Old Ale with Brettanomyces - Recipe

Alright, sorry for the almost month-long delay since the last post. The only reason I'm able to get to a post now is a flight delay of a day due to the full shutdown of Europe's 3rd largest airport (Frankfurt) by a strike from the security personnel. At least I was able to put up this post because of it. Anyway, on the beer info.

This is a recipe for an English Old ale that I brewed in October 2012 and bottled in May 2013. If you are unfamiliar with the style, it is a light amber to brown, malt forward English strong(er) beer that was traditionally aged for an extended period of time. During this long aging, especially at a time when brewery microbiological control wasn't where it is at today, the beer may pick up non-typical brewing yeasts such as Brettanomyces (brett) and other organisms normally associated with beer spoiling. In the right amounts and contexts these yeasts and bacteria can add nice complexity. My goal with this beer was to try an English beer with some Brettanomyces character. Belgian beers with brett are more common in both commercial and home brewing and I hadn't ever tried using brett in English beer before. I'm certainly not an English brewing historian so I can't speak to how well this recipe fits to historical English old ales, and that wasn't necessarily my goal. I did model the recipe of the sorts of flavors described in the BJCP guidelines and tried to stick with ingredients that an English brewer may have used, but that's about as far as I went with the strict historical accuracy. If you're interested in historically accurate reproductions of English styles there are some blogs out there that might be helpful such as Shut Up About Barclay Perkins.

This beer was inspired by Upright's Billy the Mountain, which is a blend of 'clean' old ale (only Saccharomyces cerevisiae for fermentation so no 'wild' yeasts or bacteria) with barrel aged old ale with Brettanomyces. I talked with Alex Ganum, the head brewer/owner at Upright, years ago when he was releasing the second batch of Billy the Mountain. At that point I remember he was blending a younger and fresher batch of the old ale with what I think he said was the previous year's brewing of the old ale which had been aging in barrels with brett. This may have changed since then, though I expect he is still following a similar process and bottling a blend of the new brew with a portion of the previous brew that has been aging with brett. Blending at this stage allows good control over the level of brett character and also combines some of the flavors you might get in an aged beer (like those associated with oxidation) with the those in a younger beer.

I decided to blend my beer as well, combining a clean aged portion with a brett aged portion, however with only one batch I wasn't going to be blending young clean beer with old brett beer. Instead it would be clean and brett beer both aged for the same amount of time. I let primary finish and then racked into three different vessels in November 2012, 1 month after brew day. The vessels were a 3 gallon carboy which I filled with the 'clean' portion and two 1 gallon jugs to which I added Brettanomyces clausenii (also classified as Brettanomyces anomalus/Dekkera anomala). I filled the 3 gallon carboy right to the neck to try to minimize oxidation. I got pellicles on both of the 1 gallon jugs, but they were relatively tame. I also added dregs of Upright's Billy the Mountain to both of the brett treatment jugs.

After aging for 7 months I blended back and bottled (May 2013). I primed the 3 gallon carboy to about 1.8 volumes of CO2 and then bottled about one gallon of the clean portion. Then I racked one of the brett jugs into the 3 gallon carboy, mixed and bottled without adding more priming sugar. I bottled this portion in high pressure bottles and a good number of swing tops in case the brett started to work away at what was left in the clean portion, but so far the carbonation doesn't seem too high. I'm not sure why it didn't drop lower but that seems to be the case so far. I bottled the final brett portion on it's own. Bottling seems to have been the only snag in this beer, as I'll get to in a follow up post with a review of the three treatments.

Recipe:
Batch Size: 5.25 gallons (19.9 L)
OG: 1.088
FG: 1.019 (non-Brett portion, 8.9% ABV) and 1.013 (Brett portion)

Grist:
16 lbs (7.26 kg) Thomas Fawcett Marris Otter
2 lbs (0.91 kg) Munich
1 lb (454 g) Briess Crystal-60
1 oz (28 g) Pale Chocolate (for color)

Hops:

at 70 minutes left in the boil:
1.5 oz (42.5 g) East Kent Golding pellets, 4.7% aa (~19 IBU calculated, Tinseth Formula)
1.5 oz (42.5 g) Fuggle pellets, 4.0 % aa (~16 IBU calculated, Tinseth)
1.5 oz (42.5 g) Willamette whole hops, 5.6% aa (~22 IBU calculated, Tinseth)

30 minutes left in the boil:
0.5 oz (14 g) East Kent Golding pellets (~5 IBU)
0.5 oz (14 g) Fuggle pellets (~4 IBU)

Yeast:
Wyeast 1028 London Ale
White Labs Brett Clausenii
I made a 1.4L stater of the London ale that I let ferment out and decanted. I also made a small starter for the Brett c.

