Inspired by Orval & Bringing Belgian Brett into my Brewery

[lancsSteve]

The inspiration
Well this was the availablity of the WY3789 Wyeast Trappist Blend from Orval in their Private COllection (from Brew UK) - WLP510 Bastogne isn't available till May. That and also getting SERIOUSLY into ORval recently whaving found 2 year old bottles at the Sun in Lancaster and 6 month old bottles at the beer shop in the Hawkshead Brewery Beer Hall Beer Shop. Have saved a few bottles and recultured the dregs to be used in this beer.

Recipe Formulation
The recipe was formulated from info on Orval in the excellent Brew Like a Monk and also the recipe in there for the Orval Clone 'La Val'. THis was then adapted based on what I had and thought would work, so EKGs and Aurora as hops rather than the ORval Styrians and Hallertaur or LaVal Perle and GOldings.

Then there was finding (well actually my friend Ben aka The mumbler aka the other monk in the brewing like monks tday) finding Coconut Palm Sugar at the Asian Supermarket in town which looked great:

The taste of pure coconut palm sugar resembles that of brown sugar, yet with more rounded caramel and butterscotch notes, without the metallic ending flavor that brown sugar has. It has a rich flavor. For cooking purposes, it has a very low melt temperature and an extremely high burn temperature. This makes it a suitable sweetener for confectioners.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_sugar

so figured on using this instead of candi sugar, however rather than just this made up the recipe to use unrefined cane sugar as well to thin the body and add some flavour as well.

Got Belgian pale Malt from thrifty as my base - seemed appropriate and hopefully a little maltier than pilsener.

So here's the recipe which was formulated with use of BeerAlchemy Touch by our very own Steve Flack. My first 'proper' use of this rather than BrewPal on iPod. It's a little more complex to use and less visual/intuitive but MUCH more powerful and comprehensive.

======================= RECIPE ==================================

"Le Caneton Vert dans les Couches"**

Brewlength:
23litres

Fermentables
GRAINS:
4.5 kg Belgian Pale Malt ( %)
0.35kg CaraRed ( %)

SUGARS
450g Coconut Palm Sugar ( %)
250g Cane Sugar (Unrefined) ( %)

Target OG: 1.060
Target FG: 1.008 (80% attenuation)
Target ABV: 6.4%


Process
Mash @ 64c for 90 minutes
Sparge
60 Minute Boil
Cool to 15c

HOPPING
40g East Kent Goldings (5.1%) - first wort, IBU
10g Aurora (7.8%) - first wort, IBU

25g East Kent Goldings (5.1%) - 15 minutes, IBU

40g East Kent Goldings (5.1%) - Dry Hop in secondary

Boil Additions
Protfloc - 1tsp, 15 minutes


WATER PROFILE:
Baives (high bicarbonate)

Fermentation
YEAST
PRIMARY FERMENTATION:
wY3789 Trappist Blend (alternative = WLP510 Bastogne), 1 litre starter slurry
+
Dregs from 2 bottles of Orval recultured - 1/2 pint starter slurry
Note - these are both mixed cutlures of saccaromyces and brettanomyces with other wild yeasts also included in orval dregs

Process
Pitched at 15c and then allowed to rise to 20c for primary fermentation
Rack to secondary for maturation (may reprime with mixed culture at this stage)

Bottling:
Dregs recultured from 2 bottles of orval: add to bottling bucket

Prime with cane sugar to reach 3-3.5 vols CO2

Bottle condition



** This beer name is a BAD joke - a free sample bottle is on offer to first person who figures it out and posts image + explanation for those confused
===========================================================================

[lancsSteve]

BREWDAY PICS:
This one went off REALLY well! Was raining lots so first time brewing indoors in a while - rather nice actually!

Obligatory shot of grain and water-treatment additions for mash (omy water is VERY soft so there's precipitated chalk + epsom salts + bicard of soda here following Beer Alchemy guidance - simple grain bill of just balgian pale malt (from Thrifty) and CaraRed (from Malt Miller)


So we're going Belgian - here's the sugars:
Sugars



Sparging


First Wort Hopping before 6o minute boil



I have a brupaks boiler and also use one as my mash tun - these only have 1.8kw heating elements and in the past getting up to boil has taken AGES. So I bought a 220v immersion heater element which I have to admit scares the living bejeesus out of me when I look at it and the suspending approach I took of a bent skewer was hardly the picture of safety:

Suspended heater



BUT it did give me an immediate and continuous pwerful rolling boil


I took some boiling wort off to maelt the sugar:


Took a while but eventually all melted into this goooey sugary tasty syrup added to kettle at 15 minutes along with extra hops and protafloc:


Here are the two starters - the small one from dregs built up over 5 days the large one over 3 days and cooled night before brewday. I poured off the liquid into sterilized asda smart price water bottles and reserved that (if anyone wants any PM me and I'll send a bottle with drags of wy3789) and then reserved just the slurry and about 1 cm of the wort:


Running off at end of 60 minute boil:


Good break:


VERY Clear final run off


OG - there have been a few pics recently of clear wort in sampling jars so this is my attempt:


And here's the 'untold story' of 'clear wort' for OG shot - the other end of the sample jar:


Achieved OG 1.058 (which is nigh-n perfect once hydrometer correction is accounted for) and 21 litres run off

AND for now that's it - had started to form a decent head this morning, yeast was VERY active in the starter so expecting some escaping, open fermentation (well I hardly have to worry about wild yeasts when it's already go them in!)


