Coffee Vanilla Porter

Every once in a while, I diverge from Belgian and farmhouse styles to brew something of the English persuasion. For this batch, I decided to brew up a Porter, which has been one of my favorite beer styles for a long time. It had been a while since I brewed one, so I decided to re-brew a recipe from a small-batch Robust Porter I had made about two years ago that turned out to be quite delicious. 

When I put together that recipe a couple of years back, I had just finished reading through Ray Daniels' book, Designing Great Beers. His analysis of NHC award-winning beers and their ingredients was incredibly helpful in putting together the fairly complex malt bill for this beer.  The original brew was just a 2-gallon batch that I split into two 1-gallon jugs. One jug was left alone to be a straight-up untouched porter, and the other got 1-ounce of coarsely-ground Kona coffee beans and one split-and-scraped vanilla bean after primary fermentation. The coffee & vanilla version turned out to be the favorite in our house, so I'm now scaling it up two years later for a full 3-gallon batch, but with just a couple of differences. 

The first difference was the choice in coffee. After sniffing (literally) around the bulk coffee section at my local grocery store, I landed on an organic French Vanilla coffee, which I'm hoping will help to pop the vanilla character of the beer, which I felt was lacking a bit in the original version. I considered making a cold brew with the beans and adding it to the beer to taste, but with the original version, I was actually pretty darn happy with the coffee character I got by adding the beans to secondary for a week, so I decided to stick with that process. 

The other differences with this batch are in the water profile and the mash/lauter process. For the original batch, I used tap water that had been painstakingly filtered through a Brita pitcher, whereas for this batch, I am using reverse osmosis-filtered water and adding back in gypsum and calcium chloride. In the sparging department, I went with the batch-sparge method the first time I brewed this, but this time around I will be using the amazing and time-saving no-sparge technique.


Recipe Specifications
Batch Size (fermenter): 3.1 gal
Estimated OG: 1.055 SG
Estimated Color: 28.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 38.2 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 % (No-sparge)
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Fermentables:
75% - 2-Row Malt
8% - Dark Munich Malt
6% - Chocolate Malt
6% - Crystal 60L
3% - Carapils Malt
2% - Black Malt

Hops:
.68 oz. Northern Brewer (Pellet, 7.3% AA) @ 60 minutes - 30.1 IBUs
.37 oz. East Kent Goldings (Pellet, 4.8% AA) @ 20 minutes - 6.1 IBUs
.35 oz. East Kent Goldings (Pellet, 4.8% AA) @ 5 minutes - 2.0 IBUs

Yeast:
White Labs WLP002 English Ale - .5L starter

Other:
3 oz. French vanilla coffee beans (very coarsely ground) - 6 days secondary
3 split and scraped vanilla beans - 6 days secondary

Water:
RO filtered water - added 3 grams of calcium chloride and 2 grams of gypsum to the strike water.

Mash:
Single-infusion @ 155 degrees (No-sparge)

Notes:

Brewed on 7/17/16. 

First no-sparge brew using new 10 gallon mash tun. Used RO water with 3 grams of calcium chloride and 2 grams of gypsum added to strike water. 

Mash pH came in at 5.25. 

Efficiency was lower than expected with no-sparge in new mash tun. Increasing boil to 90 min and adding 6 oz of honey with a few minutes left in the boil to get closer to my target. 

Pitched entire .5L starter into wort at 67 degrees.

7/31/16 - SG is at 1.012. Added 3 oz. of coarsely ground French Vanilla organic coffee beans and 3 vanilla beans, split and scraped. 

8/5/16 - Kegged. Shooting for 2.5 volumes of CO2. 

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Thai Basil Tripel

I've been lucky enough to live within a short drive of The Bruery since they opened in Orange County in 2008 and I've been a big fan pretty much since the beginning. While I love their funky and sour beers, I've also always been a huge fan of their Tradewinds Tripel, a Belgian-style tripel brewed with Thai basil and rice and have been wanting to brew my own version of it for a good while. It kept getting moved to the back burner, but I finally decided to take a stab at it. 

