Project Gueuze: Or American Blended Wild Ale

Amazingly the time has finally come for the third and final year of Project Gueuze. Two years ago I set out to brew my own gueuze. If you’re not aware of what a Gueuze is I’ll explain. A Gueuze is a blend of 1, 2, and 3 year old Lambic that is spontaneously fermented and refermented in the bottle. The oldest Lambic imparts the most sourness while the youngest Lambic adds fresh yeast and sugar for carbonating as well as softening the acidity of the oldest Lambic. I did not spontaneously ferment nor do I live in the area nearby Brussels so I won’t refer to my “Lambic,” as such. By definition Gueuze is blended Lambic so I really can’t refer to it as Gueuze either. The title is a work in progress.

The first year I brewed a simple base similar to a traditional Lambic (60% Pale base and 30% wheat), aged hops, and pitched the dregs of a Cantillon Cuveé des Champions. For the second year I used the same base, the same hoping rate and used ECY20 Bug farm for the souring. For the final installment I kept everything the same but used a blend of Tilquin Gueuze à l’ancienne and Drie Fonteinen Golden Blend. 

Unfortunately I still have to wait another year until I can blend, but that is when the real fun happens. My plan is to blend each beer and naturally carbonate without the addition of yeast or sugar. This process will delay the carbonation, but it is the way Gueuze is made. Technically even after I blend I’ll have to wait a year until the bottle beer is ready, but I’ve already waited two years, what’s two more. I did a ten gallon batch so that I will have some more sour beer in the pipe line. 

Beer Stats

Batch Size: 10.5 Gallons

Boil time: 90 minutes

Estimated OG: 1.051

Measure OG: 1.049

Final OG: won’t know for a year

ABV: see above

SRM: 5^o

IBU: 0 (technically there are IBUs but most software will not account for it but I’ve read Cantillon classic Gueuze will run anywhere from 30 to 50 IBU)

Grain Bill

14lbs Pilsner Malt

7lbs White wheat

1lb Acid Malt

Hop Schedule

90 minutes – 5 year old Willamette – 4.5 ounces

Mash Schedule

60 minutes –Single infusion – 158^oF

Yeast

0.25L of Wyeast 1065 Slurry from Pecan Porter and Tilquin and Drie Fonteinen dregs

Notes:

1/1/15 – First beer of the year brewed by myself. No issues brewing other than coming in a little under gravity (I may not have now that I know my refractometer is not calibrated correctly). No salt additions. Chilled to 60^oF and pitched the yeast. 

1/3/15 – Signs of fermentation.

 

1/6/15 – Dreg starter developed a pellicle the day before. Split dreg starter between each batch. 

1/14/15 - Added a few oak cubes that I had sitting in some Crown Royal to one of the carboys. 

Breakfast Stout v2

I’ve had to put off brewing this beer for a while because I didn’t have any space in my chest keezer thanks to the keg of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. Early on in my brewing career I wanted to attempt to brew a Founder’s Breakfast Stout clone because Founder’s at the time was unavailable in Texas. Well since then things have changed dramatically in the Texas beer scene and Founder’s in one of the many new breweries to the Texas market which many of us never dreamed would come to Texas. As I’ve previously stated I generally don’t clone beers except for certain reasons (ie too expensive to buy or can’t get in my market), however, there I do have some exceptions to this rule. If I feel a beer is the best or one of the best at what it is I have no problem trying to brew that beer.  FBS falls into that category for me just as would Live Oak Hefeweizen. 

The last time I attempted to brew FBS I was not pleased with the coffee or chocolate addition results. This time I added the coffee beans straight into a keg for cold extraction in the beer, rather than using water and essentially diluting the coffee flavor and aroma. The other difference is that I decided to use cocoa powder instead of nibs. Last time I used nibs for fear of head retention reduction from the fatty oils in the cocoa powder. After some research I learned not all cocoa powders are created equal and that the Chrystal malt should be more than enough protection.  Most of the fat has been removed from cocoa powder leaving behind the acidic bitter chocolate flavor. The two different types that I considered are raw cocoa powder and Dutch processed cocoa powder. Dutch processed cocoa powder has been alkalinized to give it a darker color and a less bitter taste. Knowing that I decided to go with the raw unprocessed cocoa powder since what I like about FBS is the bitter dark chocolate flavor.  The only remaining question was when to add it. I decided to add it in two steps: first in the mash for what I’m hoping will provide more chocolate flavor and second towards the end of the boil, which I was hoping will extract some of the “bitterness.” 

