Young Flanders Red - Watery/Bland?

[srqbrew]

For my first sour, I brewed a moderate gravity (~1055) Flanders Red with pils, a little wheat, and a bit of D90. Pitched a single pack of Roselare into the bucket, and it's been sitting for about 4 months now. I took the first taster this weekend, and to my surprise, it was extremely light in flavor - unlike any beer I've brewed before. There was a noticeable, small amount of lactic flavor, but otherwise, no flavor or body at all. It was a bit like water with some lactic acid added.

I have to confess that I didn't take an OG gravity reading - just went off calculations as I wasn't terribly concerned with hitting my numbers.

Could this be a conversion problem? I've never had mash problems before. Is this lack of flavor a common phenomenon with young sours? Or is it all likely just a fluke and I should give it another 6 months and see?

 

[TasunkaWitko]

mashing temp too low?

 

[Rivenin]

sours take a lonnnnnng while...
i made a Lambic last october that went down to 1.004 and had no body and light on the flavor, but i bottled (actually.. probably too early) 2months ago to get the carboy free, but it has gone from bland to awesome.
To give you antoher idea about it, made an oud bruin that tasted like an ashtray was dumped into it... almost dumped it, but decided to ride it out...
it's now an awesome tasting oud bruin and i might have 3-4 bottles left. thats about 3 years or so old now.

rule of thumb, sours take an assload of time, so just be patient and try it again in 6-12 months

 

[mnick12]

Sour beers almost always taste watery or bland when they are young. Don't worry about it, set it and forget it.

 

[dcp27]

Roselare is wicked slow on its own, give it at least a year before bothering to taste it. 12-24 months total for it to get to where it should be

 

[srqbrew]

Awesome - thanks for all the insight!

 

[TNGabe]

As others have said, wait it out, it might get better, but I'll add not to get your hopes up too high. I've never found any of the commercial blends to make a really good beer on their own and have always ended up adding bottle dregs.

Use it as an excuse to enjoy a couple commercial mixed ferment beers and add the dregs to your beer, the sooner the better.

Your recipe looks a little weak in the complexity department to get the depth of flavor you're looking for. I like using sugar in higher grav mixed ferments, but at 1.055ish, the recipe really would have benefited from some specialty malts and perhaps dropping the d-90.

I wouldn't expect this to end up being something that's great to drink on it's own. You might want to brew another beer that you think might fill in the defecits in this one and eventually do some blending.

 

[Calder]

Your recipe looks a little weak in the complexity department to get the depth of flavor you're looking for. I like using sugar in higher grav mixed ferments, but at 1.055ish, the recipe really would have benefited from some specialty malts and perhaps dropping the d-90.

I wouldn't expect this to end up being something that's great to drink on it's own. You might want to brew another beer that you think might fill in the defecits in this one and eventually do some blending.

I agree the D90 was wasted in this, simple sugars are not a good choice in sours. However, I think he should end up with a decent sour.

Adding some commercial dregs will help with complexity. Might be worth adding a few ozs of maltodextrin for the bugs to work on.

 

[TNGabe]

I agree the D90 was wasted in this, simple sugars are not a good choice in sours.

Not a Jolly Pumpkin fan?

 

[ChugachBrewing]

Recipe is definitely low in complexity. When I brew a flanders, only 60% of the malt comes from pils, the rest is all crystals, wheat, etc.

 

[jnacey]

As others have said, wait until the 12 month mark until you judge it.

Add bottle dregs from sours whose character you enjoy (and don't filter the beer).

If at 12 months you still don't enjoy the tartness or body, add 4oz of maltodextrin dissolved in some cooled, boiled water and let it go for another 3-6 months. The maltodextrin will add additional, complex sugars that the brett/bugs will feast on.

 

[allouez86]

Brewed a Flemish Red just over a year ago using East Coast Yeast Flemish Ale yeast. At 6 months it was very bland with a good smell but next to no tartness and a watery taste. On day 365 it was very tart with some nice acidic cherry notes to it. Tasted great. Will probably give it a couple more months then package it.
So my advice to you is don't touch it until month 12 then decide what to do with it.

 

[srqbrew]

1) Thanks for commenting, everyone. Good to know this recipe needs more crystal to get enough maltodextrins. Just one point I want to address (and be corrected if I'm wrong): Relative to its' mass, I think D90 has a fair amount of complex "residual" sugars for bugs to munch on, as it undergos malliard reactions during the caramelization process, much like crystal malts. That said, I only used it in a small volume, so I certainly did not get anywhere near the required amount of maltodextrins and other complex sugars from the D90+my mash temp; it's definitely not up to the quantities of complex sugars ya'll are suggesting. I may add some powdered maltodex to bring this quantity up. Good to understand the ballpark of how much complex sugar you need to leave! Thanks for the education.

2) alloueze: The smell thing. That is how I described it to my brother/dad when they asked how the sour was coming along: It smells exactly like I want it to taste. I had to go back and see if I talked about that in the thread, and I didn't, so it's cool to see this repeated independently. Hope that suggests mine will taste great at 12 months, too

 

[Calder]

I don't believe there are any complex sugars in D90. It is pretty much completely fermentable by yeast. One of its uses is to lower FG.

 

[srqbrew]

Hey All,

I dropped about 8 oz of maltodextrin into this over Christmas, and I tasted it again this weekend. There was a strong lactic acid flavor, as well as more mouthfeel. The watery consistency/flavor was completely gone - it is now bona fide sour beer! There's a tiny bit of funk in the background that I want to see where it goes, so I'm going to leave it at least another three months before I taste it again.

Happy to say this first batch has been some kind of successful, and more time was all it needed!