Other:
1/2 tab whirlfloc
1/2 tsp Wyeast yeast nutrients
4g CaCl2
2g CaSO4
Base water profile: basically distilled/deionized. The water profile of Victoria is similar to Plsen.

Process:
Mash - single infusion, 60 minutes at 154 F (67.8 C). Maybe this is a bit lower than typical for the style but I'm happy with where my FG was.
Boil -  90 minutes, boiling 8.25 gallons (31.2 L) down to about 6.25 gallons (23.7 L) to yield 5.25 gallons (19.9 L) in the carboy. It was a bit of a windy day and the boil strength was irregular at times.
Fermentation - a bit over a week for primary. Pitched at 63 F (17.2 C) and let rise to 69 F (20.6 C) over the first 4 days. The temp was held at 69F/20.6C for 4 more days, by which point the gravity was down to 1.019. At this point I stopped heating the carboy and let it drop to ambient temps of about 60 F (15.6 C). Then I let the carboy age for about 7 months, with racking into secondary at the end of the first month. Aging was carried out at about 54-60 F (12.2-15.6 C). When I need to warm a beer, I control temps with a water bath and an adjustable aquarium heater. The water batch is about the same volume as the beer, maybe a but more, and it comes up to at least half way up the carboy. I feel this helps keep the carboy from getting much warmer than the temp that I heat to.

In a couple weeks I run through my tasting of the three beers and why I think some of them came out as they did. Overall at this point I'd say this recipe was a success. But look for a finished beer breakdown in a couple of weeks.

Soma recipe: my 2013 NHC 1st place Saison

This is the recipe for my saison that took 1^st place at the final round of the National Homebrew Competition in 2013. In many respects the recipe is similar to the beer I entered for the first round (which snuck me into the final round by placing 3^rd in the Seattle regional judging center), but I feel that the final characters of the two were very different. I much prefer this version and it seems to have worked out well for me. The key difference between these two beers is the yeast strains, but there was also a bit of influence from the pre-fermentation wort treatment.

I feel that one of the defining character of this recipe is the use of a blend of Wyeast 3724, the notoriously finicky Belgian Saison yeast strain, and 3711, the attenuation workhorse French Saison yeast strain. The idea originally came to me from (the unfortunately short lived) Odonata Beer Company saison, which I thought was pretty solid. Some details of the Odonata saison are discussed in this Brewing Network podcast (check about 1 hour and 36 minutes in for the yeast info). I prefer the flavor of 3724 but the reliable and extremely high attenuation of the 3711 strain really helps out saisons. So I think a blend of the two, favoring the 3724, is a great idea. And I know of at least one other commercial brewery out there doing this now.

Soma Recipe

Style-Saison

Batch size: 5 gallons (US)

OG: 1.053

FG: 1.002

ABV: 6.7%

IBU: ~ 27

Grist:

90% Franco-Belges Pils

10% Vienna

Hops:

3oz German hHllertau Mittelfruh Pellets (4% aa)

2oz Czech Saaz Pellets (3.2% aa)

-see boil for addition amounts and times

Yeast:

A blend of Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison and Wyeast 3711 French Saison. Roughly equivalent to 2 vials/smack packs of yeast and the blend was something on the order of 70% 3724, 30% 3711. I had starters of each going and poured off from at high krausen. In subsequent saison batches I've let the starters ferment out and cold crashed them, and then split into patchable amounts in mason jars in the fridge. I either blend the strains at this point or blend at pitching. I prefer blending cold yeast slurries (either before storing or at pitching) because I think it gives me better control of the pitch rate. And I like to grow up the two strains in individual starters to allow me versatility in using the strains individually and to control the blend proportions. In the future I'd like to experiment with repitching the blend but for now this is easier and the results are reasonably consistent.

Other:

½ tab whirlfloc

½ tsp wyeast nutrients

6.5g CaSO₄ added to the mash

The base water profile for Victoria is a Pilsen/nearly distilled oriented water.

