Cropping WLP670 American Farmhouse

I have set forth into this experiment with eyes wide open. When I stumbled across this yeast blend bells started to go off. White Labs 670 American Farmhouse blend is a blend of a traditional Saison yeast and a proprietary strain of Brettanomyces, rumored to have originated from the famous Lost Abbey Brewing Company of Tomme Arthur. Could this yeast give me the traditional flavors of a days gone by Saisons. The real question is can this yeast be reused in a traditional manner of a farmhouse brewery, in that they would skim off the yeast from the top too reuse in the next batch. Given that this blend has a specific percentage of each yeast, what sort of changes would occer with each consecuative batch.

 Saison strains are renowned for being extremely fickle, in that they prefer blood warm temperature, thrive in open fermenter, and tend to stop fermenting for no good reason at all. Through all of these "requirements/flaws" that a traditional Saison yeast has, it has the ability to attenuate further than many other yeast and give a distinctive character to the beer it produces.

The thought process behind this study is the belief that traditional farmhouse breweries were not as sanitary in the processes as breweries of today, especially on the cold side of brewing. Many fermenters were wide metal or oak tanks left vulnerable to wild yeast. The wild yeast would ferment along side teh primary yeast and would get picked up by the brewer when he cropped the yeast to use in the next batch. WLP670 will give me this scenario, but will or how much will the ratio of each yeast change with each generation, and how will this affect the flavor profile.

Notes

• 1st copping was a little light, done 4 days after fermentation began. 4.5 grams Taken
• Second batch - took off like a rocket. Primary continued for 3 days. Second cropping was better. I took 6.5 grams and topped off with some of the fermenting wort. 
• Second Batch - pelicle formed after 7 days.
• Third Batch - this blend keeps getting stronger. Krausen almost double the height of the wort. Crazy Fermenter.

WLP 670 Crop # 2

Batch number two will see no changes to the grist bill as I will seek to find the difference a crop of a yeast blend will make in the exact same conditions from 1 batch to another. This batch was pitched from a crop of the initial pitch of WLP 670 in my Rustic Golden Ale recipe. The only change I made was to do a fly sparge instead of a no sparge, looking to up the efficiency a little. To my surprise I still only got a 75% efficiency. This may actually be beneficial to the experiment in that the wort is exactly the same gravity.

 1/25/14 - Brewed. Same grain bill and hop schedule as the first Batch.


1/29/14 - Cropped yest. Krausen was not huge but still got a great crop.

1/31/14 - Pelicle already forming almost immediately after primary stopped.

Old Rasputin Clone

Old Rasputin is a Russian Imperial Stout brewed by North Coast Brewing Company in Fort Bragg, California. Old Rasputin has been my favorite Russian Imperial Stout for many years now. It is a very clean American style version of the style with restrained roasted flavor, aggressive bitterness, backed up by a full body malt background. This beer weighs in at a hefty 9% alcohol, which has become more and more normal in the modern brewing atmosphere. The amazing thing about this beer is that North Coast is said to have this beer brewed and shipped in less than three weeks.

This brew was done more for a friend than for me. I have long loved this beer and was glad when he mentioned that he wanted to brew clone of this beer. A quick internet search brings up many recipes said to give you a beer just like it, so I chose a recipe put up by BYO and work from there. Being my friend and new brewing partner's first time brewing, I decided to go easy on him with using dried yeast. This will also be my first time using dried yeast. Before I began brewing I knew that I wanted the whole package when it came to the brewing process, so I never used dried yeast, opting for the more involved method of growing up a pitch of liquid yeast. This will be a new endeavor for the both of us and a fun one to write about.

Recipe Specifics

Batch Size: 2.5 gallons (2 gallons into fermenter)
Total Grain: 7.75 lbs
Anticipated OG: 1.090
Anticipated SRM: 35
Anticipated IBU: 85-90
Brewhouse Efficiency: 85% Fly Sparge
Wort Boil: 90 min

Grain

6.5 lbs English Pale malt
6 oz Crystal 10L
6 oz Crystal 120L
3 oz Brown Malt
3 oz Chocolate Malt
2 oz Roasted Barley

Hops

1 oz Cascade 60 min
.5 oz Pearle  30 min
1 oz Centennial 2 min

Yeast

Safale-05 11.5 g (sprinkled into oxygenated wort)

1/16/2014 - Brewed. Efficiency was a little high but nothing to worry about. Gravity reading after chilled came in at 1.092-1.094.

