West Footscrazy Red - Flanders Red Ale - Homebrew Recipe
Dermott Dowling
Let's get funky tonight...or more to the point in 1-3 years time! Wow, taking a walk down the wild side is not for the faint of heart or short of patience. Spurred on by some outstanding fantastic Flanders Red home brews shared from Stu @VoyagerCraftMalt and the awesome show 'the sour hour' on my favourite brewing radio station 'the brewing network' it was time to get serious and get seriously funky and brew a Flanders Red ale :-)
If you want to learn more about harvesting bottle dregs look no further than The Mad Fermentationist and I can highly recommend reading Michael's book - American Sour Beers for more on that topic.
To put a base backbone under our culture club of harvested starter driven bottle dregs I picked up a smack pack of Wyeast Belgium Lambic Blend 3278 from our good friends @Grain&Grape our local home brew shop!
Culture Club Creation:
We will not bore you to tears with the creation of the 'growler of sour power' but fair to say I started by harvesting some bottle dregs from a host of great Saisons including a Wild Saison from La Sirene and a Cantillon Kriek 100% Lambic purchased from my local independent bottlo - The Vin in Seddon - thx Ronje!
If you want to learn more about harvesting bottle dregs look no further than The Mad Fermentationist and I can highly recommend reading Michael's book - American Sour Beers for more on that topic.
To put a base backbone under our culture club of harvested starter driven bottle dregs I picked up a smack pack of Wyeast Belgium Lambic Blend 3278 from our good friends @Grain&Grape our local home brew shop!
VITAL STATS:
Style: 17.B Flanders Red Ale
OG/FG/IBU 1.0505 / 1.0126 / 20
SRM 10
ABV 4.9%
Batch Size: 9.46L (Picobrew) - double the quantities or 19L (US 5 gallons) homebrew length
Malt Bill:
- Gladfield Lager Light Malt 1.95 Kg / 61%
- Gladfield Wheat Malt 0.3 Kg / 9%
- Harraways Rolled Oats 0.25 Kg / 8%
- Gladfield Aurora Malt 0.25 Kg / 8%
- Gladfield Medium Crystal Malt 0.25Kg / 8%
- Gladfield Sour Grapes Acidulated Malt 0.2 Kg / 6%
Hops:
- 15g of East Kent Goldings 6% A/A @60 mins (start of boil)
Water Amendments:
- 1/2 tsp of Calcium Sulfate
- 1/2 tsp of Calcium Chloride
Mash:
- Single Step Infusion Mash @67.8 Celsius
Boil:
- 90 mins on Picobrew
- Irish Moss & Yeast Nutrient 10 mins from flameout
Yeast:
- Wyeast Belgium Lambic Blend 3278 from our good friends @Grain&Grape
Fermentation:
- Cool to 20.6 C and keep consistent temperature for 10 days fermentation
- Racked off into a 10L Glass Demijohn from John our good friend @Grain&Grape
Aging:
- Dropped some French Oak chips in red wine to soak and then added at the rate of 2g/L into the Demijohn
- Sit back and relax - watch the microbes do their thing and 'the sickness' develop and wait patiently for a minimum of 1-3 years! Wow - need some serious sour power of resistance to temptation there my brewin' brothers and sisters :-)
