Barrel Aged Dark Sour Saison #1
First post! I'm excited to start putting down exactly what I'm brewing, bottling, and thinking somewhere besides my little Moleskin knockoff. I'm starting off with a beer I'm very excited about, although I won't get to drink it until 2018 most likely. Oh well, hopefully it will be worth the wait.
We (by that I mean my brewing partner and old roommate) bought a whisky barrel around a year ago and always had the intention of aging a couple clean beers in it before turning it sour. The first beer we made was an Imperial Stout, the OG was about 1.08 but made with a bit of sugar and it didn't taste too heavy. That came out beautifully, although the bottles are now getting a little over carbonated.
The next beer was a Golden Ale brewed with a British strain of yeast. Out of the barrel it tasted amazing, and it was bottled right before we put this dark sour in.
Barrel Aged Dark Sour Saison #1
Brewed: 6/30/2017
Barreled: 8/13/2017
Grist: Based on the Rare Barrel's Bruin recipe.
10lbs 2-Row
3lbs Wheat
1lb Oats
0.5lb Crystal 60L
0.5lb American Aromatic
0.5lb Chocolate
0.25lb Carafoam
Hops: About half an ounce of Spalt (1.4% AA) at 60 minutes
Yeast: The primary fermenter was White Labs Leeuwenhoek Saison Yeast Blend.
This is a vault strain, and it was the primary fermenter for the golden sour whose yeast cake we pitched this beer onto.
The yeast cake is our "Clayton St Culture" blend, and I made sure to save a couple of mason jars for the future. We used to live on Clayton St in San Francisco, but as my blog title states, I recently bought a place on Haight St. But I'm excited to keep this culture from our original sour going as long as possible and to see how it changes over time (because it will).
The golden sour yeast cake we pitched this on was fermented with the Saison blend I mentioned before, followed by dregs from a Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere, and a beer from The Libertine. I don't remember which one, but The Libertine almost exclusively does coolshipped beer so it's got various funky wild things in there.
That beer soured pretty well, pretty quickly. We separated out a gallon of that and bottled it (my portion was gone in a flash), and then into the other four gallons we added The Yeast Bay's Lochristi blend. That sat for almost a year before we blended half with a young saison that was kegged, and the other half with freshly cut ginger and apricots.
All of this is to say, that history is what we pitched our dark sour onto. We then added dregs from The Rare Barrel's Another World, and also dregs from Half Moon Bay Brewing Company's first mixed fermentation barrel-aged beer which I thought tasted great. That had some pedio, along with brett, lacto, and sacch.
OG: 1.052
Our efficiency woes continue :(
Brewday:
Mashed at 159 degrees. We mashed in with 6 gallons of water at 170 degrees for an hour. Then we ran off as much wort as we could, then sparged with 3 gallons of water around 158 degrees for 15 minutes.
Boiled for 60 minutes.
0.5oz of Spalt added once it was boiling.
The beer was barreled on 8/13/17 after a long marathon day of bottling everything in the pipeline. Our 5 gallon barrel of the British Golden Ale, 3 gallons of a Saison that had aged with Brett Brux for 4 months and was dried out to 1.000, 3 gallons of the year+ old golden sour on apricots and ginger for another month, and 1 gallon of a Dubbel with Brett Clausenii and Drie Fonteinen Geuze dregs (tasted wonderful).
When we barreled it we grabbed a small, yeasty taste. It had great notes of chocolate and was really pleasantly tart.
A little fruity, but no off flavors that I could tell. I can't wait to sample this beer in a couple months, probably in early November.
3/27/2018: Moved the beer from the barrel into a separate carboy with aseptic raspberry puree from MoreBeer. We lost probably a solid gallon to evaporation, oh well. I was initially very worried about acetic acid but it tastes delicious; there's a subtle undertone of chocolate that complements the acid very nicely. It's not overly acidic; if there's any acetic acid it plays well with the style. Excited to see how it comes out once this gets bottled!
We (by that I mean my brewing partner and old roommate) bought a whisky barrel around a year ago and always had the intention of aging a couple clean beers in it before turning it sour. The first beer we made was an Imperial Stout, the OG was about 1.08 but made with a bit of sugar and it didn't taste too heavy. That came out beautifully, although the bottles are now getting a little over carbonated.
The next beer was a Golden Ale brewed with a British strain of yeast. Out of the barrel it tasted amazing, and it was bottled right before we put this dark sour in.
Barrel Aged Dark Sour Saison #1
Brewed: 6/30/2017
Barreled: 8/13/2017
Grist: Based on the Rare Barrel's Bruin recipe.
10lbs 2-Row
3lbs Wheat
1lb Oats
0.5lb Crystal 60L
0.5lb American Aromatic
0.5lb Chocolate
0.25lb Carafoam
Hops: About half an ounce of Spalt (1.4% AA) at 60 minutes
Yeast: The primary fermenter was White Labs Leeuwenhoek Saison Yeast Blend.
This is a vault strain, and it was the primary fermenter for the golden sour whose yeast cake we pitched this beer onto.
The yeast cake is our "Clayton St Culture" blend, and I made sure to save a couple of mason jars for the future. We used to live on Clayton St in San Francisco, but as my blog title states, I recently bought a place on Haight St. But I'm excited to keep this culture from our original sour going as long as possible and to see how it changes over time (because it will).
The golden sour yeast cake we pitched this on was fermented with the Saison blend I mentioned before, followed by dregs from a Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere, and a beer from The Libertine. I don't remember which one, but The Libertine almost exclusively does coolshipped beer so it's got various funky wild things in there.
That beer soured pretty well, pretty quickly. We separated out a gallon of that and bottled it (my portion was gone in a flash), and then into the other four gallons we added The Yeast Bay's Lochristi blend. That sat for almost a year before we blended half with a young saison that was kegged, and the other half with freshly cut ginger and apricots.
All of this is to say, that history is what we pitched our dark sour onto. We then added dregs from The Rare Barrel's Another World, and also dregs from Half Moon Bay Brewing Company's first mixed fermentation barrel-aged beer which I thought tasted great. That had some pedio, along with brett, lacto, and sacch.
OG: 1.052
Our efficiency woes continue :(
Brewday:
Mashed at 159 degrees. We mashed in with 6 gallons of water at 170 degrees for an hour. Then we ran off as much wort as we could, then sparged with 3 gallons of water around 158 degrees for 15 minutes.
Boiled for 60 minutes.
0.5oz of Spalt added once it was boiling.
The beer was barreled on 8/13/17 after a long marathon day of bottling everything in the pipeline. Our 5 gallon barrel of the British Golden Ale, 3 gallons of a Saison that had aged with Brett Brux for 4 months and was dried out to 1.000, 3 gallons of the year+ old golden sour on apricots and ginger for another month, and 1 gallon of a Dubbel with Brett Clausenii and Drie Fonteinen Geuze dregs (tasted wonderful).
When we barreled it we grabbed a small, yeasty taste. It had great notes of chocolate and was really pleasantly tart.
A little fruity, but no off flavors that I could tell. I can't wait to sample this beer in a couple months, probably in early November.
3/27/2018: Moved the beer from the barrel into a separate carboy with aseptic raspberry puree from MoreBeer. We lost probably a solid gallon to evaporation, oh well. I was initially very worried about acetic acid but it tastes delicious; there's a subtle undertone of chocolate that complements the acid very nicely. It's not overly acidic; if there's any acetic acid it plays well with the style. Excited to see how it comes out once this gets bottled!
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