Home Brewing

After two weeks in primary fermentation, the 5 gallon batch of saison has been split into two. About 2 gallons has been bottled (yielding a little less than a case), with the other three being racked to secondary and dosed with Brettanomyces Claussenii (WLP645 for the enquiring).

Crossing the Rubicon of funk wasn’t particularly difficult just yet – it basically just consisted of opening the vial of yeast and dumping it in the secondary fermenter. The real test will come in a few months time, when the yeast has had proper time to work its way through the remaining sugars. Or maybe I inadvertently infected my entire house with Brett and will have trouble with all my future batches. The die has been cast, to continue the Rubicon metaphor.

Final Gravity: 6.9 Bx, around 1.007. As usual, my hydrometer gives a slightly lower reading, but we’re still looking at somewhere around 6.8% – 7.2% ABV, which is a little higher than expected, but still on point. This puts attenuation in the high 80% range, somewhere around 88%. Hopefully, this mean there’s enough residual sugar for the Brett, but not so much that the Brett version will be dominated by that character.

In the meantime, I’ll have some non-funky saison to keep me busy (though I’ll clearly want to save enough to do a side-by-side comparison once the Kaedrôme rises). I’m debating what to do with my next batch. Being the dead of summer limits options a bit. Saisons are great because they can ferment out at 70+ degrees with no real ill effects. But, you know, I just made one. I really want to make a hoppy red ale of some kind, and an imperial stout too. In both cases, I’d like a somewhat lower ambient temperature than will be possible during summer (and the bathtub trick is out because I’m redoing my bathrooms, though perhaps I could do something in a smaller container). And I’m going to want to do this split batch trick as well, dry hopping (for the red) and oak aging (for the stout) half the batches. Perhaps I’ll just make it a busy fall.

(Cross Posted on Kaedrin Weblog)

My fourth batch, brewed almost 2 years ago to the day, was a saison that turned out fantastic when it was fresh, but degraded over time (and become super carbonated). I’ve been wanting to make another batch of saison recently, so I took the recipe for the initial batch, toned down in terms of malt, and threw in some fancy Nelson Sauvin hops for yucks.

The real adventure this time around will be splitting the batch into two after primary fermentation: half will be bottled at that point, with the other half going into a secondary fermenter and dosed with Brettanomyces. I’ve long ago established that saisons are the least coherent style in the history of beer… which is actually one of the reasons I love them so much. My initial batch (and half of this current batch) was patterned after Saison Dupont, a classic of the style. The Brett dosed half of this batch will (hopefully!) be closer to Fantôme’s saisons, which is where the name of this beer (Kaedrôme, get it?) is coming from (big thanks to Scott of Beerbecue for suggesting that perfect name).

Allllrighty then, lets get this party started:

Brew #11 – Saison

June 22, 2013

0.5 lb. Belgian CaraVienne (specialty grain)

3.15 lb. Northern Brewer Pilsen LME

3 lb. Briess Pilsen DME

1 lb. Light Belgian Candi Sugar (liquid)

1 oz. East Kent Goldings hops (bittering @ 5.8% AA)

0.25 oz. Nelson Sauvin hops (bittering @ 10.9% AA)

0.5 oz. Saaz hops (flavor)

0.25 oz. Nelson Sauvin hops (flavor)

0.5 oz. Saaz hops (aroma)

0.5 oz. Nelson Sauvin hops (aroma)

0.5 oz. Bitter Orange Peel

1 tsp. Irish Moss

Wyeast 3711 French Saison Yeast (Primary)

White Labs WLP645 Brettanomyces Claussenii (Secondary)

I’ll spare you the play by play, as that’s mostly the same for every batch. The only thing I’ll say about that is that my new kitchen kicks ass, and has removed 30-60 minutes from the process. It turns out that the “Power Boil” element actually lives up to its name (it still takes a little while, but much faster than my old stovetop). And the bigger, deeper sink makes cooling in an ice bath much quicker too. It only took a little less than 3 hours, including all the cleaning.

I hope the Nelson Sauvin hops work out with this one. I basically chose them on a whim, thinking they would go pretty well with the saison. I hedged a bit and used some Saaz that I had laying around too, so I hope it’s a solid combo. Hop Additions at 60, 15, and 5 minutes remaining in the boil. Irish moss at 15 minutes. Orange Peel at 5 minutes. Pitched the 3711 yeast at 70 degrees.

