Sunday, May 29, 2011

La Lumière


I'm a little behind on posting these beers as I brew them. I still have to do the write up for the Flemish Red. Yesterday I did a pale sour beer along the lines of Russian River Brewing Company's Temptation. I've forgone the idea of cloning sour/wild ales, but this beer was heavily influenced by Temptation. Notice how I said "influenced" and not "ripped off".

The grist was simple: Belgian pilsener and Belgian pale malt with some malted wheat and Carapils to give the bugs something to eat. I used Styrians for bittering and White Labs Abbey Ale as the primary yeast. I pitched a package of Roeselare and a vial of East Coast Yeast Bugfarm V. Using both was probably overkill and I regret that a little bit. The beer is guaranteed to have some microbiological diversity, but I won't be able to tell what flavors are being contributed by the Roeselare and which are coming from the Bugfarm. Now that the damage is done I might dump in the dregs from some sour beers as I drink them. I've got a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin's Biere de Mars that I've been eyeballing.

This beer is also a bit of a landmark for me. Since getting my water report from Ward Labs a couple of weeks ago, I've been looking forward to starting to adjust my water. I used Beer Alchemy to calculate the color and plugged it into John Palmer's spreadsheet and made all of the necessary computations. I think my water salt additions were correct, but in a beer like this I probably won't be able to tell either way.

This brew day also made it obvious that my system needs a few improvements. Courtesy of the Texas ground water during summer, it took me an hour and a half to reach 80 degrees F using my simple immersion chiller and well over two hours to hit my pitching temp. I've been reading about Jamil's Whirlpool Immersion Chiller and I think that might be in my future.

After primary fermentation subsides I'll add the Chardonnay soaked oak. I haven't picked out a Chardonnay yet, but I've heard that because they're so ubiquitous, a good one can be had for about $15 basically anywhere.

La Lumière

OG 1.054 FG ???? ABV ???? IBU ~26.2 SRM 4.3

45.0% Castle Pilsener
45.0% Belgian Pale Malt
08.0% Weyermann White Wheat Malt
02.0% Carapils

3.00 oz. Styrian Goldings (2.60% AA) @ 60 min.

1.00 tablet Whirlfloc @ 10 min.
0.50 tsp Wyeast Yeast Nutrient @ 10 min.
0.25 oz Medium toast French Oak
0.25 oz Medium toast American Oak

White Labs WLP530 - Abbey Ale
Wyeast 3763 - Roeselare Blend
East Coast Yeast ECY01 - Bugfarm V

Carbon Filtered Waco
Balanced Profile

Mashed at 153

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