Several years back, Patrick Rue of The Bruery, was on one of the Brewing Network shows and he gave out the recipe. It's a pretty simple grain bill consisting of 2-Row, Dark Munich, and Flaked Rice. For yeast, they use their house strain, so the best option for a clone is to either harvest yeast from one of their bottles and grow it up to a pitchable amount or to use WLP570 (Belgian Golden Ale) from White Labs, which Patrick says that it's the closest commercial option out there. 

The magic in this beer though, of course, comes from the Thai basil. For the first batch of The Bruery's beer, they used Thail basil leaves and blossoms that had been growing in Patrick's back yard. Patrick recommended using a rate of 1/4 oz. of basil per 5 gallons of beer at flameout, with a majority of the addition coming from the blossoms rather than the leaves, as he believed the blossoms were most responsible for the beer's unique character. 

In most Tripels, a fairly large portion of sugar is added to lighten the body, but in The Bruery's Thai-inspired recipe, they use flaked rice instead. Unfortunately, when I went to buy the ingredients for my beer, I found out that my local homebrew shop doesn't carry flaked rice, so I made the decision to go with flaked corn in its place. Both serve the same purpose of lightening the body of the beer, although I've read the argument that flaked rice can provide more of a crispness while flaked corn can provide more creaminess. That may be the case, but I'm going for the flaked corn and I probably won't lose much sleep over it. 

It actually turns out that most grocery stores don't carry Thai basil, so I had to search around a bit to find it. I ended up making the trek to a nearby town that has a couple of Asian markets and found some there with lots of glorious little blossoms on it. (I also saw fish heads for sale, but I opted to pass on those for this beer.) I want the basil character in my beer to be a little more intense, so I decided to go heavy-handed, using close to 1/4 oz. in this little 2-gallon batch, with the ratio being something like 70% blossoms / 30% leaves. 

Same as my last batch, I decided to use the no-sparge process and I also pitched Clarity Ferm along with the yeast to turn this into an essentially gluten-free beer.  I had a small hiccup on this batch where I forgot to update the mash tun deadspace volume in BeerSmith, so I ended up adding more water than necessary which left me with a lower gravity beer than I intended. I increased my boil time which helped a bit, but I still fell pretty short of my target OG of 1.074, instead coming in at 1.065. Not a huge deal - I'll just end up with a slightly more sessionable Tripel. 

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size (fermenter): 2.1 gal
Estimated OG: 1.074 SG
Estimated Color: 5.5 SRM
Estimated IBU: 26.2 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 71.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Fermentables:
72% - 2-Row
14.5% - Flaked Corn
10% - Dark Munich
3.5% - Acidulated Malt

Hops:
.15 oz. Warrior (Pellet, 15.8% AA) @ FWH - 22 IBUs
.75 oz. Saaz (Pellet, 3.6% AA) @ 5 minutes - 4.2 IBUs

Yeast:
White Labs WLP570 Belgian Golden Ale

Other:
.23 oz - Thai basil leaves and blossoms (added at flameout)
Clarity Ferm - pitched alongside the yeast

Water:
RO filtered water - added 2.5 grams of calcium chloride and 2.5 grams of gypsum to the strike water.

Mash:
Single-infusion @ 151 degrees (No-sparge)

Notes:
Brewed on 6/12/16.

Used the no-sparge method. 100% RO water with 2.5 grams of gypsum and 2.5 grams of calcium chloride in the mash.

Mash pH came in a little lower than my target at 5.18 pH.

I messed up and forgot to update mash tun deadspace to the correct number in BeerSmith, so I ended up with a higher pre-boil volume and a lower gravity than anticipated. Increased boil time to 100 minutes - still ended up with an OG of 1.065 when I was originally planning for 1.074. I'm hoping high attenuation will still get this beer into the mid-high 7% ABV range.

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Farmhouse Pale Ale

For this one, I set out to create a beer that bridges the gap between a saison and an American pale ale - a brewski that has the phenolic, fruity character and dryness of a traditional saison, but the hop aroma and flavor of a pale ale. I want the beer to be sessionable, easy-drinking, and aromatic, something that would please both the hopheads and the saison geeks. One might call it a hoppy saison or perhaps a Belgian-style pale ale, but I'm going with Farmhouse-style Pale Ale for this one. Don't question me - it just feels right. 