Mash:

Sour Mash- Pils comprising 10% of the total grist was sour mashed for ~24 hrs. I did a standard sacch rest (~152-154F) with the sour mash portion for 60 minutes. Then I raised the temp to 170F and let it cool to 120F with minimal mixing to keep out O₂. At 120F I added ~1/3 handful of acidulated malt and ~1/3 handful of Franco-Belges pils to inoculate with lacto. A lower pH and the absence of O₂ helps a sour mash be successful and avoid gnarly off flavors. I sealed the top right at the liquid line with saran wrap to keep out O₂. Then I floated the sour mash pot in a rectangular cooler with hot water and a floating dairy thermometer to watch temps. I would regularly pull water out of the cooler, boiled it and added it back to the cooler to keep the temp between 100F and 120F. The temp would definitely drop overnight and while I was at work, but I was able to keep it in this range well enough. It was a bit of a pain overall and I tried this sort of thing with acidulated malt to achieve a similar acidity, but it was missing complexity and the mouthfeel wasn't as good. In future sour mashed batches I may let it go 36-48 hours. If the mash gets too sour you can always add only a portion of it. I added the sour mashed wort to my main mash runnings by pouring the pot with my mashed grains (and inoculation grains) through a large grain sack, the sort you would use for steeping and brew in a bag.

Soma 2 step infusion mash.

Main Mash- 2 step infusion. 45 minutes at 147F, and 20 minutes at 153F (see graph). I mash in a 10 gallon stainless pot with a false bottom. The advantage of this is that I can heat my mash with my burner. The disadvantage is that it doesn’t hold temperature super well so I pretty much always have to heat my mash at least once, especially in winter.

Boil:

2 hrs. Was planning on 90 minutes but my gas tank ran out in the middle and as a result the boil was weak for a reasonable length of time, so I added 30 minutes to hit my target gravity and volume. Hops were added 30 minutes (0.75 oz Saaz, 1.25 oz Hallertau), 5 minutes (0.5 oz Saaz, 0.75 oz Hallertau) and 0 minutes (0.75 of Saaz, 1 oz Hallertau) left in boil. Most of my saisons follow this backbone grist and hopping regime. I prefer hoppier saisons, and as it is a relatively low IBU style I like to derive all of my bitterness from ‘flavor’ and/or ‘aroma’ additions.

Fermentation:

Fermentation schedule

The graph at right details the fermentation schedule. I pitched at 68F and kept the beer at 68 for the first day, then raised to 80F over the following 2 days. I held it at 80F from day 3 until day 9, then the temperature was smoothly lowered to 71 by day 11. Finally I chilled it reasonably quickly to ~58F until bottling. I racked to secondary after 15 days. This was more out of needing to free up a carboy than desire to do a secondary, and I usually avoid transfer to a secondary (and advocate that others do so as well) in a beer of this nature (meaning no long term bulk aging). I controlled fermentation temperature with an aquarium heater in a tub of water. I like this method as it gives me good control of temp throughout fermentation by simply turning the dial on the heater and the water bath acts to cool the beer temp if fermentation is producing too much heat. I don't have to worry much about cooling the beer more than that. As it was winter and I like the cold, the conditioning temp between active primary and bottling was the ambient temp of my room (58F).

Bottling:

There was one month between brew day and bottle day. I primed the beer to ~2.7 volumes of CO₂. My experience with 3711 leads me to believe that this yeast slowly works on more complicated sugars over time so carbonation probably was more like 3+ vols. I’ve talked to commercial brewers and yeast company folks about this and have heard mixed answers. Whatever the case, 3711 attenuates REALLY well and even if I let a beer finish out, over time in the bottle the carbonation seems higher than what I primed it to.

Other thoughts:

There was about 5 months between brew day and judging day (4 months between bottling and judging). I set aside bottles for judging in the fridge for about the last 1.5 months before shipping the beers to Philadelphia. It probably took about 1.5 months in bottles before the beer was where I wanted it to be. I’ve noticed that with a number of my saisons, even when I condition them relatively warm, it takes a good bit of time in the bottle before the beer is where I want it to be. And many of them throw off diacetyl in the early stages in the bottle. So a saison that is diacetyl free at bottling might have diacetyl and near-final carbonation at 2-3 weeks and then will have no detectable diacetyl at 4-6 weeks. This isn’t always the case, but I do see it happening fairly often.

Here's a writeup of  how I now grow up yeast for blending.