1/23/2014- Fermentation still continues furiously. Moved to warming pad to keep fermentation going as my basement is very cold. Will keep on pad for 5 days after fermentation seems to stop allowing for the yeast to stay active and clean up after itself before a chill drop the yeast before kegging.

2/1/2014 -Transfered to fermenter the refrigerator to cold crash before kegging.

Rustic Strong Golden Ale

The Strong Golden Ale is a traditional Belgian ale most famously brewed by Duvel. It is a Pale to Golden ale with an earthy nose. Usually very clear with a billowing white head. The Strong golden ale should be light bodied with a hint of the deceptively higher abv. This style beer lives up to the Belgian requirement of being digestible and sustaining, in that it should be easy drinking and fulfilling, or full of flavor, at the same time. I plan to brew a pretty straight forward Belgian Golden ale recipe with a little added interest from some Munich malt and wheat. The most famous Duvel is simple grain bill of pilsner and tiny bit of CaraVienne malt for color.

This recipe for a golden ale is designed as a platform for the wild yeast a bacteria to shine. The abv is at the limit of the bacteria's fermentation range and should subsequently highlight more of the Brettanomyces earthy character. I added 5% White Wheat for added head retention and 5% Munich malt for added malt interest. The rest I went with a continental Pilsner malt to get a starting gravity of 1.057 with an 85% efficiency. I get a higher efficiency when doing 2 gallon batches with a no sparge. Then I added plain table sugar at runoff to get a starting gravity of 1.065.

I will be doing an experiment with this beer. Primary fermentation will be carried out by one of White Labs Platinum Strains WLP670 American Farmhouse Ale, then a secondary with oak and lacto. This is rumored to be a culture from The Lost Abbey Saison Blanc. It is a blend of a traditional Saison yeast and Brettanomyces. Tommy Arthur, owner of Lost Abbey, is quoted saying that they originally starting with Brett B, but it has changed to be a house culture now. The experiment I am looking to do is to actually top crop this blend 24-48 hr after fermentation has begun. My hypothesis is that I will have a drastically different yeast profile with each consecutive generation pitched. My goal in this is to test when/if this blend will stabilize and create the same profile in the same wort over time. The saison yeast will more than likely be the first to start fermenting and rise to the top first, so my thought is that the ratio will swing more towards the saison yeast over time leaving the brett more in the background. The lacto will help add that sour element I am looking for in this Rustic Golden Ale.





Recipe Specifics

Batch Size: 2.5 gallons - 2 gallons into FV
Total Grain: 4.5 lbs
Anticipated OG: 1.065
Anticipated SRM: 3.5
Calculated IBU: 25
Brewhouse Efficiency: 85%
Wort Boil Time: 90 min
 
Grain

80 %    4 lbs  Pilsner
  5 % .25 lbs White Wheat
  5%  .25 lbs  Munich Malt 10L
10%  .5   lbs  Table Sugar

Hops

  .5 oz Crystal (4.7% AA) 60 min
.25 oz Crystal (4.7% AA) 30 min

Extras

.25 tsp Yeast Nutrient
   1 tsp Irish Moss

 1/20/15 - Brewed. Efficiency was lower than expected. May use fly sparge instead of no sparge next brew. OG was 1.054 instead of 1.065 that I was shooting for. Pitched WLP 670 at 64 degrees F.

1/22/14 - Yeast has really taken off. The fermenter is sitting on a heating pad on low to keep temps up as it is cold in my basement and this yeast prefers blood warm temps.

1/23/14 - Cropped yeast from the top. per a calculation from Mr Malty.com for pitching from slurry, I cropped by weight at 6.5 grams. I cropped 7.5 grams to allow for non yeast weight. The krausen had droped and may have not gotten a great crop. It dropped quite fast, may have to be ready to cop before the 48 hr mark. Maybe the extra time gave the brett a chance to grow more for the 2nd Batch. Will refrigerate for 4 days as this would be a maximum period of non-use before viability begins to drop.

1/31/2014 - Tranfered to 2 one gallon growlers. Added 2 grams of light toasted american oak chips that were microwaved in boiling water 2 times before added. One was left with only the primary blend to age on oak and the other was innoculated with some left over grain particles and dust to culture some natural Lacto.