I'm also trying out a couple of new processes with this brew. The first is that I will be trying the no-sparge method. My normal brew process, like many other brewers, is to mash, vorlauf, run off, and then add hot water back into the grain to pull out the remaining sugars (a.k.a. sparging), vorlauf, and run off again. The no-sparge process is awesome in that you can just add the entire volume of water into the mash tun, conduct your mash, vorlauf, run off, and you're ready to start the boil. The benefit is that it saves times and some claim that it gives your beer better malt character. The downside is that you are leaving behind some sugars on the grain, so your efficiency drops, meaning you need to start out with a little more grain than normal. The other downside for me is that I have to do a slightly smaller batch to fit the entire volume of water and grain in my 5-gallon mash tun. This batch will yield around 2.5 gallons of beer in the end.

The other crazy new process I'm trying with this beer is adding an enzyme called Clarity Ferm for its gluten-reducing capabilities. I don't have a gluten-allergy per se, but I do have an intestinal disorder that is greatly helped by not consuming wheat and gluten. And I love beer. Like I really love it. Behind the good Lord, my wife, and my family and friends, it's pretty much my favorite thing. But sadly it hurts me and brings me pain and inflammation. Yeah, it's a sick, twisted world, broheims. Real sick. The beauty of Clarity Ferm though is that it reportedly produces beers that are 10ppm or under in gluten and has little to no effect on the flavor or overall outcome of the beer. That's pretty magical news for a beer lover with a gluten issue, so I'm going to try it out and see how it goes.

I could have used any number of aroma hops for this animal, but I decided to keep it simple and go with Cascade. If the beer turns out to be a winner, I would love to try it out with some of the newer American hop varieties as well. 

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size (fermenter): 2.6 gal
Estimated OG: 1.047 SG
Estimated Color: 3.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 34.5 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 71.00 %
Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Fermentables:
86% - 2-Row
11% - White Wheat Malt
3% - Acidulated Malt

Hops:
.75 oz. Cascade (Pellet, 5.5% AA) @ 60 minutes - 32.7 IBUs
1 oz. Cascade (Pellet, 5.5% AA) @ 1 minutes - 1.9 IBUs

2 oz. Cascade (Pellet, 5.5% AA) @ Dry Hop - Adding 4 days into fermentation

Yeast:
White Labs WLP590 French Saison Ale

Other:
Clarity Ferm - pitched alongside the yeast

Water:
RO filtered water - added 2.5 grams of calcium chloride, 3 grams of gypsum, and 1.2 grams of baking soda to the strike water.

Mash:
Single-infusion @ 150 degrees (No-sparge)

Notes:
Brewed on 5/22/16.

First time trying the no-sparge method. Used 100% RO water with 3 grams of gypsum, 2.5 grams of calcium chloride, and 1.2 grams of baking soda added to strike water.

Mash pH was 5.49.

Hit OG of 1.048. 71% efficiency with no-sparge method.

Pitched yeast at around 70 degrees. Ramped temperature up to 78 degrees over the course of 4 days.

6/19/16 - Kegged. Targeting 2.8 volumes of CO2.

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Northeast Pale Ale

My beer preference when it comes to both drinking and brewing, generally leans toward farmhouse, funky, and tart, but even so, I still like to get down on a hoppy pale ale every once in a while. The first really good beer I ever tried was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. It fueled my passion for beer, inspiring me to drink and brew better beer, so I'll love it forever. Sierra Nevada set the bar for a good pale ale, and of course, it's still a good pale ale, but in the craft beer world, tastes and trends are always evolving and changing. These days, the attention of the cool craft beer kids seems to be turned to a different type of hoppy beer - the Northeast pale ale and IPA, made famous by breweries like The Alchemist, Hill Farmstead, Trillium, and Tree House. 

Unlike a lot of the hoppy beers in the past where bitterness was king, the new IPAs and Pale Ales are all about showcasing hop flavor and aroma without ripping off your taste buds with hop resin. The Northeast-style beers, specifically, are all about juicy hop flavor and aroma, usually from citrus-leaning hop varieties, a smooth and silky mouthfeel, and a trademark haze or cloudiness. I decided to try my hand at brewing one of these animals. 