Beer Stats

Batch size: 5.5 Gallons

Boil time: 90 minutes

Est Original Gravity: 1.084

Measured Original Gravity: 1.081

Measured Final Gravity: 1.020
ABV: 8.0%

SRM: 65^o

IBU: 63

Grain Bill

15lbs Pale Malt

0.25lbs Black Patent

1.25lbs Chocolate Malt

2lbs Flaked Oats

0.75lbs Crystal 120L

0.25lbs Roasted Barley

Hop Schedule

60 minutes - Magnum – 2 ounce

30 minutes - Willamette – 0.25

15 minutes – Cocoa powder – 1 ounce

0 minutes - Willamette – 0.25 

Mash Schedule

151^oF single infusion for 60 minutes – one ounce of cocoa powder added at 15 minutes

Yeast

0.25L slurry of Wyeast 1056 American Ale from Pecan Porter

Notes:

1/30/14 – Brewed by myself. Added 3 grams CaCl, 1 gram Gypsum, and .5 grams Baking Soda to the mash. Mash pH came in higher then I wanted so I added 1ml of 88% Lactic acid. I calculated lower mash pH from all of the roasted grains so I decided to add the baking soda, but I guess it wasn’t as low as I estimated. I added 1 ounce of cocoa powder into the mash towards the end and mixed it in. Added 1.5 ounces of cocoa powder with 15 minutes left in the boil. Chilled to 58^oF and added 90 seconds of pure O₂. Yeast pitched and placed in beer room which is at 66^oF.

1/31/14 – Fermentation has begun. 

1/8/15 – Temperature up to 69^oF to try to finish out fermentation.

1/14/15 - Placed into chest freezer to cold crash. Gravity down to 1.020

1/15/15 - Racked to a keg and added 3.75 ounces of Intelligentsia Mexican coffee to a bag and placed it in the keg.

1/17/15 - Removed the coffee beans after roughly 36 hours. Set pressure to 10psi to carbonate.

2/1/15 - First tasting. I couldn't be happier. I targeted a final pH of 4.58 that was measured from a glass of FBS and ended up with 4.62, pretty close in my book.

Juicy IPA

I took the opportunity of two weeks off from work to get some brewing done. Overall I brewed 20 gallons worth of beer over three separate batches. The first beer that I brewed was an IPA for a friend. She wanted a fruit forward IPA, which is right up my alley, so I had no problem brewing it for her. I quickly came up with a grain bill targeting a lighter SRM and a drier finish that wouldn’t conflict with the hop flavor. I knew right away that I was going to use some combination of Citra and Mosaic but I wasn’t sure how I was going to go about using them. While I enjoy Citra, it can vary from time to time and I’ve never really enjoyed Mosaic on its own. I think Mosaic is a good support hop, but not a good standalone hop. To avoid the beer becoming fruit juice like a Deschutes Fresh Squeezed, I decided to use come Cascade for bittering and underling aromatics. 

For this batch I also decided to use” hop bursting” for the first time. This technique involves adding all of your hops at flame out or just before flam out. The theory is that the hops will still impart bitterness but it will be more flavor than alpha acid pure bitterness, while preserving the aromatics better then boiling. I’ve used this in the past, but have always relied on some sort of 60 minute bittering addition out of fear that the beer will be too sweet. I’ve learned over time that the hops will still impart bitterness even if they are not “boiled,” but are at a temperature above 180^oF. I did add an addition of Cascade at 20 minutes just for a little more classic IPA bitterness, but not a pallet wrecker. For the rest of the hop additions, I basically just threw it together while I was heating the mash water. I pretty much just grabbed whatever my LHBS had in stock without any real plan on how I was going to use them. My goal was to layer the flavor and aroma with a hop addition at flame out, whirlpool, and hopback. I think the best IPAs have a layered aroma and flavor that is derived from specific time additions and specific hop ratios. 

The last technique I decided to try was to add my dry hops prior to the end of fermentation. From what I have read adding the hops while the yeast are still active will, first help to prevent oxidation and second allow the yeast to do some interesting things with the hop esters. It should, if theory is correct, produce more of the fruity aromatics from the hops, rather than the grassy fresh hop aromatics from dry hopping. You want to add the hops towards the end of fermentation so that they CO₂ produced by the yeast don’t blow the aromatics out of the beer. 