Original gravity: 1.060 (14.6 Brix), pretty much right on target. My little homebrew app says I should be getting 80%+ attenuation out of this (maybe even as high as 85%).

Now I just need to figure out the process for the Brett dosing, but I’ve got a couple weeks for that. Again, general idea is to fill up my 3 gallon secondary fermenter, pitch the Brett in there, and bottle the rest of it right away.

I know very little about the different varieties of Brettanomyces, but in looking around, this seems like the one that fits me best. For the uninitiated, Brett is a wild yeast strain. It usually contributes funky, earthy characteristics to beers. Some people use descriptors like “horse blanket”, “barnyard”, or “band-aids” (among lots of other stuff, even smoky and spicy flavors), but that… doesn’t sound good, does it? Indeed, Brett is generally viewed as a contaminant and thus something to be avoided, but if done properly, it can match really well with beer, especially sour beers. This saison isn’t meant to be sour, though apparently the Claussenii strain that I’m using is more subtle than some of the others and contributes a “fruity, pineapple like aroma”. I’m going for something along the lines of older Fantômes (which tended towards sour) or Logsdon Seizoen Bretta, but everything I read about Brett is that it’s a little on the unpredictable side. So fingers are going to be crossed.

Since the primary fermentation yeast is going to yield a pretty dry beer to start with, I’m guessing that the Brett won’t be a massive contribution, but that sounds good for my first attempt at this sort of thing. Unlike regular brewer’s yeast, Brett will eat up pretty much any sugars left in the beer, so I need to give it a lengthy period to do its thing, at least a couple months. Luckily, it’s a hardy organism and thrives in warmer temperatures (so summer was a good time to experiment with this sucker). On the other hand, my understanding is that Brett is difficult to clean, etc… and a lot of homebrewers advise keeping the equipment that touches it separate from your regular brewing materials. This should be fine, as I’ve basically been using the same stuff for two years and some of it could probably be refreshed anyway.

So this is going to be one of the more interesting batches I’ve ever made… if it goes well. Wish me luck!

(Cross Posted on Kaedrin Weblog)

After two weeks in the bucket, I bottled the Fat Weekend IPA today. Fermentation seemed to as well as usual. A week into the process, once fermentation had slowed considerably, I cracked the lid and dropped in an ounce of Simcoe hops. This is only the second time I’ve dry hopped a batch of beer, but hot damn, judging from the smells emanating from the bucket during bottling, I’m in for a fantastic little brew here. Last time, I got a huge grapefruit character, this time, I got a more well rounded fruitiness as well as a piney aspect that was very pleasant.

Final Gravity: 1.014, which is just about dead on what I was expecting. That being said, I also still seem to have trouble reading my refractometer. Comparing an actual hydrometer reading, I get something lower (around 1.012). The refractometer is showing something around 9.3 bx, which translates to around 1.016. I need to get better at this. Regardless, it’s looking like I’m somewhere on the order of 7.3% to 7.6% ABV, which is close to what I’m shooting for, so all will be well.

Very pretty looking beer, a nice warm golden orange color, perhaps a hint darker than my last batch of IPA. As already mentioned, the aroma is fantastic, citrusy fruit and pine all over. I gave it a taste too, and I do believe this is going to be fantastic stuff. I got almost exactly 1 full case of beer out of this batch (2.5-3 gallons), which will be perfect. Though only half of what I normally make, I’ve found that hoppy beers don’t last, and start to fade quickly. After 6 months, my last IPA was still good, but it was a bit of a malt bomb. This is something I’ve become more sensitive to as my palate evolves, so I’m glad I’ll probably finish this case off before it has a chance to fade significantly. Fat Weekend is about a month out, which means that this should be fully conditioned and indeed peaking right about then.

