Carrot pLambic


As the title suggests I brewed a carrot beer. A couple months ago I made a small one gallon test batch (50/50 wort/carrot juice by volume) and fermented it with American ale (dry) yeast to see what a carrot beer would even taste like first. The finished beer was very earthy, slightly tart, and orange. At a rate of 50/50 by volume of wort and carrot juice it was a little absurd but it allowed me to fully understand the impact of carrot sugars in a fermented beverage. I could see carrots working in many styles such as saison, Belgian white, Gose, and Berliner Weiss. Or even something malty with many carrot wine recipes having a rum raisin or even pumpkin pie like spice blend why not try other orange vegetables such as butternut squash, carrots, sweet potatoes and yams in fall seasonal beers and not just pumpkins.

The direction I'm taking with this batch though is a bit more wild, pitching Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend. Accentuating the earthy and tart flavors the carrot juice provided. This was the third part of a split batch of golden wort that also produced pineapple wild ale and a tropical wild ale.

Recipe: Pale malt, Flaked Oats, Wheat malt, Flaked Barley, Flaked Maize, and CaraPils. Bittered with whole leaf centennial. Fermenting with Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend. 80/20 wort/carrot juice by volume.

Tropical Wild Ale

As part of the split batch discussed in the pineapple wild ale post this fermentor had a tropical juice blend added to primary and was dosed with brettanomyces lambicus and brettanomyces bruxellensis. The juice "Morning Blend" consisted of pineapple, apple, orange, pear, peach, papaya, and grape. When using juices for brewing I prefer to use natural and/or organic juices that are free from growth inhibitors (chemicals added to any food to prevent/ward off spoiling) that may kill the yeast and not allow the wort to ferment.

Recipe: Pale malt, Flaked Oats, Wheat malt, Flaked Barley, Flaked Maize, and CaraPils. Bittered with whole leaf centennial. Fermented with a blend of brettanomyces strains.

Pineapple Wild Ale

One way to stretch a brew day is to brew a big batch of lower gravity wort and split the batch between smaller fermentors and add a different twist to each fermentor (or keep one for a control). Whether it's using different yeast strains or adding different ingredients such as spices or fruit to the different fermentors it's a great way to experiment.

For this batch I brewed a large volume of golden wort with a starting gravity of 12.6*P (1.051sg) and split the batch three ways. One fermentor with pineapple juice, another with carrot juice, and a third with a tropical fruit juice blend. Pitching different blends of wild yeast strains into each fermentor. This pineapple wild ale is fermented with brettanomyces lambicus and brettanomyces bruxellensis.

Brewing alternative yeast beers has been a lot of fun. The only drawback is the much longer learning period per batch. More traditional yeast fermentations have much quicker turnarounds allowing the brewer to evaluate the beer much sooner. Thus learning more rapidly about brewing. No matter what the size of a batch a brewer learns something from every batch to make the next one even better.

Currently I now have sixty five gallons (would only fill one oak barrel) of beer in eighteen fermentors at different stages of souring with the oldest being one at the time of this post. Tasting along the way as the flavors have developed and matured has been fascinating. Beginning to understand when flavors start developing and the impact of different ingredients and what they contribute to the overall impression of each batch. All while being amazed at the visual seemingly big bang theory like primordial growth of a pellicle reminds me of the deeply interwoven history of humans and fermentation as food preservation for survival.

Recipe: Pale Malt, Flaked Oats, Wheat Malt, Flaked Barley, Flaked Maize, CaraPils. Bittered with whole leaf centennial. Fermented with a blend of brettanomyces strains.