Séance Méridien (easy mode Belgian Session IPA) - 4.5 gallon

[mashani]

So I have some cans of the Winter Belgian to use up. Posting this just in case someone else does and wants creative ideas on how to use it up.

That stuff is like an over bittered dubbel. So I figure it should make a good bittering/malt base for bigger volume split batch of "Belgian Session IPA". The bit of extra maltyness from the more dubbel like base should help balance the extra hops compared to a normal Belgian Pale Ale malt base. Plus I think the bit of dark fruit will go nice with the yeast/hops I'm using.

So simple recipe:

8oz carafoam steeped
1 can (3.75#) Winter Belgian - I did *NOT* use the spices, just the extract. (LATE ADDITION)
1# Pilsner DME
1# 5L Golden Candi syrup (LATE ADDITION)
1/2oz Meridian @20
1/2oz Meridian @10
1oz Meridian 20 minute hopstand

Small volume boil of the DME/steeped carafoam wort and the 1/2oz Meridian additions.
Added Winter Belgian and Candi syrup, carefully brought back to 170, tossed in the rest of the Meridian, put the (sanitized) lid on and walked away for 20 minutes.

Split between 2 LBCs with cold water, topped each up to 2.25 gallons. Wanted to leave a lot of headspace due to WLP400's tendency to blow the lid off things.

Pitched 600ML of a 1.2L stir starter of WLP400 into each. 6 hours later, also pitched 4g of S-05 into each.

WLP400 at the temps I am fermenting at will be tart, fruity and slightly phenolic. A lot like WLP550, but with a bit less phenols, and more tartness. I mixed it with the S-05 to keep it a bit cleaner then if it was on it's own so the hops will pop a bit more. I've done that before so I know it works well for this kind of thing. I do not recommend you mix yeast unless you know exactly why you are doing it. In this case the S-05 will "agitate" the WLP400 a bit too and keep it working, as it tends to float to the top and get stuck on it's own krausen layer and then stall out and need some swirling/rousing/maintenance to get it back into suspension. I will still need to rouse it, but not as often I think.

The Meridian is supposed to be like candied lemons and fruit punch.

The 5L candi syrup will give me some light caramel notes as if I used a little bit of light crystal, but the body will be drier and more "Belgian like", and I think the Winter Belgian is plenty malty on it's own.

It 1.050, and about 48 IBUs and about 12 SRM.

Should be tasty and nice to drink on a hot summer day.

[BigPapaG]

That should be a nice one Dave!

Can't wait to see a pic!

[Rebel_B]

The Belgian IPAs rock! Should turn out well for you.

[mashani]

I forgot how much WLP400 stinks...

Just so you know... It stinks!

And good thing I gave it lots of headspace, the krausen got 3" around the edges with a 4" mound in the middle.

[BeerRust]

Interested to here how this comes out. First time I have read some one using 2 yeasts, pretty cool!

[mashani]

Interested to here how this comes out. First time I have read some one using 2 yeasts, pretty cool!

I don't recommend folks do this except for specific reasons. And it's generally best if you do and are using "normal" yeast to pitch one that is highly flavorful, and another that is very clean. This would be for the very clean yeast to help the highly flavorful one to finish, or to tone down the flavor a bit. (I used the S-05 for both those reasons here, although I pitched a lot more WLP400, and I gave it some time to get growing first too because I do want it to be the dominant strain). If you were to pitch two highly flavorful yeasts, it can still work, but you need to be sure the flavors will mesh. It's tricker then with multiple hops. Often the flavors really don't mesh, and you end up with beer that would have been better if you just stuck to one strain.

One good reason is if you are making a sour/funky beer, but want that aspect to be more mellow - or at least you want to get a lot of the flavor from the other strain, even if it's still freaking sour when all is said and done. IE you pitch a regular Belgian or Wheat strain, and then after it gets a good foothold, then you pitch some lacto or brett.

You can pitch all at the same time, but then you are getting into really precise portion control to get the one you want to dominate to actually dominate. It would be a lot simpler to buy a "Bug Farm Blend" from Wyeast/White Labs, as those have pre-measured quantities of the various beasties.

Also even if it's does work, like I'm sure this will, it is very difficult to produce exactly the same beer twice because it's really difficult for us as a home brewer to pitch somewhat exact cell counts. Since there are two strains growing, they both are competing for the resources for the growth phase, once they run out they will start fermenting. A small difference in cell count can make a very different beer since the growth is exponential. If you are like me, and don't' care that you aren't making exactly the same beer repeatedly, then this doesn't matter perhaps but if you are of the more anal persuasion who is trying to make something they can make again exactly the same, well... you need a lab to do that. Or buy pre-manufactured blends from someone who has a lab. IE wyeast/white labs... etc.

