Monday, December 17, 2012

Brett-Brux Trois IPA (C3PA)

I finally got around to bottling my sour ale. I wanted to give the beer some fresh yeast but I didn’t want to use champagne yeast. I decided to use the tube of Brett-Brux Trois that I bought a couple of months ago. I made a starter about a week before I bottled. I didn’t need all of the yeast from the starter for the sour so I was left with yeast that needed to be used. With the left over yeast I decided to brew another 100% Brett beer.

I’m making this an IPA since I thought the Brett-C and Citra combo was amazing. I decided to up the ABV, it is winter after all, and in doing so I also upped the hop content. The strategy was to use one hop for bittering at the beginning of the boil and then a bunch of flame out hops and dry hop like crazy. Instead of using 100% Citra, since I’m low and I can’t find any fresh Citra, I’m supplementing with Chinook and Falconer’s Flight. For bittering I decided to go with a staple of IPAs, Centennial

I ended up under-gravity again and I’m starting to think it’s not my process that has changed. I used to pretty much always hit my target OG and often be too high. The only change besides moving is the new LHBS. I think that they might not be crushing my grain correctly, just one more reason I need my own barley crusher. Other than that the brew day was uneventful, which is a nice change of pace from my last few brew days.

Stats
Original Gravity: 1.050
Final Gravity:
Estimated IBU: 70
SRM: 3o
ABV%:
Efficiency Est: 65%
Boil Time: 60 min

Recipe
  • 70% - 9.5 lbs –Two Row
  • 22% - 3 lbs – Wheat Malt
  • 4% - 0.5 lbs – Carapils
  • 4% - 0.5 lbs – Acid Malt
Hops
  • 60 minutes - Centennial – 2oz
  • Flame out – Citra – 1oz
  • Flame out – Falconer’s Flight – 1oz
  • Flame out – Chinook – 1oz
  • Dry hop 14 days – Citra – 2oz
  • Dry hop 14 days – Falconer’s Flight – 1oz
  • Dry hop 14 days – Chinook – 1oz
Yeast
  • WLP644 Brettanomyces bruxellensis Trois
Mash
Mashed single infusion for 60 minutes at 153oF, single  sparge at 170oF
Notes:

(11/24/12) – Brewed by myself. Easy brew day. Chilled to 80F and placed the carboy in the chest freezer. Three hours later I pitched the 1 liter starter a week before. For the mash I added 3 tsp of gypsum and 1 tsp of Calcium Chloride and 2 tsp gypsum and 1 tsp Calcium Chloride to the sparge water. I didn’t shake or add any additional aeration to the wort except during transferring from kettle to carboy. Set fermentation temperature to 57F targeting 62F.

(11/9/12) -  Added all but one packet of Falconer's Flight to the dry hopping.

(12/21/12) - Bottled with 0.5 cups of table sugar. 

(1/9/12) - First tasting. Great results.

4 comments:

  1. This sounds like a great beer and we are brewing one shortly that will be similar and be fermented and aged in a Chardonnay barrel. The low fermentation temperature is interesting. Why so low?

    Also, we have an extremely similar taste for brewing. You are off to a great start on your blog. I have a good amount of reading ahead of me.

    I didn't see a good way to get updates from your blog (Follow tab or RSS), so I added you to my feed at http://jeffreycrane.blogspot.com/

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    1. I'll have to update the RSS. As far as fermentation temperature goes the reason I fermented low was to prevent the Brett from getting out of control. I didn't want to stress it too much and make it too Brett-y. You can definitely taste the Brett but I didn't want it to take away from what the beer was supposed to be.

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  2. Brett Trois is awesome. I made a really clean beer with mostly pils and wheat, and willamette for hopping. It had great fruity mango and pear qualities. Really would have been next level with some more assertive american hops.

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    1. The tropical fruit aromas were great while it was fresh. I held on to some bottles to see what would happen. I recently had one and they have held up surprisingly well. Less pungent but still fruity.

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