Ambrosia Citrine (Batch 4): Recipe

This is the fourth batch of Citrine that I have brewed. Citrine is my blonde wild ale. The first three batches were all inoculated with dregs, so I wanted to take this one in a different direction and bring a bit of spontaneous fermentation to this batch. With that in mind, I decided to brew an 8-gallon batch. The first five gallons were chilled and went to a 6-gallon Better Bottle, and then received dregs and oak cubes from Citrine batches 1-3.

For the spontaneous portion, the plan was to use lasagna pans from a grocery store. After brewing, I laid out three in our screened in porch to sit overnight. The next morning, I transferred each to 1-gallon jugs. There was quite a bit of evaportation overnight, so I ended up with approximately two-thirds of a gallon in each jug. One jug would ferment without any assistance. The other two would receive dregs that I had built up from bottles in addition to whatever was picked up from the air.

Base Recipe

Batch Number: 55
Brew Date: January 20, 2013
Bottle Date:
Batch Size: 8 Gallons

OG: 1.047 (est.)
FG: 1.000 (est.)
IBU: 28.9
ABV: 6.0% (est.)
SRM: 3.5
Mash: Single infusion for 60 minutes at 156 F.
Boil: 90 minutes

Fermentables

7lb 4oz French Pilsner
7lb 4oz French Pilsner
3lb 4oz Flaked Wheat

Hops

4.5 oz Liberty (Aged) at 90 minutes

Yeast

Citrine Dregs (5 gallons)
Spontaneous Yeast and Bacteria (1 gallon)
Spontaneous Yeast and Bacteria + dregs of miscellaneous wild saisons (1 gallon)
Spontaneous Yeast and Bacteria + Allagash Coolship Dregs (1 gallon)

Notes

01.20.2013 - Brewday. Brewed 8 gallons. The first 5 gallons went into a 6-gallon Better Bottle and got the mixed cake from batches 1, 2, and 3 of Citrine, which had been in a growler in the fridge for a few months. It also got the leftover oak cubes that were included in that growler.

The other three gallons were split evenly between three aluminum lasagna pans and allowed to sit out overnight after being filled around 3 PM. The high on January 20 was 61 F, and the overnight low was 37 F.

01.21.2013 - Each pan was racked separately into a one gallon jug. There was a good amount of evaporation loss, so each jug ended up with approximately 2/3 of a gallon. The first jug is being left as is for a completely spontaneous fermentation. The second jug received the grown up dregs from some "wild" saison bottles. The third jug received the grown up dregs from bottles from the Allagash Coolship series. Those dregs had been sitting at the bottom of a starter for several months.

01.22.2013 - The spontaneous plus Flora jug has really taken off and has a nice krausen. I had to add a few drops of Fermcap to be safe. The other two jugs have some spotty foam on top as of 8 AM. The 5-gallon portion is not showing any real activity at this point. At approximately 30 hours, the 5-gallon portion now has a nice foamy layer atop the brew. Some foam atop the Spontaneous + Coolship jug, but nothing in the purely spontaneous jug. Fermentation for all is occurring at approximately 65 F ambient, though this will fluctuate with room temperature as fermentation continues through the next year or more.

01.24.2013 - This morning there is now a bit of foam on top of the 100% spontaneous portion, and the Spontaneous + Coolship portion has a very light layer of bubbly foam covering almost the entire top of the wort.

01.26.2013 - The Spontaneous + Coolship has a very nice krausen, and the 100% spontaneous has a layer of foam on the top.

01.27.2013 - The 100% spontaneous portion is started to krausen.




10.06.2013 - One gallon of this batch was taken from the main, non-spontaneous portion of the batch and used to blend with 4 gallons of Farmhouse Mild.


11.23.2013 - Put the keg in the kegerator to start carbonating.