and friends. Or find some time to brew… I will certainly be back with new posts in January and some really interesting stuff for sure. Cheers, Samuel

Update:

03/29/13: Bottled part of the batch to a carbonation level of 1.5 vol of carbon dioxide. Beer spent roughly 5 months in the Whisky barrel. Remaining shares of the beer mature in kegs for further uses.

#31 Dunkelweizen

Eureka, today about a recipe I designed myself and brewed three times already. The recipe below is for a relatively straight forward Dunkelweizen (dark wheat beer, BJCP category 15B). I like dark beers in general and decided to create a darker version of a wheat beer. No further introduction, let’s go through the recipe:

Recipe:	Dunkelweizen
Numbers:	Volume [L]	20 (5.3 gal)
	Original gravity	14°P (1.056)
	Terminal gravity	5.4°P (1.021)
	Color	Around 30 EBC
	IBU	12 IBU
	ABV	4.7%
Grains:	Munich malt (14.5 EBC)	1.0 kg
	Wheat malt dark (16 EBC)	2.6 kg
	Pilsner malt (4 EBC)	1.0 kg
	Cara Wheat (115 EBC)	0.3 kg
	Carafa Typ 1 (900 EBC)	0.06 kg
	Acidified malt (4 EBC)	0.15 kg
Hops:	Hallertauer (8% AA)	12 g and boil for 90 min
Yeast:	Wyeast’s	#3068 Weihenstephan
Water:	Burgdorf	Mash: 3.4 L (0.66 gal), sparge: 20 L (5.3 gal) @78°C (172°F)
Rest:		Mash in @47°C (117°F) 20 min @45°C (113°F) add acidified malt, 15 min @53°C (127°F) 30 min @63°C (145°F) 40 min @72°C (162°F) 10 min @ 78°C (172°F)
Boil:		Total 90 min
Fermentation:	Primary	7 days @20°C (68°F) in plastic fermenter
	Secondary	None
Maturation:	Carbonation (CO2 vol)	3.5 with fresh wort
	Maturation time	3-4 weeks

05/13/11: Brew day number 31. All went according to the protocol above. Crush all the grains as mentioned in the recipe but crush the acidified malt separately. Then mash in at 45°C (113°F) but not the acidified malt. This malt is added after the 20 min rest at 45°C (113°F). The reason for this is to prevent a lower mash pH during the ferulic acid rest at 45°C. For further information have a look at a previous post of mine #48 Dunkler Nachthimmel.

Fig 1: Dunkelweizen mash

Then do the next rests at the mentioned temperatures, then sparge and boil the wort for 90 min with the hop addition. This beer is not about hops and therefore only a small amount of hops is added.

Fig 2: Collecting the Dunkelweizen wort

After the boil fill 10% of the wort’s volume into clean, disinfected glass bottles. In my case 2 L (0.53 gal). This fresh wort is needed at bottling to get the right amount of carbonation. Store the fresh wort in a refrigerator. Cool down the rest of the wort to pitching temperature of about 20°C (68°F) and pitch healthy Wyeast’s #3068 Weihenstephan yeast or any other wheat yeast you want.

I bottled the beer directly after a primary fermentation of seven days. I used the fresh wort to get the right amount of carbonation (3.5 vol of carbon dioxide). And there are enough yeast cells in the fresh beer. So no need to add fresh yeast at bottling. Please check whether your bottles can handle such high carbonation levels! Otherwise, you will have a lot of bottle bombs…

I then leave the bottles at fermentation temperature for another week or two and then store the bottles in a refrigerator. The beer is ready to drink within three weeks after bottling.

Tasting:

Aroma: Lots of banana, some caramel notes and the typical wheat beer character. No sulphur. Very nice aroma. Makes you thirsty!

Appearance: Brown color, the yeast in suspension makes it cloudy. Three finger tan, frothy head with a lot of bubble rising to the top.

Flavor: Pretty much the same notes I could detect in the aroma. Banana in the front, some caramel character, hints of spicy, phenolic notes.

Mouthfeel: Light-medium body, lively carbonation. Finishes with a malty and fruity aftertaste. The light-medium body makes it a bit heavier than a normal, pale wheat beer. However, the higher body does not make it less enjoyable. It is still a very easy to drink beer.