Beer Stats

Batch Size: 5.25 Gallons

Estimated OG: 1.064

Measured OG: 1.060 (updated)

Measured FG: 1.016

ABV: 5.8%

SRM: 7

IBU: 60.2

Grain Bill

9 lbs 2-row Pale Malt

1lb Vienna Malt

1lb Sugar

0.75 lbs Acid Malt

Hop Schedule

20 min – Cascade – .5 oz

30 min whirlpool – Citra – 1 oz

30 min whirlpool – Mosaic - .5 oz

30 min whirlpool – Cascade – 0.25 oz

30 min hopback – Citra – 1 oz

30 min hopback – Mosaic - .5 oz

30 min hopback – Cascade – 0.25 oz

Dry hop – 8 days – Citra – 2 oz

Dry hop – 8 days – Mosaic – 1 oz

Mash Schedule

148^oF – Single Infusion – 60 minutes

165^oF – Mash out

Yeast

Conan yeast slurry stepped up to 1.5L starter

Notes:

12/24/14 – Brewed with Danielle. Ended up being under gravity again but I recently learned that it might be because my refractometer needs to have a corrective calibration calculated. Apparently they routinely read under where they should be because they are calibrated using sugar water not wort. I added 2 grams of CaCl,6 grams of Gypsum, and 2 mL 88% Lactic acid to the mash. Mash pH was 5.22 (estimated 5.23), pre-boil pH 5.39 and final boil pH is 5.26. Added 60 seconds of pure O2. Beer left to ferment in my beer room in a swamp bucket. The room should be roughly 64-68^oF.

12/29/14 – Dry hops added. 

1/6/15 – Placed carboy into chest freezer to cold crash. Gravity down to 1.016.

1/12/15 - First tasting. Awesome. Final pH was 4.88.  A little higher then I was expecting.

Pecan Porter

One of the things that I enjoy about attempting to clone a beer is the process to come up with a recipe. The other nice aspect of cloning is that you have the ability to compare your clone with the actual commercial example. This gives you the opportunity to determine how close you are to the commercial beer and determine what changes need to be made if your beer does not taste like the clone.  The more that you brew the easier it is to determine how a beer should taste prior to brewing it, but if you’re just learning the easiest way is to compare your beer to a commercial example. 

As usual I enjoy trying new techniques when I brew and this time was no different. I needed to use pecans if I am to properly clone (512)Pecan Porter, but I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to use them since they contain head killing oils. I did a little research into the topic of using nuts (pecans are fruits technically) that contain oils and stumbled across two different methods. The first method was described by one of the employees from Lazy Magnolia Brewing for their Pecan Ale and the second method was explained over at ryanbrews. 

Method 1- Roast the pecans at 400^oF for 10 minutes and let them cool on a paper towel to extract oils, followed by breaking them into chunks and repeating the roasting at 350^oF for 30 minutes, finally after the second roast let them cool on a paper towel again to remove oil. The point of roasting the pecans is to remove the some of the oil from the pecans. After they have been roasted you will throw them in the mash tun and mash as normal. To make up for the fact that there will be some of the oils making their way into your beer you will need to either increase (or add) the amount of wheat  or crystal malt you’re using to boost the head retention. 

Method 2 – This method involves making an extract. In theory you will preserve the essence of the pecans without the head killing oils. In order to do this you need to roast the pecans just like in method 1 but instead of mashing with them you grind them up (which causes them to turn into a pile of sticky mush) and place them into a jar with a clean spirit (such as vodka). Over time the oils will infuse their aroma and flavor into the vodka. When the aroma has been infused you need to filter out the pecan bits and then take the oil/alcohol mix, place a straw in it and freeze the mixture. When settled the oil should settle to the top and freeze, while the alcohol will not freeze. Once frozen, remove the straw and pour the alcohol through the hole that remains, leaving the fatty oil behind. Continue to repeat until the oil has been removed. You can add this mixture at bottling to your liking. A more detailed explanation of the process can be found here. 

I decided to go with method 1 assuming it will give me more pecan flavor that (512) is known for and because I’m assuming the reason they use “copious amounts of crystal malt” is because they mash with the pecans. I did, however, also make the extract just in case I want to add some more pecan aroma when I bottle. 