Not sure what’s going to come next here. I’ve been toying with the idea of an imperial red ale, but may also try a batch of barleywine or imperial stout too (and perhaps finally take the secondary fermentation plunge, complete with bourbon soaked oak cubes). Whatever the next batch is, I’ll probably start it in March/April. If I end up going the big beer route, I’ll definitely be spending more time conditioning the beer than usual, so it will hopefully be doing really well by next Autumn… But I definitely want to make a sessionable Summer saison, akin to my last saison attempt, but a little lighter. I’ll plan for that in April/May, and that should last me through the summer…

So I’ve been slacking on my brewing hobby of late, though not without good reason. I spent most of December revamping my kitchen from the ground up, so there was much time when I simply wasn’t capable of brewing anything (not to mention the sanitary conditions, which were obviously poor whilst work was proceeding). After putting some finishing touches on the kitchen in January, I’m finally ready to resume brewing. One of the nice things about my new kitchen is that I upgraded my stovetop, which now comes complete with a “PowerBoil” element that, you guessed it, boils water faster than my old stovetop (I’m forced to use electric, which is less than ideal for brewing purposes). And boy did that come in handy. I estimate that this shaved a solid 30-60 minutes off the brewing process, which came in at around 2.5-3 hours, including post-brew cleaning.

This batch is being brewed for a specific reason, the titular “Fat Weekend”, a gathering of portly friends from all over the northeast (and some points west) which will be sometime in mid-march. Last year, I brought a variety of homebrews and was shocked to see that the Simcoe IPAs were the first beers to go (and got the best complements), so I’m making this specifically for that weekend. Let’s hope it turns out well.

In terms of recipe, this is a variation on my Simcoe Single Hop IPA from last year (interestingly enough, brewed exactly one year ago to the day). For the most part, the malt bill is identical. A slight increase in Crystal 20, simply because my homebrew shop was only selling in half-pound increments, and I’m using pilsen for the entire base malt (which, again, is just based on what was available). The big change, though, is in hops. Instead of using just Simcoe, I’m adding in the trendy hotness of Citra and Falconer’s Flight (both used in equal proportions for flavor and aroma additions). Simcoe will remain on bittering duty, as well as contributing the dry hop addition. Otherwise, we’ve got an identical recipe.

Beer #10: Fat Weekend IPA

Half-Batch (2.5 gallons)

February 4, 2013

.5 lb. Crystal 20 (specialty grain)

.5 lb. CaraPils (specialty grain)

.5 lb. Vienna Malt (specialty grain)

3.3 lb. Briess Pilsen Light LME

1 lb. Briess Pilsen DME

0.5 lb. Turbinado Sugar

1 oz. Simcoe (bittering @13.2 AA)

0.5 oz. Citra (flavor)

0.5 oz. Falconer’s Flight (flavor)

0.5 oz. Citra (aroma)

0.5 oz. Falconer’s Flight (aroma)

1 oz. Simcoe (dry hop)

1 tsp. Irish Moss

Wyeast 1056 – American Ale Yeast

Overall, pretty straightforward stuff here. The only major change is the hops. Citra seems very much in the vein of Simcoe, but it’s got a more fruity and less piney, woodsy feel to it. I also usually get a more herbal fruit out of it… nothing like a Euro-hop, but distinct from the grapefruit and pine character of Simcoe. Falconer’s Flight is actually a proprietary blend of numerous hops, including Amarillo, Citra, Simcoe, Sorachi Ace, and other Northwestern US hops, apparently even experimental hops not yet available by themselves. The idea of this blend is to approximate the flavor of the trendy hops in a blend featuring those same hops, but also less trendy (and thus more readily available) hops. Tired Hands has made a few beers featuring Falconer’s Flight recently, and they’re exceptional, so I’m thinking they’ll be a good fit here. Really excited to see how this will turn out.

Brought 2 gallons of water up to steeping temperature 150° F – 160° F in record time (less than 10 minutes), steeped the specialty grains for around 25 minutes or so, drained, sparged with another half gallon of water, added the malt extracts, put the lid on to bring to a boil. Again, this happened in record time, at which point I added 1 ounce of Simcoe and started the timer. Realize I forgot to add the Turbinado sugar, so do some quick calculations, add about half a pound in, throw the lid back on to get the boil going a little better. 45 minutes into the boil, add half an ounce each of Citra and Falconer’s Flight. I don’t have a scale or anything, so I’m doing this by sight, but it seems to be working out fine. Also throw in the irish moss at this time. Finally, with 5 minutes left to go, I add the aroma hops, which is again split between Citra and Falconer’s Flight.

