Tips for brewing Flanders-style beers

[Dedken]

Hi all,

I'm just brewing my second Flanders-influenced beer this time using the Wyeast Roeselaere Blend. Last time out I used the White Labs Flemish ale yeast and although it turned out reasonably well, it never quite got the character I was looking for (it's 18months old now) - plenty of Brett and a little lactic acid but never got quite enough of a tang. I don't know how much of that was due to the yeast blend or my treatment of it. So the first question is are the Wyeast and the WLP the same blend? - I was told not but I don't know too much about the authority that that person has to comment on it.

But what I really want to know is whether I removed the beer from the primary yeast too early in my first beer (I racked into a 30l glass carboy after about 4 weeks in primary). Should I, in my new version, leave the beer in the primary for longer and if so, then how much longer?

Here's hoping someone has a good answer for me!

[Ozwald]

No, those are not the same. They're both proprietary blends created in-house at each of the respective companies. The exact blend for each is not something either Wyeast or WL just gives out, but I've brewed with both of them (I think... it was either WLP 665 or 655). Either way, I do like the Roeselare better. If you're still not getting that twang, you can always pitch pure lacto/pedio first, wait 24-48 hours & then pitch the Roeselare.

For a 30L batch, it's pretty hard to get autolysis. It's not just a function of time, but of heat, pressure & other factors. You can go much longer than 30 days, but it depends on so many other factors that it's pretty tough to give a solid number. What I did with my Flanders beers was to rack on some boiled French oak (medium roast) in primary. When I finally did transfer off the cake, the oak cubes went with it.

Anyhow, that's my take/advice. Do with it what you will. It's all off from memory, since I haven't been brewing in a while & I haven't had my coffee yet this morning.

[brewinhard]

Those commercial strains are fairly tame IMO. If you want to take the acidity to the next level in a shorter period of time, you may want to consider adding the dregs of a few commercial sour beers that you enjoy the flavor profile of (think Russian River, Jolly Pumpkin, Cascade, etc). These additional microbes will help to add depth and flavor to your pitched blend while increasing the acidity and funk.

As for racking into secondary too soon, I typically let my Flanders go for about a month as well prior to racking to secondary. And as far as the Wyeast Roselare blend is concerned, it is an excellent base blend for a classic Flemish Red. It does take about 12-18 mos to really peak in character, so be patient and try to avoid sampling along the way. If you do take a sample, be sure to purge the headspace with CO2 if possible to avoid any oxidation issues in the finished product.

I currently have a 4 mos old Flanders Red in secondary right now with Roselare as the primary "yeast" blend and have since pitched the dregs of 2 commercial sours. I also have about 1 oz of French Med toast oak cubes soaking in Pinot Noir for the past few months that I plan on adding down the road.

[Dedken]

Thanks for the tips guys. I'm wary of pitching dregs because as far as I've read Cantillon and other gueuze-type beers are not flemish reds and the bug ratio is totally different (no lacto for example), potentially leading the character of the beer away from what I want to achieve. Maybe this is an unfounded fear - who knows! Either way I think it's going to be pretty difficult to recreate the flavours found in Rodenbach (which is what I'm after) because all their beers are pasteurised.

The beer I'm brewing this time round is intended as a representation of a Victorian London porter as the Rodenbach yeast is known to have come from a London porter brewery in the C19th. I'm hoping this will add to the authenticity! It's tasting quite interesting already after 26 days in primary so fingers crossed eh.

[brewinhard]

Then Roselare will get you as close as you can get. Just be prepared to give it 14-18 mos for proper acidity development. And BTW, Cantillon dregs do have bacteria in them and are excellent to work with.

[CatSnake]

I have been working on a sour pipeline for some time now, and have started to develop a method that gets good acidity and funk in comparatively short timeframes.

IMHO, the key to getting more aggressive character from the bacteria is to re-use the first generation yeast / bugs in a second beer once primary fermentation has had a chance to run, and the beer is around one month old. The first generation is still sleepy, and the bugs won't have had the same chance to multiply and become active as they would after they have fermented a batch. My technique is to pitch one commercial blend (along with dregs), let it ride, and then rack off the yeast to let the next beer ferment on the slurry. Once you do that, your next beer will end up expressing more aggressive bacteria character earlier in the process. You can do this up to a point when the bugs outcompete the sac yeast. I'd recommend at least getting the first re-pitch so that you can blend the two batches together to taste later on.

I try and brew a sour at least four times a year, in six gallon batch sizes. I brew either a clean beer first, or a beer using my house culture, and then rack it into a small format barrel for about two to three months, to get both the barrel aged character and the influence of the barrel's native population of bugs. After a few months, I carefully rack into a better bottle, and leave it alone for at least a year. Now that the barrel cultures are established, I have been doing "spontaneous" type fermentations by racking wort directly into the barrel without adding any bugs. My results so far have been good, and it feels good to have a pipeline going. I don't think the barrel is necessary to achieve good results and similar results could probably be achieved by carefully using a slurry.