Beer Stats

Batch size: 5.25 Gallons

Boil Time: 100 minutes

Original Gravity: 1.068

Measured Gravity: 1.068

Final Gravity: 1.016
Measured Final Gravity: 1.015

ABV: 6.95%

IBU: 30

SRM: 54^o

Grain Bill

12lbs Pale Two Row Malt

2lbs Crystal 80L

0.75Lb Chocolate Malt

0.25lb Black Patent Malt

0.25lb Roasted Pecans

Hop Bill

Glacier – 1.5 oz – 60 minutes

Yeast

1.5L starter Wyeast 1056 – made the day before

Mash schedule

60 minute saccharification rest at 150^oF

Notes:

12/6/14 – Brewed with my Dad for part of his birthday gift. A little low on the pre-boil gravity so I added 15 minutes to the boil. Mash pH measured at 5.56, calculated value was 5.57. Ended up boiling off too much due to my Dad’s different kettle geometry so the FG was 1.071 at 5 gallons. Chilled to 80^oF and added the yeast and it brought up the final volume to 5.25 gallons and the gravity to 1.068. Left to ferment in my parent’s house at ambient temperature. 

12/7/14 – Healthy fermentation going 12 hours later. 

12/9/14 – Made the pecan extract.

12/27/14 - Bottled with 85 grams of table sugar. Added 4 ml of pecan extract for aroma. Gravity down to 1.015.

1/22/15 - First tasting. A little low on the carbonation.

First Tasting: Heady Clone v2

It took me a little longer to get around to reviewing this beer then I would have liked but I think the extra time actually helped it. This might seem counterintuitive for an IPA, but I think the flavors and aromas mellowed out and became more distinctive rather than muddled together. Part of the reason for the delay I was because I had problems getting the keg to carbonate. I’m not sure what the reason for this was, but I finally used the old shake method to infuse CO₂. 

The last time I brewed this beer it did not come out the way I would have liked. It developed a harsh astringent bitterness and was a weird murky brown color. I placed the blame on mash pH. This caused me to force myself to learn about mash chemistry, which I think has overall improved my brewing. I was able to adjust my pH for this beer, but I don’t think I got it low enough. Lowering my pH did help with the color of the beer and I feel it also helped to remove the astringent hop finish (the other problem could have come from poor hop extract). The issue I had this time around came from my yeast not fully attenuating. I don’t think I made a big enough starter after going from the can and I think when I stepped up my starter it was too old. That coupled with an inability to oxygenate didn’t help things for the yeast in a stressful environment. 

Never the less I’m much happier with this batch, but feel it could still use some tweaking.

Appearance: It pours a hazy orange-yellow with a fluffy off white head with crazy good retention. The head never really fades from a centimeter thick lacing and clings to the side of the glass. I wouldn’t mind clearing it up a little bit, but really I would have to filter in order to do that. Conan yeast is a notoriously bad flocculater and chill haze from all of the dry hopping isn’t helping anything. 

Aroma: Dank hops up front with peach notes peeking through. As it warms up some more citrus aromas come up but it’s still pretty dank. I’m thinking next time I will reduce the amount of Columbus hops and maybe increase the Amarillo hops. I think I will also cut the dry hopping in half. I usually notice the best aroma after the first hopping but then the aroma becomes mixed after the second addition. I was at first disappointed by aroma because it didn’t remind me of Heady, but the more I drank the more I realized that it was similar to Alpine Purehoppiness, which I can’t really complain about. 

Flavor: Due to the under attenuation of the yeast there is some residual sweetness that I’m not too fond of but it’s not a cloying sweetness. The flavor is bitterness up front with piney notes and some orange flavor blended and some caramel notes. When I was initially drinking the beer I thought it was too sweet, but the more I drank I started to feel like it was actually fruity hop flavor. 

Mouthfeel: Medium carbonation and a full body with a lingering bitter finish. I would have preferred for the beer to be dryer and maybe for the bitterness to be a touch softer. I might dial back the extract some next time around. 

Overall: I think one of the things that I’m going to try to do next time for sure is to lower the pH a little bit more. I took a reading of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale and it came in at 4.44 which is about 0.2 lower then my beer. I added a few drops of lactic acid to a glass and felt like it cleaned it up a bit and brightened up the aroma a little. I think the extra stage of dry hopping also caused the reverse affect then what I was looking for so I think next time I’ll cut that addition out or I’ll split the first dry hop into two additions for better extraction. I’m sure getting full attenuation will probably help as well.