It's been far too long since I've written anything on the greatness that is theferm and now is the time to correct my actions.
As one would expect coming from me, this is an article on beer, specifically making beer at home, or homebrewing if you will. My most recent jaunt in homebrewing came this past weekend as I was wanting to relive our last trip to wine country, a Russian River Sanctification clone. The recipe was taken from Brew Your Own's (BYO) 250 Clone Recipe magazine, with a little of my own modifications which some might call "accidents." But what would homebrewing be without a mishap or two along the way?
After looking through the BYO clone magazine I looked up The Mad Fermentationist's website, and to my dismay he has not blogged about (or none that I could find) a Sanctification clone. He has brewed a Pizza Port Company's Mo' Betta Bretta, which may find it's way into my homebrewery soon enough, and a Russian River Temptation clone though. I myself have 10 gallons of Temptation clone slowly souring at the moment, half of which is on six pounds of cherries. Now Michael Tonsmeire, who is The Mad Fermentationist, is one who has done many sour fermentations as well as other experiments, for a good read get lost in his website.
After a quick Google search I found that there are very few blogs or forum posts similar to the quality of the Mr. Tonsmeire's blog so I thought I would try to attempt my version of a Sanctification clone blog post.
Unlike most beers that are fermented with "traditional" brewers yeast, Sanctification is brewed with wild yeast called brettanomyces. Brettanomyces creates a sourness and tartness that is not present (at least not in perceptable levels) in beer when brewed with brewer's yeast.
An excerpt from Russian River's website states the following on this beer:
"Technically, this is neither an ale nor a lager. The base recipe is for a Golden Ale, but we do the primary fermentation with 100% brettanomyces. The brett gives it some sour notes but not as much as if it had been aged with lacto and pedio. It’s rather refreshing on a warm day!" Lacto and Pedio are references to other kinds of wild yeasts.
I brewed the beer on Sunday (2/19) and it looks like it's fermenting along well right now. I'll let it sit for at least 4 weeks and then I'll either keg it or bottle it with cork and cage like a Belgian beer you'd find in a store. We'll see how it turns out, below is a rundown on ingredients and process to make this beer.
Recipe Specifics
Batch Size (Gal): 6.00
Total Grain (Lbs): 13.25
Anticipated OG: 1.056 Plato: 13.71
Anticipated SRM: 3.9
Anticipated IBU: 33.5
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70 %
Wort Boil Time: 120 Minutes
Grains
11.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row)
1.32 lbs. Sauer(acid) Malt
0.93 lbs. Vienna Malt
Hops
1.20 oz. Sterling Pellet 7.00% AA 33.5 60 min.
0.60 oz. Sterling Pellet 7.00% AA 0.0 0 min.
Yeast
Ferment at 72F but let the temperature rise as high as 80F for 3-4 weeks.
3/3/2012 - Tasting today was good, not as tart as I thought it would be, very "brett"-y though. Should turn out interesting at the very least, might be the most approachable all brett beer I've ever tasted.
How did this turn out ?
About 30% of the yeast in Sanctification is Russian River's "funky bunch" blend that has pedio and lacto in it. That would definitely up the sourness.
Thanks for posting this -- I'm going to try my hand at it soon. I've got some dregs on a stir plate now. Cheers!
Aaron - I've still got some of this brew on tap and it is still changing so much. This was a real fun "beer" to brew, good luck with yours.
I made this with a few alterations and it came out as my best home brew yet. I added 3 spirals of light French oak and aged it on that for 6 weeks. Racked it to another carboy and let it age for a total of 7 months. It gets some of the fruitiness from early brett and some of the earthy tastes from older brett ferms. I split the uprights on the aging! The fruit and the oak make it taste reminiscent of wine.
These two bretts combine to make a very funky flavor. Not sour, the lacto didn't contribute anything noticeable.
Aroma: fruity, haylike and horseblanket. Definitely had that sweaty aroma some strains produce.
Flavor: little flavor. Sweaty-funk, hay horse blanket. Very small tropical tones, but these are dominated by funk. Noticeably high THP cheerio flavor (which can be aged out in 4-6 months if you're more patient than me).
Overall:
Not sour at all. Mine finished at PH 4.45
Low bitterness.
FG 1.002 (0.5 Plato)
Lack of sour, bitter, and body all mean this beer is WATERY. I added some lactic acid to the keg to drop the PH lower (4ish) and it helped a LOT with the watery perception. I'm still having a hard time with the sweaty and cheerio flavors and aroma.
(Tasting notes above for a 12 week old beer)
Modifications: either add more IBUs as a bittering addition and drop the lacto entirely, or pitch the lacto a day or more ahead of the brett strains and hold it 90-100 to give the lacto a head start.
Also, the THP flavors are speculated to be a result of all-brett-with-lactobacillus and post/mid fermentation oxidation. Be very careful about oxygen exposure