Flanders Red Blending & Conditioning Update

Simple 2 Batch Blending

Flanders Red Blending:

This past weekend was filled with transferring, cleaning and updating some brewing logs.  In addition, I decided to blend my old Flanders Red leftovers (5 batches of Flanders Red into one carboy) with a current batch of Invocation Ale before I tossed Russian River Sour mix into it.

The blend was simple, using only 2 batches of base was a lot easier than the last blending session with DeeperRoots Danny.  During the last blend, we used 5 different Flanders Reds batches, brewed over the last 2 years.  The Flanders Red came in at 1.005 FG.  The Invocation tested at 1.017 FG. 


For the first one, I started off at 50/50.  It tasted way to thin and watery.  I slowly started testing 2-3 parts then 2-4 parts, 2-5 parts and finally settled on 1-3 parts new to old.  I'll get into the blending process a little deeper on a future post.

After the blending I netted 4 gallons of final product.  Taking the Final Gravity reading, the beer was at 1.010.  Which is a great for bottle conditioning.  Which to be honest, I didn't even consider during the blending process.  I am going to bottle condition most of this batch in nice 750 ml glass bottles.


Petite Saison: Rosemary

In addition to blending I also took out a keg of my Rosemary Saison.  Brewed back in July 2012.  I wanted to see how the beer is holding up.  Now the bad news, the rosemary is still overpowering the beer.  But forgetting to de-gas the keg, it is now slightly carbonated.

Rosemary Saison

The beer is cleanly fermented and is very brite, it's just way to overpowering with rosemary.  Tossing it is an option, but I really want to keep the beer, somehow.  I'm going to play around with blending it into another Saison and see where we end up taste wise.  I'll have to put this recipe as "Experimental/Don't try again" unless something changes.

Spent Tart Cherries

Dirty Gnome: Farmhouse Saison #2:

This beer has been a trying experience on me.  Mostly importantly, it was freezing (Ok for San Diego it was, I know us West Coasters shouldn't bitch about the weather but we do.)  and the beer should NOT of been brewed during this cold spell.  My attempts to keep the fermenting beer mostly failed.    The yeast (WLP565) is just a very temperamental strain, stalling out at 1.020.  The gravity was way to high to bottle condition with Brett.   So I choose to dump the spent tart cherries on it, gathered from my Scarlett's Mead. 

During the process the beer picked up some bugs, now this is the first non-intentional sour beer I've ever had.  It was sitting next to the Flanders Red Blend, mentioned above in a small closet.  Over a weeks time, I noticed a pellical forming on the beer.  I instantly transferred the beer into a sour carboy (#6) off the tart cherries and added a White Labs Sour Mix yeast hopping to control any uncontrolled bugs.  This beer might meet its fate in the sink, but I'll give it a couple months and see.

Anyways its always fun to do a little update on some of the batches that seem forgotten.  I have some more brews hidden away in the closet that I'll be updating on soon, til then, Cheers!