Brewing Up Some Funk

Chalese and I began our epic road trip to Maine on Thursday, but before we left I managed to squeeze in two brew days. Most beers only take a couple of months to ferment and mature to perfection, but since these two beers have an entire year to sit I decided to utilize different strains of bacteria and yeast that require more time than standard ale yeasts. The first batch contains two strains of yeast (saccharomyces and brettanomyces) and two strains of bacteria (lactobacillus and pediococcus)—a medley that should create a dynamic sour profile. The second batch only contains brettanomyces, which is rarely used exclusively.

My stainless steel Blichmann pots are in a storage unit in Ellsworth, Maine, so I had to improvise. Morgan Williams and I fashioned a lauter tun out of a water cooler, copper tubing, and the necessary fittings—directions found on homebrewtalk.com.

The supplies Photo by: Morgan Williams

Teflon tape is your friend Photo by: Morgan Williams

Drilling holes for the strainer Photo by: Morgan Williams

Fully assembled

Inspired by Russian River’s Consecration and New Belgium’s La Folie I formulated a recipe for a sour brown ale with plums added to the secondary fermenter. My mom, Chalese, and Morgan helped harvest plums from two trees that loom over the west patio of our house. The trees were in short supply this year, but we still managed to collect over a pound and a half of fruit—excluding the pits.

Putting it to the test Photo by: Morgan Williams

The lauter tun worked flawlessly. In Maine I rinse the sugars from the barley using a fly-sparge system that continually drips water over the grains while the sweet wort—sugar water—flows into the boil kettle at the same rate water is dripping over the barley; this is a three-tiered system that utilizes three pots—the hot liquor tank (holds the hot water), the lauter tun (separates the barley from the hot water), and the boil kettle (collects and condenses the sweet wort). My new homemade set up in Colorado functions best with a batch sparge that works by adding water in three large additions to the lauter tun and then allowing the water to slowly drain into the boil kettle. During a typical fly-sparge, I tend to extract 89% of the available sugars from the barley, and with the batch sparge I hit an efficiency of 84%.

The first runnings Photo by: Morgan Williams

As ripe as it gets

The plum trees on the west patio

The harvest Photo by: Chalese Carlson

I sanitized the skins with Everclear rather than using heat to pasteurize. When fruit is heated it often looses freshness and takes on the consistency of jam.

Slicing and dicing Photo by: Chalese Carlson

For the primary fermentation I pitched WhiteLabs Bastogne yeast, and then I racked—siphoned—the beer onto the sliced plums and added the funk—souring yeast/bacteria.

Plums in the fermenter

Plums, funk, and CO2

A few days later I brewed the Belgian pale ale that is being fermented solely by brettanomyces. I am hoping this beer will taste similar to the Trappist brewery Orval but without the spiciness from the Saaz hops. The mash and boil was non-eventful but the yeast starter was one of the most phenomenal spectacles of fermentation I have yet seen. Brettanomyces produces a pellicle colony—solid mass of yeast cells on the surface of the substrate. Its appearance makes you wonder how anyone would have first wanted to sip on the liquid beneath the mass without knowing the possible effects. While Brettanomyces is feared by brewers and winemakers alike, its presence is most welcome in this beer. Bring on the funk.

Brettanomyces in the starter

Pouring the starter into the carboy Photo by: Morgan Williams