Anyways, the S-05 did help me not have to start to rouse the stuff until today. Often with WLP400 I have had to start rousing at day 3 or 4.

But today it did finally do what it typically does - 2" of krausen still on top, tons of WLP400 is stuck in it - give it a swirl to get a bit of the krausen to fall into the beer, and then a few hours later, whalla! Active fermentation again!

WLP400 is like this, it's almost "anti-flocculant" - lots of the good cells float to the top and then get stuck in krausen. If you use it I suggest you give your fermenter a swirl every 3 days or so. You will be rewarded with beer that is better attenuated and done sooner.

[BeerRust]

Do you expect a more active beer because of it too? Do you ferment out longer or shorter? Will you carb lower?

[mashani]

Do you expect a more active beer because of it too? Do you ferment out longer or shorter? Will you carb lower?

I'm unclear if you mean due to pitching 2 yeasts or if you are talking specifically about WLP400.

But I will try to answer.

Carb lower:

No, not in this case. Once it's done it's done as long as they are normal beer yeast.

If you were using Brett and bottling at an early age, then yes. Because Brett will keep working sloooooooowly in the bottle for like... 6 months... a year... it will look done at 2-3 weeks but it's not really done, it will drop a few more points over a long period of time.

If I happen to get another summer brett infection in this, then I will carb lower. No signs of it, but there still is 2" of krausen on top, so I wouldn't be able to tell yet.

Ferment out:

It will ferment out in a "normal" timeframe for the yeasts involved. If I was just using WLP400, I'd be leaving this in the LBCs for 3 weeks. Because WLP400 has that flocculation/stick/swirl problem I described above. But with the S-05 in the mix I'm hoping it will be something I can bottle by next weekend. But who knows, it might still be 3 weeks.

More Active Beer:

The krausen will generally not get much higher then the baddest yeast you used would produce, if that's what you mean. The krausen I had on this beer was/is right on par with what I'd expect from WLP400. The S-05 didn't change this. If I used just S-05 it would be pretty thin or gone by now. But I still have 2" of it, which is how WLP400 acts.

I did have very active fermentation with stuff visibly "whipping around" in the ferment for 5 days from when it started up. Which is longer then WLP400 would normally do on it's own without being roused. So the S-05 activity put some ants in its pants and kept the yeast going a bit longer then normal. But at this point I think the S-05 is done and gone to sleep, and all I have working is the WLP400, which takes some effort to keep going, which is while I'll end up rousing it again in a day or so.

I have a bit more trub then normal, but it's not 2x as much. It won't be a lot more because the yeast can only grow to (N) cells based on wort nutrients/oxygen available, be that (N) cells of one strain or (N + N) cells of multiple strains, the final tally wlll end up being a similar number of total cells when active fermentation starts. Maybe a little bit more if one yeast likes to uptake some kind of nutrient for growth that another doesn't, or if it's a killer yeast and likes to eat some of the other yeast or random bacteria it finds and gets extra nutrients that way. (yes there is such a thing as killer yeast). But not a huge difference.

That changes somewhat if you were to use bacteria/brett, but still I'd not expect a lot more.

I have NO idea if I answered your question or not, but I tried

[mashani]

Well, I bottled this. At 1.008. The mixture of yeast kicked serious ass. It tastes like a WLP400 beer, I would not know that I put S-05 in it too - it is not less intense in yeast character - just extra attenuated. The S-05 just pissed off the WLP400 it seems and kept it going like the energizer bunny. I knew something was up when stuff was still churning hard in the kegs a week after I pitched the yeast. Wasn't intending on it having this much ABV but hey...

I did rouse the yeast a few times after it settled down too. The first couple of times it kicked back into gear, the 3rd time it did not, so I didn't bother rousing again after that. Rousing = lightly swirl fermenter to get some krausen to fall back into the beer (not to stir up trub in this case like say an English strain) - WLP400 gets yeast stuck in the krausen.

The sample - well all I can say is that I just made my first "Sorta Session Grand Cru" (if there is such a thing) except extra intense with the lemon/citrus, with some fruit salad sprinkled on top. I think it will be really fun to drink this on a hot day. Meridian will go into a WIT beer or a Patersbier I make in the future for sure.

[mashani]

Yessiree, this is a like a session grand cru meets Belgian IPA or sorts. Intense citrus zest like flavors, with other fruit, spicy, dry, light bodied, very Belgian, except for the bitterness. The extra bitterness cranks up the zest like flavors to 11.

P1090848.JPG (51.99 KiB) Viewed 1391 times

[John Sand]

Interesting read, thank you.