Overall Impression: I really like this beer. It has all the characteristic aroma, flavor profile you would expect from a wheat beer. Plus some additional character from the darker malts such as caramel. I am pretty satisfied with this recipe and would not change anything.

#23P Single Wheat Experimental Batch (SWaSH)

Eureka, today’s post is about another SMaSH (single malt and single hop) experiment. The reason for doing this recipe was to find out how a single wheat malt beer would taste like and to find out whether it is possible to brew a 100% wheat beer in the first place. I therefore call this kind of beer SWaSH for single wheat and single hop. One problem with such a setup is the fact that wheat malt does not have husks as most of the barley malts. These husks are necessary for lautering with a perforated bottom to get a kind of filter bed. Without such husks one could imagine that the wheat malt plugs the perforated bottom and makes a lautering relatively hard or even impossible. However, I have no experience with a 100% wheat malt based beer and a perforated bottom. I chose to do a brew in a bag instead to circumvent the lautering with my perforated bottom. That’s basically the most exciting part abput this recipe:

Recipe:	SWaSH
Numbers:	Volume [L]	5 (1.32 gal)
	Original gravity	12°P
	Terminal gravity	4.8°P
	Color	Around 4 EBC
	IBU	10 IBU
	ABV	4%
Grains:	Wheat malt (4 EBC)	1 kg
Hops:	Tettnanger (4.2% AA)	3 g and boil for 60 min
	Tettnanger (4.2% AA)	2.5 g and boil for 30 min
Yeast:	Wyeast’s	#3068 Weihenstephan
Water:	Burgdorf	Mash: 2.5 L (0.66 gal), sparge: 4 L (1.1 gal) @78°C (172°F)
Rest:		Mash in @47°C (117°F), 45 min @45°C (113°F), 15 min @53°C (127°F), 30 min @63°C (145°F), 40 min @72°C (162°F), 10 min @ 78°C (172°F)
Boil:		Total 60 min
Fermentation:	Primary	5 days @20°C (68°F) in plastic fermenter
	Secondary	N/A
Maturation:	Carbonation (CO2 vol)	4 with sugar addition (40 g sugar to 4.5 L beer)
	Maturation time	14 days

02/26/2011: Brew day. I chose to do a small SWaSH batch with 1 kg of wheat malt and some Tettnanger hops. I then preheated the mash water up to 47°C and inserted the malt bag into the kettle and added the crushed wheat malt. I then did the rests as mentioned in the recipe and pulled the bag out after resting at 78°C for 10 min and washed the grains with the sparing water. By the way, the iodine test was negative. Boiled the wort for 60 min with the small hop additions and cooled the wort down to 20°C (68°F) and added 25 billion (2.5E10) yeast cells for 5 L of wort.

03/05/2011: Its bottling time. Five days after brew day I bottled the beer with some sugar to get a carbonation level of approximately 4.0 vol of carbon dioxide. I then left the bottles carbonate and mature for nearly 14 days at room temperature and then put the bottles in a refrigerator.

05/07/2011: The beer is now nearly two months in the bottles and its time for a tasting. I tasted the beer before but never did any tasting notes. I kind of forget to do tasting notes and when I do them most of the beers are already past their best-to-drink date…

Aroma: Lots of banana, no hop character and no malt character detectable. Smells like a traditional South German wheat beer.

Appearance: Pale yellow color, lots of carbon dioxide bubbles rise to the top and form a very creamy, white head. Very good head resistance. I added some of the yeast sediment to get the real wheat character.

Flavor: Not a lot is going on here. Banana again and some of the lightly sour, bread, grainy character of the wheat malt is detectable. And the yeast gives the beer the typical yeasty, doughy character.

Mouthfeel: Light body, lively carbonation. Rather short and sweet, malty aftertaste. Very refreshing.

Overall Impression: The beer is still fresh and very refreshing after some time in the bottle. Lots of the characteristic wheat beer character such as banana and the character you get from the wheat malt are present as well. Sure a well made beer. However, it is a bit boring…

It seems that a 100% wheat beer is possible to make and enough enzymes are present in the wheat malt for a complete mash conversion. What about the wheat malt? First of all, the beer tasted like expected. Rather one-dimensional and lots of the wheat malt comes through. Hops are in the background and some of the wheat yeast character comes through as well. That’s what I was going for in the first place with this experiment. At least I now know what the wheat malt can contribute to such a beer.