After scouring the beer dark web for information, I put my recipe together. From what I gathered, these are some of the techniques needed to get the Northeast-style down:

•  The bulk of the hopping should happen in the whirlpool and dry hopping stages. Go easy on the boil additions and heavy-handed on the whirlpool/dry hops. 

•  Use an English yeast strain. I opted to go with White Labs Dry English Ale Yeast (WLP007) as it's supposedly the strain used by Trillium (and my local homebrew shop had it on hand). Many other breweries apparently use the Wyeast London Ale III strain. 

•  Add a portion (or possibly all) of the dry hops while fermentation is still under way. This has some effect on the flocculation properties of the yeast, resulting in a hazier beer and may also contribute to the perceived "juiciness" of the beer. 

•  Use a sizable portion of wheat or oats (or something similar) to give a silkier mouthfeel to the beer. 

•  Opinions differ here, but consider getting your Chloride-to-Sulfate ratio closer to 1:1. The increased chloride can help round out the flavors, possibly helping out with the "juicy" factor. 

•  Minimize exposure to oxygen. Ideally, you would transfer the beer via CO2 and purge every vessel with CO2 that the beer goes into. (Out of laziness and lack of equipment, I just racked the beer with my auto-siphon, although I did purge the keg before filling it.)

For my beer, I decided to go with Galaxy hops as the star and Columbus as the bittering and backbone hop. I got some help with the hop addition amounts from a BYO article that contained a Trillium Fort Point clone recipe, although I changed mine up a bit, using Galaxy instead of Citra, increasing the overall amount of dry hops, and splitting the dry hops into two additions. I'm excited to see how how this one turns out.


Recipe Specifications
Batch Size (fermenter): 3.7 gal
Estimated OG: 1.055 SG
Estimated Color: 4.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 36.6 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Fermentables:
80.5% - 2-Row
12% - Flaked Oats
6% - Cara-Pils
1.5% - Crystal 15L

Hops:
.18 oz. Columbus (Pellet, 13.4% AA) @ 60 minutes - 12.4 IBUs
.56 oz. Columbus (Pellet, 13.4% AA) @ 10 minutes - 14.1 IBUs

1.45 oz. Columbus (Pellet, 13.4% AA) @ Whirlpool (30 minutes)

1 oz. Columbus (Pellet, 13.4% AA) @ Dry Hop - Added 3 days into fermentation
1 oz. Galaxy (Pellet, 14.8% AA) @ Dry Hop - Added 3 days into fermentation

3 oz. Galaxy (Pellet, 14.8% AA) @ Dry Hop (4 days) - Added after primary fermentation

Yeast:
White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast

Water:
RO filtered water - added 5.5 grams of calcium chloride and 5.5 grams of gypsum to the strike water. Aiming for around 140ppm sulfate and 125ppm chloride.

Mash:
Single-infusion @ 153 degrees

Notes:
Brewed on 5/1/16.

65 min mash @153 degrees. Mash pH of 5.47.

After boil, cooled to around 180 degrees, then pitched in whirlpool hops and steeped for 30 minutes.

Cool wort to around 70 degrees and pitched WLP007 Pure Pitch (no starter). Cooled to 65 once fermentation kicked off.

5/4/16 - 10:30pm - added 1oz of Columbus and 1oz of Mosaic hops directly to fermenter.

5/8/16 - Transferred to 12L Spiedel fermenter. Appearance is cloudy. Aroma is great. Taste is good but still a bit on the harsh after only a week in the fermenter. SG is at 1.013. Added 3oz of Galaxy dry hops in a muslin bag.

5/12/16 - Removed dry hop bag and moved fermenter into fridge to crash cool.

5/15/16 - Kegged beer. Targeting carbonation level around 2.6 volumes.

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Growing Hops in Containers

Growing my own hops is something I've been wanting to tackle for a while. Unfortunately, living in the city and renting, rather owning my house, has been an obstacle. I figured landlords and gardeners at apartment and condominium complexes probably aren't super fond of hop vines taking over their landscaping beds, so I haven't been able to try it out in the past. My wife and I finally live in a place that has a decent-sized porch, so I wondered if growing those sticky, little green beauties in pots might be a possibility. I did a little research and found some really helpful info (mostly from this great BYO article by Chris Colby), and it turns out it can be done. Yessss.