Moved the pot to the ice bath to cool it off, brought it down to about 80° F, strained the wort (removing the hops) into the fermenter, and topped off with about a gallon of cold water, bringing the final temperature down below 70° (almost too low, actually, but still above 62°). This will produce slightly more than 2.5 gallons, but it’ll all work out for the best in the end.

Original Gravity: 1.070. A little higher than my last batch, but not by much (this makes sense, given the hot scotchie adventure I engaged in last time). I’m guessing this will still clock in around the 7% – 7.5% ABV range, perhaps on the higher end, which is fine by me.

Like I did last time, I’ll wait a week or so to let the primary fermentation stage end, then add the dry hops (1 ounce of Simcoe) for another week or so, at which point, I rack to the bottling bucket and bottle the suckers. I’m quite confident this batch will come out well.

After this one, I’m not sure what will be next. I’ve been toying with the idea of a hopped up imperial red ale, which could be a lot of fun (and would probably resemble the above recipe quite a bit, with some amber malt and maybe some other darker malts to balance things out). After that, I want to make a sessionable summer saison, similar to my last saison batch, if not quite as potent.

(Cross Posted on Kaedrin Weblog)

After three weeks in the fermenter, I finally bottled the Abbey Dubbel. Near as I can tell, the fermentation took off like a bat out of hell. Bubbles started appear in the airlock after just a couple hours, and less than a day into the process, I noticed this:

Yep, the yeast was so active that it took up all the headspace in the bucket and was infiltrating the airlock. Apparently this happens often in cases like this (high flocculation yeast with tons of sugar to feed on, as this is a big beer), sometimes even building up enough pressure to blow the lid off the fermentor (and spew yeast/beer all over the place). In an effort to forestall disaster, I removed the airlock and installed a blowoff tube. A couple days later, the fermentation had died down and I reinstalled the airlock for the remainder of the fermentation period. Things definitely slowed considerably after that initial week, to the point where I’m not sure the extra week was needed, but I figured better safe than sorry.

The beer ended up being a little darker than expected, but not at all out of character for the style. A dark amber color, actually very pretty when held up to the light (which you can’t really tell from the image above). It’s got that typical Belgian yeast aroma of spice and dark fruit, and the taste bears that out, though I think this could really use a healthy dollop of carbonation.

Final Gravity came in at around 1.014 or 1.015. If my calculations are correct, this has yielded somewhere on the order of 8.4% ABV – 8.7% ABV. Way bigger than I was going for (probably outside of style guidelines too), but not entirely unwelcome. Given an OG of 1.079, this works out to an 81.3% attenuation, which might be my record for highest attenuation on a batch (partially explaining the higher than expected ABV).

One other thing I tried when bottling the last few bottles: I added some cinnamon, clove, and pepper to the remaining beer in the bottling bucket and swished it around a bit. There wasn’t much left, but I wanted to see if that treatment would actually come through in the resulting beer, which could be a sorta faux Christmas ale if it works (though I’ll probably do another batch of that this year as well). I got about 6 bottles out of that (with a little more than a case and a half of the regular dubbel).

That just about wraps up this beer. All that’s left is the conditioning, after which we’ll sample on a weekly basis. I’ll try to ensure I review it in a timely fashion (unlike most of my other brews!) I’m really looking forward to this one! Up next, I’m thinking about going for a highly hopped Imperial Red. I’m having trouble finding recipes for this, so if you have any, feel free to drop a comment. After the Red, I’m looking at a couple other options. Maybe a barleywine or maybe another Christmas ale. And I need to make another batch of IPA at some point too. To many beers, not enough liver strength.

