Solera Series Part 2 - Managing Your Solera
Channel: Sui Generis Brewing
Date: 2024-03-16

This is the second video in a short series on managing a beer solera in your home brewery. In this video we discuss how you plan for, brew, and manage each withdrawal/refill cycle of a solera, focusing on how we can adjust our recipe to push the character of the beer in the direction we want it to go. I couldn't control my inner microbiologist, so there is a lot of science mixed into this episode. Timestamps of for each piece of relevant information, and links to additional resources, can be found below:

0:00 - Intro
0:40 - 1 Month Before Your Planned Withdrawal Date
1:28 - Structured Tasting
2:20 - Refill Recipe Design #1 - Determining The Refill Volume
2:49 - Refill Recipe Design #2 - Determining Recipe "Direction"
3:49 - Refill Recipe Design #3A - Adjusting Acidity with Hops
4:50 - Sidebar: The Problems with Hops
5:14 - Sidebar: Why My Flanders Red Solera Died
5:50 - Refill Recipe Design #3B - Adjusting Acidity
7:25 - Refill Recipe Design #3C - Adjusting Acidity - The Nuclear Option
8:03 - Refill Recipe Design #4 - Controlling Brettanomyces
11:57 - Refill Recipe Design #5 - Adjusting the Beers Body
14:30 - Recipe Adjustment - A Real-World Example
16:53 - Monitoring Your Soleras Effective Age & Using the Calculator
20:00 - Outro

Links to the planning graphic and table can be found in the corresponding post over at my blog:
https://suigenerisbrewing.com/index.php/2024/03/16/solera-part-2/

Lastly, apologies for the occasional out-of-focus section. I think the camera was trying to focus on the glare off the white board, instead of on the glare off my forehead.