Hop plants have pretty serious root systems that need a lot of space to grow and take hold, so planting in the ground is the ideal situation, but it seems that growing in containers can work if you follow some guidelines. First off, you need large pots to allow the roots to grow. I found some large 20-inch pots from Home Depot that will hopefully do the trick. It's also important that the pots have drainage holes so the soil is allowed to dry out between waterings. Otherwise, the roots will get too soggy and rot over time. 

To give the hops bines some space to grow, I decided to put two 6-foot stakes into each pot and run twine around the stakes in a zig-zag sort of pattern. As the hop bines emerge, I will attempt to train them to run along the twine. I went this route so that I can grow longer bines than if I grew them directly vertical, hopefully resulting in more hop cones. As the plants emerge, I will probably run a second string on each set of stakes, making an 'X' pattern all the way up. 

For the hop varieties, I decided to try Cascade and Centennial as they are supposed to be two of the easier varieties to grow. They also are supposed to do well in almost any climate. There are some other varieties I would have preferred to try instead, but since this is my first time growing hops and I'm growing in containers, I figured I have enough going against me, so I'm taking the easy route (hopefully). I ordered my hop rhizomes through MoreBeer and planted one in each pot, a few inches below the surface of the soil. They were planted on April 9th. I followed the advice in the article to keep the soil most until the first sprouts appeared. 

April 25th update:

I'm proud to say that just about 2 weeks after planting the rhizomes, these little fellas popped up to say hello. Sweet - it actually worked! Following the advice of the BYO article, I hit them with some liquid fertilizer diluted to one-quarter strength to help them along. I would prefer to grow them 100% organically without fertilizer, but from what I've read, fertilizer is pretty much a necessity when it comes to growing in containers. I'm planning to feed them with fertilizer about once a month or as needed. 

May 8th update:

Things are coming along nicely. There are multiple bines growing from each pot and the leaves are looking nice and green. Some type of insect seems to feeding on the leaves as there are small holes in a lot of them. I'm not too concerned right now, but it if gets worse, I will see what options are out there for organic insecticides. The Cascade plant is definitely growing faster than the Centennial, so we'll see if that continues. 

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Catacombs Mixed-Fermentation Saison

I am psyched to finally try something from East Coast Yeast. I got lucky enough to snag a vial of Bug Farm from love2brew.com who sporadically puts up some of Al Buck's bugs for sale. For those not in the know, Bug Farm is a yeast and bacteria blend from ECY that contains Saccharomyces, Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus, and Pediococcus, with the Brett population taking more than half of the culture. ECY also gives you a generous amount of cells - something like 500 billion in this particular blend. 

The hard part was deciding how I wanted to use this animal. I knew I was either going to make a lambic-style ale, or a tart, funky, farmhouse-style ale. In my mind, I could take one of these three routes in the yeast/bacteria department:

1. Pitch Bug Farm into primary as the sole yeast/bacteria, allowing the beer to age for a good, long time (probably 1 year or more), ultimately making something lambic-like. 

2. Ferment the beer out with a farmhouse Sacch. strain and then pitch Bug Farm into secondary, allowing the bugs to slowly eat away at the remaining sugars and starches. 

3. Pitch Bug Farm and a farmhouse strain at the same time, with the idea that the saison strain will do the bulk of the fermenting up front, giving me mostly saison character, but giving the Brett, Lacto, and Pedio more of a head start on developing funky and tart character with the remaining sugars and starches.

I opted to go with #3. As much as I enjoy lambics and lambic-style beers, I love rustic farmhouse-style beers even more, and my hope is that this will leave me with a tart, funky, complex saison without a tremendously long aging time. I plan to first taste the beer at around the 3-4 month mark and then age longer if needed. The Bug Farm blend does contain Pediococcus, of which certain strains are known for producing diacetyl. If I get too much diacetyl after a few months, then I will need to extend the aging time to allow the Brett to clean things up. 

In addition to trying out East Coast Yeast for the first time, I am also trying out a new yeast lab for my primary strain, Imperial Organic Yeast, a relatively new yeast lab based in Portland, Oregon. I was excited to find them because they carry the Blaugies strain, which is possibly my favorite saison strain (they call it B56 Rustic). The only other yeast lab I know of who carries it for homebrewers is Wyeast (3726), and they only release it 3 months out of the year. Another cool thing about Imperial Yeast is that their pitches contain around 200 billion cells, double what Wyeast and White Labs offer, and it comes packaged in cool-looking little recyclable aluminum cans. 

