Can’t Wait To See Where This Gueuze

Note: This recipe is intended to proudce 5 gallons of beer. Noah brewed 5 more gallons at the same time so there was a total of 15 gallons brewed (give or take) to split into three 5-gallon batches, each with a different yeast.

Single infusion mash at 152°F (66.7°C) for 60 minutes with ~36.84 quarts of water. Batch sparge with 8 gallons of water. Pre-Boil volume (approx.): 13.31 gallons (50.4 L)

Boil for 60 minutes, following the boil additions as listed in the ingredients. At the end of the boil, chill to fermentation temperatures as specified by the yeast packets (bug inoculations).

Separate the wort equally among three 5-gallon buckets. Pitch one yeast packet into each bucket (Wyeast 5526, 3278, and 5335). Ferment at room temperature for 14 days. We chose the kitchen to have the warmest spot in the house to develop the beer the way we wanted.

After the batches were fermented, we racked them into a used bourbon barrel that I had lying about that had already been souring on the last batch aged. There was no residual bourbon character in the barrel. The barrel sits in the lower level of my home which stays around 60-65°F (15.6-18.3°C) year-round.

After racking the 15 gallons (56.8 L) of Gueuze into the barrel, there was headspace in the barrel. We decided to let it ride to develop a pellicle for additional natural complexity… which it did.

We aged the barrel for an entire year before opening it to taste it. At around the one-year point, we brewed a new 5-gallon (18.9 L) batch of the base Gueuze and fermented it with one of the bug inoculations we previously used.

For the Solera project, we racked 5 gallons of the one-year aged beer from the barrel and racked the 5 gallons of fresh Gueuze in. After that ages for a year, we will have, theoretically, 10 gallons of 2-year aged Gueuze in the barrel blended with 5 gallons of one-year aged Gueuze. And, the project continues…

The 5 gallons of one-year aged Gueuze for 2023 was bottled with fresh yeast and corn sugar to create our entry for the competition.

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