Comparing the flavor profile of this beer with other homemade wheat beers from the past and some commercial examples, going the extra mile with a 100% wheat malt beer does not seem to have a big impact on the beer. I therefore can’t see any advantages brewing a 100% wheat malt based beer compared to a wheat beer made with 50% wheat malt and 50% barley malt. Thanks for reading and commenting if you like and stay tuned!

#22P Vienna SMaSH

Eureka, another small batch post. Today’s recipe is all about a simple recipe and two different yeast strains. The whole idea behind this recipe was to get some experience with two dried yeasts: Fermentis Safale S04 vs Fermentis Safale US05. To get the most out of the yeasts, I went with a SMaSH recipe. SMaSH stands for single malt and single hop. So basically a recipe with just one kind of malt and one type of hops. This kind of recipe is very common to either test new base malts or new hop varieties. Or in my case to get the flavor characteristics of two different yeast strains. That’s it already for the introduction.

Recipe:	Vienna SMaSH
Numbers:	Volume [L]	5 (1.3 gal)
	Original gravity	11.9°P
	Terminal gravity	N/A
	Color	Around 8 EBC
	IBU	23 IBU
	ABV	N/A
Grains:	Vienna malt (8 EBC)	1 kg
Hops:	Tettnanger (4.2% AA)	7 g and boil for 60 min
	Tettnanger (4.2% AA)	5.5 g and boil for 30 min
Yeast:	Fermentis	S04 vs. US05
Water:	Burgdorf	Mash: 2.5 L (0.66 gal) sparge: 4 L (1.06 gal) @78°C (172°F)
Rest:		Mash in @66°C (151°F) 60 min @66°C (151°F) 10 min @ 78°C (172°F)
Boil:		Total 60 min
Fermentation:	Primary	6 days @20°C (68°F) in plastic fermenter
	Secondary	N/A
Maturation:	Carbonation (CO2 vol)	2 vol with sugar
	Maturation time	3 weeks

02/13/2011: Smooth small batch brew day. Iodine test was negative after resting for one hour. Then sparged and boiled the wort with the two Tettnanger hops additions for 60 min. Cooled the wort down to 22°C (72°F) and split the wort into two fermentation buckets. Then added the calculated amount of yeast to the fermenters. US05 to one bucket and S04 to the other one.

02/19/2011: Bottled the beer after six days already with an addition of sugars to get to a carbonation level of approximately 2 vol of carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, I did not measure the terminal gravities… Then left the bottles carbonate for another week and stored the bottles in my refrigerator for three weeks.

03/18/2011: Tasting:

US05

Aroma: Slight fruity character (apples) and hint of malty sweetness. No hop character.

Appearance: Yellow-gold colour, poor head retention. The two beers look quite similar.

Flavor: Could detect only some malty character (presumptive from the Vienna malt) and a slight bitterness. No typical yeast character detectable (fruit esters, phenolic etc.)

Mouthfeel: Light to medium body, lively carbonation, short lasting malty aftertaste.

Overall Impression: First, the recipe is exactly what I was looking for: Not a lot of character… In my opinion a very, very boring beer. However, I was not looking for a mind-boggling beer here. The recipe did a very good job. It gave the yeast the opportunity to shine through. Second, how would I describe the character of this yeast in one word? Clean. Clean is a very good descriptive word for this yeast. The yeast ferments very clean and leaves the show to the malts and hops. Sure there was a subtle apple character in the aroma. However, I could not detect any apple character in the flavor. I therefore leave the apple character aside.

S04

Aroma: Light hoppy character. No fruity character.

Appearance: Yellow-gold colour, poor head retention. The two beers look quite similar.

Flavor: Again some malty and bitter character. However, some hoppy character could be detected. And the intensity of the flavors was more pronounced in this beer relative to the one fermented with the US05 yeast.

Mouthfeel: Light to medium body, lively carbonation, medium lasting malty aftertaste. The aftertaste was more pronounced compared to the US05 one.

Overall Impression: Once again, the recipe was in the background. In this case, the malty character was more pronounced compared to the US05. There was even a hoppy character on the palate. I have to keep in mind the gravities here. It might be that the S04 beer finished at a higher terminal gravity than the US05 and therefore the higher terminal gravity might lead to a more pronounced malty character. However, if the S04 finished at a higher gravity than the US05 due to a lower attenuation, the strain still accentuates the malty character. Just by finishing at a higher gravity (less attenuative than the US05 strain). Fermentis describes both strains as medium attenuative.