As for the recipe, I kept things fairly simple in the grain and hop department. The only somewhat (but not really) unusual thing I did was to use a large portion of Vienna malt at 30% of the total grain bill. I'm hoping this will give the beer a somewhat deep golden hue and add some complexity to the flavor. I also added a decent portion of flaked oats to give the beer a bit more body and to give the bugs something to chew on after the Blaugies strain has taken care of business. The hops were left over from my last brew - that's the only reason I used 2 different varieties. I kept the total IBUs under 10 so as not to impede the Lacto and Pedio from doing their jobs. 

I'm really looking forward to seeing how this one turns out. 

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size (fermenter): 3.3 gal
Estimated OG: 1.051 SG
Estimated Color: 4.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 8.7 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Fermentables:
62% - Belgian Pilsner
30% - Vienna Malt
8% - Flaked Oats
(Also added 1.5oz of Acid malt to get pH in the right range)

Hops:
.21 oz. East Kent Goldings (Pellet, 4.8% AA) @ 60 minutes - 6.1 IBUs
.12 oz. Saaz (Pellet, 3.6% AA) @ 60 minutes - 2.6 IBUs

Other:
1/2 teaspoon crushed black peppercorn @ 5 minutes

Yeast/Bacteria:
Imperial Organic Yeast - Rustic (B56)
East Coast Yeast Bug Farm (ECY01) - pitched into primary

Water:
RO filtered water - added 3 grams of calcium chloride and 2.2 grams of gypsum to the strike water.

Mash:
Single-infusion @ 149 degrees (80 min)

Notes:
Brewed on 3/12/16. Pitched yeast at 72 degrees.

3/13/16 - Very active fermentation by the morning. Letting fermentation temp free-rise.

3/19/16 - Racked into 3-gallon carboy. SG down to 1.005.

5/8/16 - Sampled beer. Starting to develop some Brett funk and light acidity. Acidity is a touch lower than I hoped it would be at this point, so I may need to let it sit a bit longer than originally intended.

7/23/16 - Sampled again. Has some nice funk from the Brett, but there is still hardly any noticeable acidity which is surprising and disappointing since ECY001 contains both Lacto and Pedio. I may add some sour dregs to get this animal headed in a more tart direction.

7/31/16 - Added dregs from a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin La Roja

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NorCal Beer Adventure

This weekend my wife and I made the trek north from Los Angeles to the Bay area to partake in the glorious Northern California beer scene. We got to visit some breweries and beer spots that had been on our bucket list for a good while - Sante Adairius Rustic Ales, The Rare Barrel, Cellarmaker, City Beer Store, and Bear Republic. Here are a few shots from the trip.

Sante Adairius Rustic Ales

Sante Adairius Rustic Ales

Sante Adairius tasting room

A few of SARA's fermenters

Flasks full of yeasty goodness

My wife, Cambria, enjoying some delicious beer

Cask 200

Backside view of the brewery

The Rare Barrel

A small sampling of the barrels at The Rare Barrel

Cellarmaker Brewing Co.

Cellarmaker's glorious taplist

Coffee & Cigarettes Smoked Porter and Island Culture Brett Saison

City Beer Store

Russian River (Pliny the Younger release)

The long line for the Pliny the Younger release. This was taken shortly before we gave up and left for Bear Republic.

Proof that we at least waited in line at Russian River. Hopefully next time we'll actually make it inside the brewery.

Bear Republic Brewing

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Goses & Mimosas (Blood Orange Gose)

When life gives you blood oranges, make sour beer with it. I think that's how the old adage goes. Something like that. At least that's what I decided to do in this case. My wife and I went to a local farmers market a couple of weeks ago that sells all organic produce. After sampling blood oranges at a couple of booths, I couldn't turn them down. They were calling my name. I had already been planning to make a Gose, so I figured these strange beautiful fruits could only enhance the beer.