I think I’ve mentioned this style as a potential next batch after, well, most of my previous beers. Well, I’ve finally pulled the trigger. This one doesn’t come from a kit or even a clone recipe, though I did look at clones for St. Bernardus 8 and Ommegang Abbey Ale (two of my favorite dubbels). The real key resource was Brew Like a Monk, by Stan Hieronymus. Abbey Dubbels are generally dark beers, though that color comes more from dark sugars (usually candi syrup or rocks) than from roasty malts, meaning that these beers usually surprise folks who think they “don’t like dark beers.” The dubbel has Trappist origins, and they generally keep things simple. As such, what I ended up with wasn’t particularly complex from a recipe perspective. I don’t think I’ll be able to replicate Trappist attenuation rates (which reach into the mid or even high 80% range), but I’m better at temperature control than I used to be, so I guess we’ll see what happens. Here’s the recipe:

Beer #9: Abbey Dubbel

September 29, 2012

1 lb. Aromatic Malt (specialty grain)

0.5 lb. CaraMunich Malt (specialty grain)

0.5 lb. Special B (specialty grain)

7 lb. Briess Golden Light DME

1 lb. Dark Belgian Candi Syrup (90° L)

1.5 oz. Hallertauer (4.3% AA, bittering)

0.5 oz. Hallertauer (flavor)

1 oz. Saaz (aroma)

1 tsp. Irish Moss

Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity Yeast

Again, nothing super complex here. Trappists apparently don’t use quite as much in the way of specialty grains, but the ones I’m using are not uncommon (especially the Special B, which is a key component for a lot of commercial beers). I get the impression that they use more sugar as well, though they’re careful about additions and temperature control, something I have little control over. But for the most part, this seems like a solid, middle of the road recipe.

I started by bringing 2 gallons of water to around 150°F – 155°F, then I steeped the specialty grains for about 25-30 minutes. Removed grains, sparged with another gaollon of warm water, bringing the amount in the pot to around 3 gallons. Added all of the malt extract and candi syrup. This is the first time I used candi syrup, and I have to say, it’s much easier to work with than the typical candi “rocks”. After that, I covered and settled in for the boil, which took about 40 minutes (stupid electric stovetop). Once at boiling, I added the bittering hops and started the timer. The Hallertauer hops I got came in at a lower alpha acid percentage than I had planned on, so I had to do a little audible here and add an extra half ounce. Hopefully this will be enough… According to my little calculator thingy, this beer will come out at around 23 IBU, which should be plenty…

With 15 minutes remaining, I add the flavor hops and Irish moss. I had originally planned a full 1 ounce addition of Hallertauer here, but I had repurposed some of that for bittering, and from what I can tell, a lot of recipes eschew flavor hop additions entirely, so this should be fine. With 5 minutes remaining, I hadd the Saaz aroma hops. When finished, I plop the pot in my little ice bath, and wait for the temperature to get down to the 80°-90° range. Strained the wort into the bucket, and topped off with about 2 gallons of cold water (bringing the temperature down to a more appropriate 70° or so).

For the yeast, I went with Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity Yeast (packaged 8/28/12), which is apparently derived from the Westmalle strain (and since they make some of my favorite Trappist beers, I think that’ll work for me). This yeast also has a high attenuation range and is apparently more tolerant of higher temperatures (ideal range 64°-78°). Since it’s fall, temperatures are dropping, but the ambient temperature inside my house is still around 70°-75°, so I wanted to make sure the yeast would tolerate that. I’ve managed to keep the ambient temperature on the lower end of that range for the start, so here’s to hoping things go well.

Original Gravity: 1.079 (around 19°Bx). Yeah, so this came in a little higher than I was going for (which was 1.076), but I don’t think it’s a major cause for concern. The target ABV is now around 7.6% (assuming around 75% attenuation), though that could easily grow to be around 8% if I get more attenuation out of the yeast. My only real concern here is that I have enough bittering hops, though this is a malty style, so I think I should be fine.

I plan to bottle in 3 weeks time (could probably go shorter, but I want to make sure the attenuation maxes out here, and my previous experience with Belgian yeast makes me want to make sure I don’t bottle too early). I’m not sure what will be next in my brewing adventures. I’ve been thinking about some sort of highly hopped imperial red ale, but I’m also considering a big ol’ American Barleywine (perhaps finally getting myself a secondary fermenter and doing some bourbon oak aging). I’m also out of the IPA I made last year, and I’m definitely going to make more of that stuff at some point. And I’m not sure what I want to do about a Christmas beer this year either. Should I replicate last year’s recipe (which was perfect)? Or try something new? So many beers, so little time! Stay tuned.

(Cross posted on Kaedrin Weblog)