The S04 yeast strain seems to accentuate the malty and hoppy character of a beer. And does not add any fruity character or any other like phenolic character. A rather clean yeast as well.

To summarize, the US05 seems to be a very clean fermenting yeast. On the other hand, the S04 strain seems to be less clean fermenting and accentuates the hop and malt character of a beer. I would choose the US05 strain for a typical US Pale Ale or an American IPA. The S04 strains seems to be appropriate for English Pale Ales, Mild, Bitter, ESB or English IPAs. If you are not sure what strain to choose, just split a batch and ferment the shares with different yeast strains to see the impact the yeast has on the beer. Cheers!

#36 Vanilla Infused Rusalka Imperial Stout

Eureka, today another post about a rather old recipe of mine. The recipe below is for the second share of the #35 Rusalka Imperial Stout. I originally did a full batch of the #35 Rusalka Imperial Stout and decided to use 10 L of the wort for another Imperial Stout. The difference between the two shares is basically the original gravity and the yeast strain used. I used a dry yeast (Safbrew S33) for this share and increased the OG by adding some sugar and added some raisins and vanilla beans to the secondary fermenter as well. Simple as that. Lets go through the recipe.

Recipe:	Rusalka Imperial Stout II
Numbers:	Volume [L]	10 (2.6 gal)
	Original gravity	27.5°P (calculated)
	Terminal gravity	<6.7°P
	Color	Around 209 EBC
	IBU	87 IBU
	ABV	> 12.4%
Grains:	Pale malt (6.5 EBC)	7 kg
	Wheat malt (4 EBC)	0.9 kg
	Roasted barley (1150 EBC)	1.13 kg
	Carafa Typ 1 (900 EBC)	1.13 kg
	Crystal 120 (120 EBC)	0.4 kg
Hops:	Northern Brewer (10%)	48.1 g and boil for 60 min
	Northern Brewer (10%)	37.1 g and boil for 30 min
	Northern Brewer (10%)	28 g and boil for 15 min
	East Kent Goldings (5.1%)	23.6 g and boil for 15 min
	East Kent Goldings (5.1%)	83.3 g and boil for 3 min
Yeast:	Wyeast’s	Safbrew S33
Water:	Burgdorf	Mash: 2.5 L (0.66 gal), sparge: 4 L (1.06 gal) @78°C (172°F)
Rest:		Mash in @66°C (151°F), 90 min @66°C (151°F), 10 min @ 78°C (172°F)
Boil:		Total 60 min
Fermentation:	Primary	7 days @20°C (68°F) in plastic fermenter + 0.46 kg dark candy sugar
	Secondary	7 days @20°C (68°F) in plastic fermenter + 0.5 kg table sugar + 2 vanilla beans + 50 g raisins
Maturation:	Carbonation (CO2 vol)	2 vol with sugar
	Maturation time	> 6 months

05/28/11: Brew day. As already mentioned, this batch is a share of the #35 Rusalka Imperial Stout wort. For further information about the brew day go to #35 Rusalka Imperial Stout. I filled a small fermenter with 10 L of cool wort (OG 18°P), shook the fermenter very well and added a package of Safbrew S33. I then added the dark candy sugar approximately three days later.

06/03/2011: Seven days after pitching. I racked the beer to a secondary fermenter and added another 0.5 kg of sugar plus some two vanilla beans and some raisins. I dissolved the sugar in some water first and boiled the sugar solution for a couple of minutes and added the raisins and two split vanilla beans to the solution as it cooled down. Then added the solution to the secondary fermenter as it reached ambient temperature. I racked the beer after seven days already to get rid of the majority of the yeast and trub. There are still enough yeast cells in the beer to ferment the second share of sugar in the secondary fermenter.

06/13/2011: It is bottling time. Already seven days after racking to the secondary fermenter. The beer was very clear already and I bottled the beer with an addition of sugar to reach a carbonation level of approximately 2 vol of carbon dioxide. I would not recommend bottling such a heavy beer so shortly after racking to a secondary. However, I planned a very long maturation period for this brew. I guess the long maturation process gives the yeast in the bottles enough time to clean up any fermentation byproducts and for the flavors to mellow out.