Black Spot - Foreign Extra Stout

The story of The Black Spot come from the days of the Pirates when one pirate would give another pirate a page from the Bible with a black spot drawn in the center, meaning they were marked for Death. My experience with sour stouts is very limited, in that I have only tasted one. The Madruga Obscura from Jolly Pumpkin is a Belgian inspired Imperial Stout at 8% abv, and is one of the best sours I have ever tasted. The surprising thing about the beer is how smooth it is even though 12% of the grist bill is quoted by Ron Jeffries to be roasted barley.

In a quest to learn more about the process of sour stouts I decided to start off on a more conservative approach to a sour stout and brew a Belgian inspired Foreign Extra Stout because the standard grist bill seems a little better suited for the souring process. As we all know, sour a bitter do not mix very well in most cases. My grist bill is designed to have a more reserved roasted flavor and go for the more tropical fruit flavors with debittered black malt and more crystal malt. I will be fermenting with  White Labs 550  before aging on a full range of bacteria and wild yeast..



Recipe Specifics

Batch Size: 2 (calculated at 2.5 for equipment lose)
Total Grain: 5 lbs
Anticipated OG: 1.065
Anticipated SRM: 35
Calculated IBU: 25
Brewhouse Efficiency: 85%
Wort Boil Time: 90 min
 
Grain

  78%    4 lbs Pilsner
4.3 % .22 lbs Crystal 80L
4.3%  .22 lbs Crystal 120L
4.3%  .22 lbs Chocolate Malt
4.3%  .22 lbs Briess Midnight Wheat

Hops

  .5 oz Crystal (4.7% AA) 60 min

Yeast 

White Labs 550 Belgian Ale

Extras

.25 tsp Yeast Nutrient
   1 tsp Irish Moss

Mash Schedule

No Sparge
 
Mash For 90 min at 147-149 degrees F  w/ 1.88 gallons

Add 1.95 gallons 170 degrees F and recirculate

Mash Calculations done with Brew365 Mash and Sparge Calculator

All water is filtered tap water

Belgian Pale Ale

I have long been fascinated by the stories of the old farmhouse ales made in the Flanders area of Belgium. The thought of fermenting these beers in open air vessels with a strain of yeast that could handle temperatures in the 90's and leaving them vulnerable to wild yeast and bacteria sounds crazy to many brewers, but  it is this out of bounds type of brewing that facinates me.

The idea for this beer came from a reference in a BYO Magazine a few years ago. It loosely based on the DeRanke XX Bitter, back when it was still fermented with the a strain from the Roeselare region.

Volume: 2 gallons
Anticipated SG: 1.045
Calculated IBU: 30

3 lbs Pilsner
.25 lbs Flaked Wheat
.25 lb table sugar
.25 oz Crystal hops 60 min
.25 oz Crystal hops 30 min
1 oz Crystal hops 10 min
Yeast: Wyeast French Saison

12/27/2013 Brewed

1/10/14 Racked to secondary. Added White Labs Belgian Sour Mix. Tasted really hoppy and green. Hopefully the hops die down and the souring mellows out the bitterness. Really dry.

Flanders Red with Cherries and Orange Peel

The inspiration for this beer came from my wife's love for sangria. I am sure this is one of those beers that will take a few brews to get it right. Here's to brew security! I am brewing a striped down version of a Flanders Style Red in hopes to cut down the breadiness(if that is really a word), and accentuate the fruit flavors.

Volume: 2 Gal
Anticipated SG: 1.060
Calculated IBU : 18-20

3.5 lbs Briess Pilsner
.5 lbs Briess Crystal 120
.5 lb table sugar
1 g Orange peel (last 10 min)
1 cup cherry juice (not concentrate, or extract)
.5 oz Crystal Hops 60 min
Yeast: White Labs Saison II - 1 vial




1/15/2014- First Tasting: Light body caramelized fruits dominate. Saison spice is strong but compliments the fruits nicely. The cherry is there in the nose slightly but gets lost in the strong yeast flavor. Transferred 1 gallon to a 1 gallon growler with a cork topper for oxygen diffusion, and the other gallon to another 1 gallon growler and added a half cup cherry juice for longer aging. Split a pitch of Wyeast Lambic Blend between the two growlers.