For this beer, I decided to kettle-sour with probiotics. I have been hearing about a lot of brewers using Lactobacillus Plantarum recently, as it's known to sour beer very quickly. A company called GoodBelly makes probiotic drinks with Lacto P, so I picked up a couple of their SuperShots, which are advertised to have 50 billion cultures per shot. Since this is only a 3-gallon batch, I figured 2 shots should do the trick.

As a side note, I think it's funny how quickly opinions and trends change in the American craft beer world. It was less than a year ago that I was seeing rants all over the place about quick-souring techniques and how they produce subpar beer. If anyone was making sour beer that wasn't aged long-term, it was considered inferior. Fast forward to today, and it seems like everyone and their brother (including some very well respected breweries) is kettle-souring and it's a totally acceptable practice. While I agree that a kettle-soured beer can't match the complexity and nuances of a 2-year old barrel-aged sour, I think it's a great technique for beers like Gose and Berliner Weisse where you want that straight forward lactic note.

So anyway, for this beer, I mashed and sparged with my normal process, drained to the kettle, then I pre-acidified the wort down to a pH of 4.5 using lactic acid. This prevents some funky bacteria from developing and is also rumored to help with head retention. I then dropped in my wort chiller and boiled for 15 minutes. It wouldn't be necessary to boil that long - a minute or two would do the trick, but I went ahead and boiled for 15 minutes just in case there were any funky bugs living on my wort chiller. After boiling, I cooled the wort down to around 115 degrees, pulled out the wort chiller, and pitched in the two GoodBelly shots. I covered the top of the kettle in plastic wrap and put on the lid.

It turns out Plantarum is quite an animal. After 10 hours, the pH had dropped to 3.93. The next morning, about 19 hours after pitching the GoodBelly shots, the pH was down to 3.56. Pretty impressive stuff. I was shooting for the high 3.4 range, so I left it a few more hours until it hit 3.48. I didn't want this to be a mouth-puckering sour - I was shooting for more of a gentle, subtle acidity. Plus, I know that adding the blood orange juice would further drop the pH, so I didn't want to go too low. I should also note that I didn't do anything to maintain the warm temperature. I started it off at 115 degrees and just let it cool naturally. It was room temperature by the next morning. Below is a fancy chart showing the drop in acidity over time.

Once I hit my target pH, I boiled the wort again for about 15 minutes. At the end the boil, I added sea salt, coriander, and the zest and juice of 5 blood oranges. I took a pH reading after adding the blood orange juice, and it was down to 3.42. Once the fermentation is under way, I'm planning to add the zest of 5 more oranges. Lastly, to provide some more complexity, I decided to ferment the beer with the Sacch. Trois strain.


Recipe Specifications
Batch Size (fermenter): 3.10 gal
Estimated OG: 1.032 SG (before adding fruit)
Estimated Color: 3.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 30 Minutes (15 min before souring, 15 min after)

Fermentables:
50% - Belgian Pilsner Malt
50% - Wheat Malt

Hops:
None!

Yeast & Bacteria:
2 GoodBelly SuperShots (for kettle-souring)
Sacch. Trois (WLP644)

Other ingredients: 
.30oz Sea salt (1 min)
.38oz Crushed coriander (1 min)
Zest and juice of 5 Moro blood oranges (flameout)
Zest of 5 More blood oranges (added to secondary, 4 days)

Water:
RO water with 3.1 grams of calcium chloride added to strike water.

Mash:
Single-infusion @ 148 degrees

Notes:

Brewed on 1/30/16.

Also added 4oz of rice hulls to the mash. 

Made starter with 1 vial of WLP644. Started with .5L, fermented for 2 days, then stepped up to 1L. Pitched whole thing. Started fermentation around 71 degrees.

2/6/16 - Transferred from 5-gallon carboy to 3-gallon carboy. SG at 1.008.

2/18/16 - Added the zest of 5 more blood oranges.

2/22/16 - Kegged - shooting for 2.8 volumes of carbonation.

Tasting update:
This beer has a light-to-medium clean acidity, a touch of complexity from the Trois strain, a super juicy taste and aroma, and just a touch of saltiness on the finish that keeps you coming back for that next drink. The orange character really comes through. It's almost like drinking a more complex, alcoholic version of orange juice. Yum. I don't think would change anything if I were to brew this again.

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