I am writing this post in October 2012 and I haven’t done a proper tasting of this brew yet. I can’t even remember when I last tried this beer anyway. Sure I tried it before but it was still very edgy. I might do a tasting at Christmas this year… Stay tuned!

02/17/2013: Posted tasting notes.

#57 Lambic 2012

Eureka, its time for another very cool project of mine. I have to apologize for the very few postings lately. I am very busy with my lab research lately. However, I am still homebrewing, drinking beers and yeast ranching. So no worries.

Fig 1: Girardin’s Faro

I visited my local last week after several months once again and had the opportunity to try a lot of great beers from other homebrewers and even some really amazing commercial examples. They even had Girardin’s Oude Lambik on tab. Wow! Even a Girardin Lambic tastes great. However, a Lambic is not as complex as you would expect from a Geuze because Geuzes are blends of different Lambics to improve the complexity. And this Lambic was no exception. The Oude Lambik has a very subtle sourness and even a malty aftertaste. By the way, the Oude Lambik was flat as expected. I then tried Girardin’s Faro. A Faro is basically a blend of Lambics and then bottled with sugar and sometimes spices or other sources of sugar such as molasses, caramel are added in addition. In the Faro from Girardin caramel is added. I really liked the Faro because it has some carbonation which makes it easier to appreciate in my opinion.The taste and aroma reminded my of a very young Lambic. Once again, the complexity, sourness and funkiness were rather subtle. It even had a bitter aftertaste. I then tried Girardin’s Framboise before heading home. I assume this Framboise was bottled just a few weeks before. The aroma was just incredible. I have never encountered such an intense raspberry aroma in a beer before. It smelled like a homemade raspberry jam. Amazing! And no sourness or funkiness at all. Just amazing! On the other hand, this particular Framboise was not sweet like other even pasteurized examples. The last Framboise beers I had (like 3 Fonteinen’s) were rather “old” and the fruity character was no longer detectable or lets say rather subtle. Sourness and funkiness were the main components there. However, I would prefer a Gueuze in this case instead. It is somewhat not worthy in my opinion to store a Framboise, Kriek etc. to lose the fruity character. Enough with commercial examples. The whole sour beer stuff reminded me of my latest Lambic attempt.

This post is all about my second attempt to brew a Lambic style beer. However not a traditional Lambic beer with the spontaneous fermentation method.

My first attempt to brew a Lambic ended in a very sour beer. Nevertheless, I still wanted to give this style another go. It took me nearly five years to brew my second attempt… The five years gave me a lot of opportunities to read books, blogs and other sources about sour brewing. And tasted a lot of great Lambics and Gueuzes (like described above). In Spring 2012, I decided to finally brew another Lambic. This time, I went with a traditional turbid mash instead of a single infusion step. Lets go through the recipe:

Recipe:	Lambic 2012
Numbers:	Volume [L]	45 (11.9 gal)
	Original gravity	13.5°P
	Terminal gravity	N/A
	Color	Around 5 EBC
	IBU	< 5 IBU
	ABV	N/A
Grains:	Pilsner malt (4 EBC)	6.3 kg
	Wheat flakes	3.5 kg
Hops:	Old hops (< 1% AA)	240 g and boil for 120 min
Yeast:	Wyeast’s	#3278 Lambic Blend and Milupa1 for primary (see description below)
Water:	Burgdorf	Mash: 41 L (10.8 gal), sparge: 34 L (9 gal) @78°C (172°F)
Rest:	Turbid mash (see description below)	Mash in @45°C (113°F), 20 min @45°C (113°F), 15 min @52°C (126°F), 45 min @65°C (149°F), 30 min @72°C (162°F), 5 min @78°C (172°F)
Boil:		Total 120 min
Fermentation:	Primary	> 365 days @20°C (68°F) in glass fermenters
	Secondary	N/A
Maturation:	Carbonation (CO2 vol)	N/A
	Maturation time	N/A

I would like to give you a short overview about the whole turbid mash schedule first. Have a quick look at the schedule below. The whole process sounds really difficult but it is not. You basically need three different kettles and that’s it. To get you an idea what a turbid mash schedule looks like have a look at this Youtube video.

