Brewing an Aged Flanders Pale

Homebrewing involves a lot of plastic stuff—buckets, hoses, autosiphons, etc.—that all needs to be replaced about once a year, or else the cumulative microfauna will eventually begin to show itself in what you had hoped would be a nice, clean pale ale.

In the past, I've always said goodbye to my gear at the end of its time, but have decided this year to dedicate it to a new life brewing sour beers.  Given that a lot of sours run $5-12 for a 12 oz bottle, this has the capacity to recoup my investment in a whole new batch of plastic stuff for my clean beers. 

Night Brew on the Magic Plastic!

Like most beer geeks, I've enjoyed a few sours in the last few years, as sour has become the new hoppy (you  know, expensive and increasingly out-of-balance).  I was turned off by the first couple of back-sweetened beginner examples I tried—they tasted too much like terriyaki sauce, but I've discovered that I really enjoy a couple of the more straight-up sour varieties like berliner weiss (love it—coming soon), unsweetened lambics, and some of the drier Flanders Reds, but I had not yet decided what to brew.

I plan to brew a berliner weiss for this suummer, but also wanted something to lay down.  I am intimidated by the classic lambic turbid mash (okay, lazy is fair), and I wasn't so sure I wanted more than the occasional Flanders Red.  Then, the other night I had a glass of Petrus Aged Pale on tap at Mekong during one of my hopefully-not-so-rare-anymore attendances at a meeting of the James River Homebrewers Association.  It was amazing.  Dry, sour, with a fantastic lemony-funk aroma, and just the barest ghost of a long-lost hoppiness.  Tweaking the recipe for a Flanders Pale in Wild Brews to make use of 10 pounds of Crisp pale malt lying around from my IHP 2012 participation, I came up with the following.

I have to make an aside here—Tony, over at Original Gravity on Lakeside Avenue, had two fresh packs of the Wyeast Roeselare yeast, Weyerman's carahell, and my choice of continental pilsen malts, ready to go on absolutely no notice.  This from a small shop that's been open for less than six months.  Amazing.  If you're in RVA and you brew, you need to check this place out.

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Flanders Pale
Brewer: Vince Dongarra
Asst Brewer:
Style: Flanders Pale Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
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Boil Size: 12.62 gal
Post Boil Volume: 10.92 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 12.00 gal  
Bottling Volume: 11.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.058 SG
Estimated Color: 6.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 23.6 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 72.9 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
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Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU        
8.00 g                Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins)        Water Agent   1        -            
14 lbs                Pilsen (Dingemans) (1.6 SRM)             Grain         2        52.8 %       
10 lbs                Pale Ale (Crisp) (4.0 SRM)               Grain         3        37.7 %       
2 lbs 8.0 oz          Carahell (Weyermann) (13.0 SRM)          Grain         4        9.4 %        
8.00 g                Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Boil 90.0 mins Water Agent   5        -            
94 g                  Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 Hop           6        23.6 IBUs    
2.0 pkg               Roselare Belgian Blend (Wyeast Labs #376 Yeast         7        -            
1.0 pkg               Safale American  (DCL/Fermentis #US-05)  Yeast         8        -            


Total Grain Weight: 26 lbs 8.0 oz
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Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time    
Mash In           Add 8.00 gal of water at 164.0 F        150.0 F       75 min       
Mash Step         Add 5.00 gal of water at 208.1 F        170.0 F       40 min       

Sparge: Batch sparge with 1 steps (Drain mash tun, , 6 gal) of 170.0 F water
Notes:
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ended up with 9.5 gallons of 1.073, topped up to 12 gallons of 1.058 in the fermenters.

mixed the two Roeselare packs with a rehydrated US-05, and pitched half into each bucket around 75F.

Smells AMAZING.

Two days later, I've got clogged airlocks and one of the lid blows off.  This is why I ferment in a spare shower.  Smells great while I'm cleaning homebrew off the ceiling.  I pull the airlocks and move to quasi open fermenters (lids on, no seal).  

Racked into secondary after primary had subsided (about 8 days).  I put these in better bottles, which I understand are perfectly adapted to long conditioning of sour beers.  The beer had cooled to 66 F and had dropped clear.  Normally, I keep beer in the primary for two or three weeks, but I figure these should be out of the more oxygen-permeable primary buckets, and into the better bottles sooner, rather than later.  Also, the brett should have plenty of time to clean up any diacetyl. 


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