AM going to keep EVERYTHING used with the yeast marked with red tape and separated and onlyt used for future brews including wild yeasts e.g. berlinner weisse blend for Gose and maybe some Saisons with the Fantome yeast as don't want to risk these bugs breaking out to my other bits of brewery!

[mysterio]

Great stuff. Orval is my favourite beer and I would love to make a Brett beer (although maybe not a clone of Orval). One of the big signatures of the beer (especially fresh) is Styrian Goldings dry hops, are you going to do that?

I made a Flanders Red ale a couple of years back and foolishly didn't mark what keg I served it from. However, I haven't had a problem with infected beers yet. It probably helps that I clean my kegs with hot caustic soda and store beer cold. Better safe than sorry though.

[bosium]

** This beer name is a BAD joke - a free sample bottle is on offer to first person who figures it out and posts image + explanation for those confused

"Green duckling in diapers" - Orville the Duck, perhaps?


Good luck with that Steve, I have been meaning to brett a few bottles of dubbel (when i eventually get round to brewing it ).

Looking forward to seeing how latest offering from the mad belgian(s) turns out..

[Barley Water]

How long do you guys figure you need to age that stuff before you get the brett character? I am seriously considering making up a Saison this summer then hitting it with some brett at bottling time. I figure if I put the beer in champagne bottles, it should be able to handle the really high carbonation that should result if you let them sit around long enough (plus is should make for a supper dry beer with any kind of luck). It is nice to see that there are some lads out there even more crazy than myself who are willing to fool around with some of these wild critters.

[lancsSteve]

One of the big signatures of the beer (especially fresh) is Styrian Goldings dry hops, are you going to do that?

Yes, will be dry hopping. While Styrian's are used in Orval NOW - the previous brewer used to dry hop with EK Goldings (so the interview with him in Brew Like a Monk says). So I'm sticking with EKG's as my dry hop. It's definitely 'inspired by' not a 'clone of' - cloning seems to me to be just the wrong approach with Belgian beers...

It is nice to see that there are some lads out there even more crazy than myself who are willing to fool around with some of these wild critters.

I take that as a top compliment from the man who recommended fermenting a saison at 35c!

"Green duckling in diapers" - Orville the Duck, perhaps?


Good luck with that Steve... Looking forward to seeing how latest offering from the mad belgian(s) turns out..

You'll get to try some then for winning that wee crap compo! (Impressed it wasn't a Brit as well!- did Orville haunt you in SA???)

[Gricey]

Love it! Orval is a chinstroker for me, whenever I'm in the mood for it I feel let down, whenever I randomly get one I really enjoy it. Stupid brett!

[lancsSteve]

Hey Gricey - I'm getting more into it recently and looking forward to visiting monastery at Easter, there's an interesting thing in Brew Like a Monk where he's talking to the head brewer who says he doesn't think it *should* be concistent and that each batch should be slightly different, some more hoppy some more bretty and the character should change and develop over time. I see now why Tim Webb described it as "God's home brew"! Also makes it a great beer to be inspired by as aiming for inconsistency is MUCH easier in a homebrew environment!

Ferment pics - after 12 hours a mucky head and temp on thermomter strip up from 16 to 20c:


So I skimmed a LOAD of crap off of it with a sterilised spatula (soaked in VWP, rinsed, star san'd)


Within a couple of hours there was another BIG head on it - much cleaner this time:


Thermometer strip on the side of bucket now reading 22c (there can be 4 - 7c out I know but at least an indication - especially when it's well wrapped in towel and mylar.

[Gricey]

I darent skim crud off, I'll jinx it! I loved the Brew Like A Monk book, was great reading, wish I'd have read it before I went to Belgium!

If you're going monasterying you should pick up a crate of Westvleteren, I have a single bottle of 8 and of 12 which I got illicitly from someone in Belgium, but I daren't open them yet...

[bosium]

I won't turn down a taste - it looks really interesting! I wonder how much brett character will be there straight off the bat, and how much will need time to come through.. Definitely an interesting experiment.

[Barley Water]

If you are going to do the "monk thing" I would suggest dropping by Achel if you get a chance. Their strong dark which I believe they call Extra Bruin or something like that is one of the best beers I have ever tasted. You can't purchase it over here but a friend of mine was over there a couple of years ago and brought some back, great stuff.

[coatesg]

Good enough for me - I just got an Orval out of the beer store to have now Good luck with it - sounds like a good one. I'm thinking about rustling up a Belgian ale, during the summer sometime: saison, belgian pale and something along the lines of Orval are all possibles.

[lancsSteve]

Primary is pretty much over - SG now 1.007



Which makes for nigh-on 88% attenutation! (And that's before the Brett's got really going) think this may drop lower still in secondary and in bottles - should end up quite dry. MUCH higher than wyeast published info of 75-80% attenuation and will give abv nearer the Orval original of 6.8% (which may have changed as it's now now printed as 6.2% on bottles but listed in most beer guides etc as 6.8... )

Taste form the sample jar was a little underwhelming with little truly distinctive Belgian funkiness in the nose (more of a UK pale ale taste/smell) but sampling straight from a sample tube straight from FV is not the best way to get a feel for flavour/aroma! Am sure dry-hopping in secondary then re-yeasting and priming and at bottling and some serious TIME will allow a lot more character to develop.

[lancsSteve]

[TheMumbler]

Nice job on the label