Fig 2: Mash kettle preparation with perforated bottom

06/28/12: Lambic brew day. I chose to do a traditional turbid mash this time. All started with heating up 41 L of water to approximately 45°C in the water kettle. I added my false bottom in the mash kettle to drain off the turbid mash later on (Fig 2). I then transferred 8.2 L of water from the water kettle into the mash kettle and mashed in (Fig 3). The whole mash was very, very thick. I then left the mash rest for 20 min at 45°C. The remaining water in the water kettle was heated up to a boil.

After the first rest at 45°C, I added another 8.2 L of boiling water to the mash. The temperature now was 52°C. Another 15 min rest.

Fig 3: First rest at 45°C

Fig 4: First turbid wort

After the second rest, I removed 5.5 L of the liquid from the mash kettle. This wort is called turbid wort. You can easily see why in Fig 4. The turbid wort was heated up to 88°C.

After the second rest in the mash kettle (and after removing the turbid wort), I added 12.3 L of boiling water. The temperature now was at 65°C. Rest for 45 min at 65°C.

As the third rest passed, I removed another 5.5 L of turbid wort and added it to the preheated turbid wort from the previous removal and reheated to 88°C again.

I then added another 12.3 L of boiling wort to the mash kettle. The temperature now was at 72°C. Rest for 30 min at 72°C.

Now was the time to heat up the 34 L of sparging water to 88°C.

After the rest at 72°C, I added the turbid worts back to the mash and the temperature rose to 78°C. I then left the mash rest for 5 min and sparged to a gravity of 2°P. By the way, the wort was iodine positive. Indicating some starches were still left in the wort.

This was the whole turbid mash schedule already. Adding hot or boiling water to the mash to increase the temperature is basically a decoction mash. The special step in turbid mashing are the removal of turbid worts. The turbid worts contain enzymes, sugars and starches. By heating them up to 88°C, the enzymes get denatured (destroyed) and can’t work anymore. This leaves the sugars and starches in this worts. The resting time of approximately 5 min at 78°C after you add these turbid worts back to the mash are not enough to convert the remaining starches and sugars. Meaning, you add some unfermentable sugars and starches back to your wort. These unfermentable sugars are quite important for the Brettanomyces and maybe some bacteria later on during the fermentation. Brewer’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) can’t ferment unfermentable sugars and starches. I guess this why they are called unfermentable sugars after all. These unfermentable sugars however can be metabolized by the Brettanomyces and gives these yeasts an opportunity to grow during the fermentation process as these yeasts are rather slow growers.

Back to the wort. I boiled the wort for two hours with the addition of 240 g of old hops I stored for at least two years. Can’t remember the variety. I guess it was a German variety like Tettnanger, Hallertauer or Saazer. Then cooled the wort down, added two packages of Wyeast’s Lambic Blend and filled two 10 L, one 20 L and half a 10 L glass carboy with the wort.

Fig 5: Fermentation in progress…

06/29/12: I already had to replace all the airlocks because the fermentation was already in progress (Fig 5).

07/07/12: Lambic already nine days in the carboys. The fermentation calmed down and it was time to add the real souring bugs. I first added medium toasted French oak chips to the carboys (25 g per 10 L). I boiled the chips in some water first (approximately 2 min) and discarded the dark brown water. Then added fresh water again and repeated the boiling process once again. Then discharged the water again and added the chips to the carboys. Then added my own souring mixture called Milupa1. This mixture consists of the following bugs: Wyeast’s Brettanomyces bruxellensis, Wyeast’s Brettanomyces lambicus, some Girardin Gueze dregs, some dregs from Les Trois Dames’s Oud Bruin and a Brettanomyces strain I previously isolated from a Cantillon Kriek. This mixture was quite aggressive in some trial fermentations and a pellicle formed just after a few days. Good enough for me to let this mixture eat through some Lambic wort. I added some of the mixture to each of the glass carboys (except one) and left the wort to the new introduced bugs. The one without the Milupa1 bugs is a control to test how the single Lambic Blend from Wyeast works.

10/13/12: Lambic now three months in the carboys (Fig 6). The carboys on the left side and right side are the ones with Milupa1. The carboy in the middle has no Milupa1 bugs. The 20 L carboy is not shown. The Lambic already smells amazing. However, I haven’t tasted any of the Lambics. Still a long time to go…

Fig 6: Lambic after three months in carboys

I hope I could give you some insight into the whole Lambic homebrewing process and maybe give you some new information as well. I will keep updating this post in the future. Stay tuned!