Craft Beer & Brewing Course
Constructing Artful Mixed-Culture Beers with Firestone Walker Barrelworks
With detailed advice from Jim Crooks, master blender at Firestone Walker’s Barrelworks, you can brew complex but balanced mixed-culture beers meant for patient wood-aging and blending.
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In this thorough and detailed 94-minute video course, Crooks lays out the brewery’s total approach to these beers, from recipe development to packaging, via brewing, barrel selection, aging, and blending. Among other topics, Crooks explains:
- mash regimen and grists built for aging with mixed cultures
- selecting the right strains of bacteria and yeast
- using Brettanomyces for primary fermentation
- using hops to control lactic acid production
- managing and balancing acetic and lactic acid
- choosing and caring for barrels
- blending for flavor and balance
And much more.
Course contents
5 chapters, 25 lessons, 1h 35m of video
Chapter 1
Introduction
- Welcome + Background on Firestone Walker Barrelworks12:30
Chapter 2
Recipe Development of Beers Meant for Mixed Cultures & Wood
- Planning & Tinkering with Variables7:42
- Homebrewing Sour Beers 101: The Art of Tart, Simplified
- Pro Tips: Finding Success with Sours
Chapter 3
Elements of a Wood-Aged Sour Beer
- Mash and Grist Built for Aging with Mixed Cultures5:38
- Selecting Yeast and Bacteria for Mixed Cultures and Balance8:30
- More Perspectives: Managing Mixed Culture Fermentations
- More Perspectives: Floodland’s Adam Paysse on Rearing Mixed Cultures
- Hops and Suppressing Acidity5:28
- Managing Acidity: Balancing Acetic and Lactic8:43
- Quantify Your Funk: A Primer on pH and Titratable Acidity
- Understanding pH and Titratable Acidity in Sour Beer: Tools for Brewers and Enthusiasts Alike
Chapter 4
Aging & Blending
- Vessels: Selection, Cleaning, and Long Maturation17:58
- Prepping Used Barrels for Aging Beer
- A Barrel Master on Knowing the Ways of the Wine Barrel
- Blending Approach & Technique10:33
- Winemaking Tools for Wild-Ale Wizardry
- Fruiting Approach & Technique13:11
- Style + Fruit: Let’s Play Matchmaker
- Packaging & Bottle Conditioning2:40
Chapter 5
Wrap Up
- Thank You1:48
- More Perspectives: Trevor Rogers of De Garde on Patience and Sense of Place
- Sensory: Randy Mosher on the Elements of Funk
- Recipe: Schneeeule Marlene Berliner Weisse
- Recipe: Turbid Lambic-Like Base Beer