August 20, 2016

Test Pale Ale 1 for Sour Blending Project

August 20, 2016 American, brett, hoppy, one gallon homebrew, sour

This recipe is an attempt to figure out the right balance between hopping rates and mixed fermentation for the sour pale ale (Proletariat) as part of my evolving sour blending program. As a whole I think the initial recipe for the pale ale was right where I want it on the grain bill but the rest of the recipe and process needs a little work. A substantial problem is that the beer developed too much ethyl acetate due to underpitching and prolonged exposure to air before a pellicle showed up to regulate oxygen ingress. That's an easily fixed problem. The other problem is that the hops seem to add nothing to the beer. There wasn't any identifiable flavor left behind, no tannic presence and the IBUs did nothing to stop the beer from drifting down to the mid 3 ph range. So that's what I want to work on with this recipe.

The initial recipe targeted a similar hop schedule to the Can You Brew It DBA recipe (which is the base beer behind Firestone Walker's Agrestic, which is a major influence on this homebrew) but clearly did not get close to where it needed to be. I toned down the IBUs out of caution for the LAB so the beer would develop some sourness (24 IBU compared to 30 IBU in DBA) which was clearly unnecessary. I also used a gentler flameout addition and that likely played a role in minimal residual flavor and the biotransformations of hop compounds I had hoped for. So my target now is to get closer to the DBA schedule and see what happens.

The rest of the recipe is fairly unremarkable. Proletariat actually contains rye and some different grains but because I'm just interested in the hopping here I used grains I had on hand to cobble together a pale ale recipe. I'm pitching my sour mixed culture (Oregon special) because I have some slurry on hand and I'm starting to understand how it develops beer so I can remove another unknown factor. I expect to let this age out eight to twelve months. Well here it is...