Today was the 5th brew day for Wild Brewing and that means time for a new beer. We have already brewed a pale sour beer and a red sour beer. For our third sour we will be making a darker brown beer. A sour brown beer, or Oud Bruin (Dutch for Old Brown), will make a tasty treat in the years to come. This style of beer is meant for aging both in the barrel and in the bottle and will continue to mature for years to come. The recipe that we used is based on a malty brown ale/porter (It is a little on the dark side for a brown ale because of the roasted barley and chocolate malt). This should give the beer depth and complexity along with some complex sugars for the bacteria to chew on as it ages. Unlike our previous two beers our Oud Bruin will be fermented first with ale yeast and then Lactobacillus and Pediococcus will be added to the barrel (Our previous beers had bacteria and Brett added at the beginning of fermentation).
Here is the recipe...
15 gallonsOG: 1.074
IBU: 25
Grain:
Belgian Pilsner: 72.5 % (36 pounds)
CaraVienna: 10 % (5 pounds)
CaraMunich 10 % (5 pounds)
Caramel 60 2 % (1 pound)
Chocolate Malt 5 % (2.50 pounds)
Roasted Barley 0.5 % (0.25 pounds)
Mashed at 155 F for 1 hour
Batch Sparged 178 F for 30 minutes
1 hour boil with 2 oz Zeus Hops (15% AA)
Cooled beer and pitched White Labs California Ale Yeast
Everything went very well and our original gravity ended up being 1.076 which is right on target.
The plan is to brew the same beer next week and then add both Pediococcus and Lactobacillus to the beer while it is in the barrel and give it a year to age.
