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Sour Red bubbling out of the barrel after the bugs
and yeast are added |
I have fallen behind on my posts. Biggest thing is that I brewed a new batch of Sour Red using the quick sour method. Based on how the original batch tasted I knew I wanted to adjust two things.
The first thing I wanted to do was to add complexity to the beer. The flavor was like sucking on a sweet tart. Good sour flavor but not much else. The biggest thing I did to add some complexity was to cut down on the sour flavor that was created from the sour mash. I split the batch and brewed one batch with the sour mash method with regular American Ale yeast and then brewed a clean batch with the Belgian Golden yeast from White Labs. It had some comments on their website that made it seem like a good fit for a soured red. Overall, I hope that the reduction of the sour mash flavoring along with using a more flavorful and distinct yeast with the other half of the beer will produce a more complex and interesting beer.
The second thing I wanted to improve upon was giving the beer a bit more body. I just switched my setting in Beersmith from Light Body to Medium Body. Essentially I just mashed at a higher temperature.
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Transfer of beer from the primary to
the secondary barrel. |
These two batches fermented for 5 and 6 days in the primary and then they got moved into the newly emptied wine barrel. The barrel was then inoculated with White Labs Sour Belgian yeast strain and bacteria. I plan to let this sit for 3-4 months and then see how its doing at that time.
Of course after emptying the barrel I needed to bottle the wine. I ended up getting 12.5 1.5L bottles of Cab Sauv from this little 5.2 gallon barrel. Not too bad.
In the end I hope the changes I made along with the use of a wooden barrel will help take this beer to the next level. Now all I need is 3-4 months of time to go by so we can try it and see if the work has paid off.
During this past week I also bottled up the hard lemonade. I used some Splenda to back sweeten the lemonade. I tasted the lemonade a day prior to bottle day and it was like sucking on a lemon. Super Tart and just not too great to drink. I added just a bit of the Splenda to help cut the acidity just a bit. I will crack open a taste bottle on Friday and see if I can help my friend out by giving him a sure fire recipe for a better
(and stronger) hard lemonade.
I will do a tasting on Friday and follow up with a post. Also coming up will be my Autumn Beer which will either be a Quick Soured Brown Pumpkin or an Malted Apple Cider.
I will also be adding Raspberries to the quick soured blonde to make a fake Frambroise.
More to come as it happens.
