Brew Day: Red Belgian Ale

Yesterday was a pretty nice day considering the terrible winter we had so it was time to get out and brew another batch of beer.  This batch will be another clean beer meant to be mixed with my sour red.  This year is all about getting my sour production into drinking order.

First was the mixing and bottling of the Barn-Cat Black, my sour stout.  Now I am moving towards bottling up my sour red which I am calling Roosters Red.  I made a pretty simple red beer with wheat, pilsner and caramel 60.  Nothing special.  I am fermenting it with my "house strain" of WLP 550.  This can really dry out the beer and leave very little sugar left behind which I am hoping makes it safe to mix with my sour beer that has brett, peddio and lacto.  I figure the less sugars available the less chance of something re-fermenting too far in the bottle.

This time next week I will have my beer fridge in the basement which I can somewhat control the bottles if they are getting too carbonated.  I stated above, this year is all about getting my sour production in order and a big part of that is figuring out how to mix and blend and more importantly bottle condition these things.

I know that I will be mixing some clean beer with the sour red because my sour red is pretty tannic.  It has a harsh bite and its asserting its barrel qualities a bit too much. Unlike the sour stout that was too sour, I am trying to calm those qualities by mixing in some clean beer.  I don't think very much needs to be taken out so I can see me only adding 25-30% fresh beer to a mixture of the barrel aged beer.  The sour stout was very sour and I figured a 50-50 split would calm it down.  It ended up needed 60% clean.  Based on that last blend I assume my 25-30 should be pretty good.  That's at least where it will start.

3 weeks from now I will mix them up and figure out my quantity just like the last batch.  Using tablespoons and teaspoons to make little shot glasses for tasting.  I will start at 25% clean and 75% sour and move up or down based on those results.

In the meantime,  I will be trying to squeeze in another brew.  I have the stuff to make a old-world porter with brown malt and some 6-row.  It wont be nearly as authentic as making my own brown malt that has the full diastic power to convert on its own but this is the best I can do with the malts available to me off the shelf.  I am just doing a small 2 gallon batch here.  One gallon to taste straight up and the other to of course sour in a one gallon jug for a year to test and see how this tastes.

If you're keeping track at home I have 5 sour/funky beers I plan to make on a consistent basis

1. Sour Red
2. Sour Stout
3. Lambic Inspired Sour Pale
4. Berliner with Peach
5. Witbier with Lacto

Something tells me I dont need to get another one in the rotation but a one gallon test cant hurt.

Finally,  I bought more Grogtags for the three big beers coming out of my "brewery".  Here is the graphic line up: