Sandbox Brewing

Brewed:  May 7, 2017
Bottled:  May 29, 2017
OG: 1.062
IBU:  63
FG:  1.008
ABV:  7%

One of my earliest homebrews was a hoppy pale ale brewed with an old colleague. We called it PACMAN not because it used the Pacman yeast, but rather it was an acronym:  Pale Ale malt, Citra Mosaic and Amarillo hops, and Northwest ale yeast.  It was pretty darn tasty.

Two years later, we’ve re-brewed but meddled with the acronym. We didn’t used the Northwest ale yeast, which has left the N without meaning. However, we did use Imperial’s “Joystick” yeast which is, as I understand it, the Pacman strain. We also substituted Azacca in place of Amarillo. The grist isn’t all pale malt either… but we didn’t stick to that the first time either.

Two new things for me this brew: a cereal mash for the oats, and use of hop extract for bittering.  Otherwise, standard brew on the Grainfather system.

Grist (5.5 gals):  

75%  Maris Otter  (9 lbs)
20%  Vienna malt  (2.40 lbs)
5%   Flaked oat  (0.60 lbs)

Hopping:

30 AAU of 61.1% AA extract at 60 minutes
0.75 oz of Azacca at 30 minutes
0.5 oz of Citra + 0.5 oz of Mosaic at 10 minutes
Whirlpool 20m at 180-190F: 1.5 oz Citra, 2 oz Mosaic, 1 oz Azacca

Fermentation:  Imperial Joystick.  60F pitch temp, 65F @ 12h, 68F @ 24h – 96h

Brew Day Notes: 

Brewed on the Grainfather with Sean, on the patio. Started at 10am. Mashed in at 150F and boiled the oats on the stove-top during the first 15 minutes. Had warmed 4.8 gal in the GF, then pulled about 3 qts for the oats. After simmering the oats into a thick porridge (about 6-8 mins boiling), added back to the mash and started the recirculation. After 45 mins, upped temp to 156F.  After another 15m, mashed out at 170F.  Sparged with 3 gals of water at 170F, with 3/4 tsp of CaCl added. Pretty slow sparge. Pre-boil gravity of 1.054. Boil was pretty good despite cooler temps outside, recirculated for a bit before knocking temp down to 190F and adding whirlpool hops. Collected almost 5.5 gallons of 1.062 wort at 59F and pitched the can of yeast after 30 seconds of pure O2.

Tasting Notes:

May 29, 2017 – Gravity sample on bottling day. Great citrus aroma and flavour with balanced but assertive bitterness.  Grapefruit, melon, pineapple. Light malt body.

June 19, 2017 – This beer turned out well. Good haze as desired, though the colour has turned murky with time (expectedly due to O2 pickup from bottle conditioning). Strong bitterness and quite dry – not too much so, but getting close. Hop aroma and flavour are great, perhaps a little oxidized but they power through quite well.

Brewed:  Mar 5, 2017

OG:  1.079    IBU:  21

Sadly, this batch was dumped due to unfriendly growth on the surface of the conditioning beer.

Two years ago I brewed what was supposed to be a “Winter Ale” for distributing to friends before the holidays. It was a strong oatmeal stout with cinnamon, vanilla, and dark rum-soaked oak. It sounded great but unfortunately some uninvited bugs took hold and ruined the batch. For 2017 I’m brewing a holiday ale where a greater diversity of bugs are invited. Inspired by such beers as Stille Nacht Reserva (though making no claim to be in the same realm of deliciousness), this is essentially a bière de garde fortified with dark sugar and aged with brett C and port oak.

For a 5.0 gal batch size:

10.50 lb   Bohemian Pilsner

2.25 lb  Munich II malt (9L)

0.75 lb  Dark candi syrup (D90)

0.50 lb  Amber candi syrup (D45)

0.50 lb  Caramunich II

0.50 lb  Flaked wheat

Hopping:  0.5 oz Nugget @ 90 mins (22 AAU)

Fermentation:  Primary for 7 – 10 days with Imperial B51 – Workhorse.  Secondary ~6 mo. with Brett C, 1 cup port, 1/4 cup boiled French oak.

Brew Day Notes:  Mashed in a 144F and used low-watt element to raise to 154F over about 20 minutes.  Held at 154F for 40 more minutes, mashed out at 170F for 10 minutes.  5.4 gals mash water in Grainfather, 2.5 gals sparge water heated on stove to 170F. 3/4 tsp of calcium chloride and 1/2 tsp of gypsum added to sparge water. Boiled 90 minutes, good boil. Added whirfloc at 15m, sugar shortly after. Collected 5.1 gallons of 1.079 wort at 59F into the 7-gal Brew Bucket which had the biere de garde yeast cake still in place.

Mar 18, 2017 – Down to 1.015 in primary. Deep amber in colour. Red fruit on the nose along with just a touch of Belgian yeast character. Tastes great, lots of red fruit and caramel / dark sugar character.

Apr 17, 2017 – A hint of pellicle starting to form in secondary. Oh, this was transferred March 27th for the record. Filled a 3-gallon carboy plus two 1-gallons, one of which is only about 2/3’s full.

May 20, 2017 – First sample. Down to 1.013 so far. Aroma is starting to pick up that red fruit skin character from the Brett C. Taste is red fruit with a hint of caramel, and a tartness from the yeast. Has a bit of a red wine character. Not much funk. Not particularly sweet nor dry at present.

May 27, 2017 – Found that the main carboy (not the 1-gallon sampled from above) had some very questionable growth around each of the white nuclei that had formed on the surface of the beer. These growths were green in colour, so the batch was dumped.

Beer Name:  Aurora      Beer Style:  American Strong Ale

OG: 1.081   FG: 1.015    IBU:  80    ABV:  8.7%

Brewed:   Feb 5, 2017    Bottled:  Feb 21, 2017

Aurora is a beer I’ve been planning for a long time, drawing inspiration from both the American barleywine and the imperial IPA. At one point it was going to be a triple IPA but instead I’ve decided to use Hair of the Dog’s Fred as the basis, but increase the late hopping. This batch is weaker than intended due to an error of using the transferred volume rather than the kettle volume when sorting the grain weights, plus I ended up with more volume than intended. Whoops. As you will see below, no less than twelve different hop varieties are used, besting even Fred’s ten. This will probably be reduced in future batches but this was a freezer-cleaning exercise as well.

Beer Details (2.5 gal batch size):   

8.00 lbs   Bohemian Pilsner   [86%]

0.80 lbs   Flaked rye  [8.6%]

0.50 lbs   Amber candi sugar   [5.4%]

0.25 oz Nugget @ 90m

0.25 oz Centennial @ 45m

0.25 oz Simcoe, 0.25 oz Columbus @ 20m

0.25 oz Mosaic, 0.25 oz Motueka, 0.25 oz Nelson @ 10m

0.5 oz Citra, 0.5 oz Azacca, 0.5 oz Galaxy, 0.25 oz Willamette, 0.25 oz Cascade @ flame-out

WYeast 1728 pitched @ 62F, let rise to 66-68F.  Approx 250B cells from previous brew (second gen).

Dry hop: 2 oz Mosaic, 2.5 oz Citra, 1 oz Motueka (4 days)

Brew Day Notes: 

Mashed in about 3.7 gallons for 60 minutes @ 153-155 F on the Grainfather. Stirred flaked rye into main mash without cereal mash (thought about that one too late).  Mash-out at 170F for 10 minutes, added about 1.6 gallons sparge water at 170F. Drained a little slower than usual but pretty well. Pre-boil gravity 1.055, about 4.2 gallons. Boiled for about 40 minutes before first hop addition. Added hop spider just before adding 20m additions, added remainder of hops to spider. Added sugar at 15 min. Recirculated hot wort from 10 min additions onward, turned on cooling water to counterflow right after adding 0m addition. Chilled through reciruclation to 195F then started transfer to 3.5 gal Brew Bucket. Flow was strong, transfer done in 10 – 15 min. Collected 2.6 or 2.7 gallons and left more than usual behind (0.5 gal?) which is a large part of why the OG was well below target – grain weights were calculated at 2.5 gallons but should have been 3.0 gallons. Collected wort was cold, probably about 62F, no temp probe used. Hit with 30 seconds of pure O2, then added jar of partially warmed yeast.

Activity start around 19-20h, liquid temp 65F.  Held at 68F for first 12-14h of vigorous fermentation, then dropped to 64F for 8h (due to drop in ambient overnight) until going back up to 68F.

[Feb 13, 2017] – Week in primary, down to 1.016. Strong bubblegum aroma, pretty clean flavours already. Bitterness is assertive but balanced.

[Feb 18, 2017] – Dry hopped with 2 oz Mosaic, 2.5 oz Citra, 1 oz Motueka. Went with a massive dry hop due to inventory.

[Feb 21, 2017] – Bottled with 1.3 oz of dextrose. Only got 1.75 gals out of the fermentor before I started pulling hop sludge. Got about 2-3 seconds of sludge running into the bottling bucket before I caught it, unfortunately.  Let it settle for a bit but the hop sludge was mixed in well / sitting on top too. Ah well. Smell was amazing, lots of ripe fruit and bubble gum.

Tasting Notes

[Mar 3, 2017] – Still a bit before the 2-week rule but it’s perfectly carbed. And exceeding expectation. HUGELY dank both on aroma and flavour. Very full body from the flaked rye, presumably, and nice amount of residual sweetness. Massive hop character; my decision to up the whirlpool and dry hop additions most certainly did result in an imperial IPA with almost no relation to the American barleywine it was supposed to also emulate.

[Apr 14, 2017] – Well the hop character is starting to fade now, but it’s still plenty hoppy. Body is nice and rich without being too malty or sweet, hop character is quite dank still but complex without being too muddled. This will be a freezer-cleaner beer I do again.

[June 9, 2017] – Last bottle. The carbonation increased over time to the point it diminished the body and caused some gushing. Likely this was due to slow further attenuation as opposed to an infection.  Also the hop matter which was transferred to bottles was a little excessive, and resulted in some grassy flavours in the aged beer. However, despite this the malt character proved to be quite pleasant and increasingly so as the beer aged. Another batch will be brewed in the future with less finishing and dry hopping to reach a more balanced character, and better process to deal with the hops. Also, some conditioning time in secondary may be worthwhile on a beer this strong.

Brew Date:  Feb 19th, 2017      Bottle Date: Apr 17, 2017 [Clean]   Sep 9, 2017 [Mixed ferm]

OG: 1.066    FG: 1.005    ABV: 8.0%    IBU: 25    SRM: 10-12

Bière de Garde is a challenging style to brew to me because it needs to be exemplary in order to be interesting. It’s a very middle-of-the-road beer in many respects, especially with the clean fermentation profile of modern versions. Despite this, since it is a traditional farmhouse ale I can’t help but want to continue to explore the style. This brew builds upon some of the things I’ve learned with my first two bière de gardes in terms of grist, and I am trying out Imperial Yeast’s B51 “Workhorse” strain, which is a particularly neutral Belgian strain. I asked Imperial about its suitability to a BdG if fermented in the low end of the temperature range and was assured it makes good sense to use.

The target with this grist is bready complexity while keeping malt sweetness restrained and allowing the beer to attenuate to a dry finish. Some will be bottled after primary as a more modern interpretation of the style while just under 3 gallons will be conditioned with brett brux for a more rustic, and perhaps more historic flavour profile.  I dropped the OG a little on this batch due to the superattenuation expected from the brettanomyces fermentation.

Brew Details (4.5 gallon batch):

6.50 lbs Bohemian Pilsner [52.8%]

2.75 lbs Vienna [22.3%]

1.00 lbs Munich 9L [8.1%]

1.00 lbs Dextrose [8.1%]

0.50 lbs Flaked wheat [4.0%]

0.50 lbs Caramunich II [4.0%]

0.06 lbs Carafa II [0.5%]

1.25 oz Tettnanger @ 90 mins [18 AAU]

0.75 oz Tettnanger @ 20 mins [7 AAU]

Fermentation: Imperial B51 ‘Workhorse’ at 66F for 5 days, then let rise to 72F

Other: 1 tsp CaCl, 1/2 tsp Gypsum added to sparge water.

Brew Day Notes:  Mashed in at 11:30am. Mashing at 145F for 25 minutes, then using the lower-wattage element on the Grainfather to slowly ramp up: 20 minutes at 150F, 20 minutes at 153F, 20 minutes at 156F, and finally mash out at 170F for 15. Used a pretty stiff mash : 4 gals in the GF, and a touch under 4 gal sparge water heated on the stovetop. Stiffer mash resulted in noticeably slower sparge drain, though steady and probably better for extraction. Boiled 120 minutes. Added last hop addition & sugar about 10m before starting chiller recirculation to sanitize. Collected 4.9 or so gallons of 1.066 wort at 58F, hit with 35 seconds of pure O2, and pitched a can of Imperial B51. Put in a cool corner of the bedroom to naturally rise to around 66-68F.  [24h update] fermenting strong at 67F liquid temp now.  Was 62F at 12h in.

[Mar 3, 2017]  Gravity sample, down to 1.013. Expected a few points lower at this point. It’s perhaps a shade lighter than my lighter than my last bière de garde but good colour. Aroma is quite different than previous attempts – like a strong Czech pilsner kind of aroma. Pleasant actually, though unexpected. Tastes kind of like a maltier pilsner as well. Nice dry and bready malt character, not coming across sweet despite the gravity. It’s not what I expected at this stage, but I am quite optimistic it’s going to be good.

[Mar 5, 2017]  Transferred 2.5 gals to glass carboy and pitched WLP 650 – Brett Brux. Remainder transferred to SS secondary to condition clean for a little while before bottling.

[Apr 17, 2017]  Bottled the clean portion at 1.005.  Great clarity, taste is clean with toasty malt. Bottled 1.65 gallons with 1.6 oz of corn sugar.

[May 8, 2017]  Bottle of the clean version. Carbonation is low to medium. Colour is darker than target, more brown than amber. More importantly, the flavour is much moreso in line with a brown version of the style vs. amber. The carafa addition seems to have also added a nuttiness, not quite roasty but certainly a dark malt character to the beer. A bit more caramel than previous batches as well. Still quite dry, all good there. The change to the Imperial yeast has added a bit more spice but is fairly neutral.

Brewed:  Jan 22, 2017    Bottled:  Feb 15, 2017

OG:  1.044     IBU: 22     FG: 1.005   ABV: 5.1%

[May 17, 2017 Update]  This beer won gold at the 2017 Vanbrewer Awards in Belgian strong ale category! Very happy with that! 

I’ve been particularly interested in focusing on farmhouse style beers since I started homebrewing, but in the past few months my interest in crafting the best saison I can has continued to increase. It’s fueled partly by the fact that BC could really use a brewery that focuses on farmhouse styles and does them well (Dageraad is closest to the mark with their Belgian focus), so of course I have a pipe-dream of opening said brewery.

This is a recipe that would serve as the primary mainstay beer in this imaginary brewery, which I plan to tinker with and re-brew throughout 2017. It should be dry with lots of citrus-fruit esters and balanced phenols. It will be quite pale but with some subtle grain complexity, and the hop character should be up-front but not overbearing with citrus and white wine characters and a little bit of spice. I have debated how bitter the beer should be, but based on some notable commercial examples I have decided this beer shall be on the low end of bitterness for the style. Brettanomyces will be introduced to this beer in a later batch but for now I am opting for a clean fermentation with Imperial Yeast’s B56 “Rustic” strain which is comparable to the WY3726PC strain I have wanted to get my hands on for some time.

The following is for a 5-gallon batch, brewed on the Grainfather system (70-72% efficiency)

Grist:

75%   Bohemian Pilsner malt  (7.5 lb)
10%   Vienna malt  (1.0 lb)
8%    Flaked wheat  (0.8lb)
5%   Dextrose  (0.5 lb)
2%   Acid malt (0.2 lb)

Hopping Schedule:

0.25 oz  Nelson Sauvin @ 60 min (11 AAU)
0.50 oz Motueka @ 15 min (11 AAU)
1.00 oz Motueka, 0.25 oz Nelson, 0.5 oz Willamette @ flame-out

Fermentation:

Imperial Organic Yeast – B56 Rustic   Fermented at 72F

Mash Schedule:

45 minutes at 146F
20 minutes at 152F
20 minutes at 157F
Mash-out at 170F

Brew Day Notes:

Brewed Sunday, Jan 22 2017.  Brewed on the Grainfather. 4.25 gallons of mash water with 1/2 tsp of Gypsum added. Sparged with 4.25 gallons of 169F water heated on the stove-top with 1/2 – 3/4 tsp of CaCl added. Boiled 145 minutes, first hops added at 75 minutes. Topped up the Pommebic 3-gal glass carboy with about 0.4 gals, topped up the petite saison with about 0.7 gals. At this point added the whirlpool hops (202F) and let stand for 10 minutes. Remainder into the 7-gallon Brew Bucket. Collected almost exactly 5 gallons. Pitched B-56 yeast at around 78F, moved bucket to cool spot in the bedroom (ambient about 67F).

Fermentation picked up around 7-8 hours in and was very active at 10 hrs. At 16 hrs wort temp was 72F. Settled down to 68F after 4 days, moved to warmer room to finish out.

Tasting Notes:

Jan 28, 2017 – A week in, SG down to 1.009. Huge bubblegum nose with berries. Strange tingly sensation that I can’t quite figure out. Not a lot of phenolics but the esters are heavy on the berry fruit side. Interested to see where this goes!

Feb 15, 2017 – Bottled today. SG down to 1.005, nose is really peppery but flavour is much more balanced with mild spice, gooseberry, and lemon-water.

Feb 25, 2017 – Popped open a low-fill bottle to see how carb’s doing. Decent carb, and tastes great. Yeast character is shining right now – citrus and stone fruit in equal measure, nice and dry with a moderate spice of clove and pepper. It’s still young so we’ll see where it goes but very happy thus far.

May 7, 2017 – A sulphur note cropped up around 3-4 weeks in bottle and is still there presently. It does dissipate though, and underneath is quite a nice beer. Not a ton of malt character – might up the vienna next go, or switch to floor malted pilsner. Hop profile is gentle but nice, could use some tweaking. Yeast is only a little spicy with fruity esters most prominent.

June 10, 2017 – That sulphur note has since disappeared. Those fruity esters and hop character have dropped but a nice dry soft mineral character has picked up. Drinking nicely. Dead clear at this point as well.

Brewed:  Dec 29, 2016     OG: 1.029    FG: 1.007    ABV: 2.9%    IBU: 25

Bottled:  Jan 21, 2017

I wouldn’t say the Polish are known for their alcoholic beverages, but I’m a sucker for an unusual beer style. I found out I could get a 10 lb bag of Weyermann’s oak smoked wheat and so I did. Six pounds of this bag is making this beer, a traditional Polish wheat beer of low alcohol and high carbonation. Typical examples would be in the 3 – 3.5% ABV range. I feel that the American tendency to up the ABV on classic beers would do a disservice to this beer due to the potentially overly-powerful character of the oak fire-dried malt. This is evident by the malt’s aroma, as it has a very savoury and unique smoke character. The remainder of the bag is being saved for a wheat wine.

The recipe is simple:

100%     Oak-smoked wheat malt (Weyermann)    6.0 lbs

1.5 oz     Tettnang @ 90 mins  (21 AAU)

0.5 oz    Tettnang @ 15 mins  (4 AAU)

Water treatment:

1 tsp CaCl

1 tsp CaCO3

1.5 tsp Gypsum

The mash was longer than usual due to longer acid and protein rests: 20 minutes at 100F, 35 minutes at 125F, then 45 minutes at 158F and a 168F mash-out.  I should note I added 8oz of rice hulls which turned out to be more than enough–sparge went quickly. The boil was 120 minutes as recommended by literature I’ve read and the wort was chilled to a cool 62F and innoculated with WYeast’s Scottish ale strain (1728) for its neutral flavour and high flocculation. Fermentation took place in the wine fridge set to 58F ambient. Activity started around the 18h mark.

Tasting Notes

Jan 11, 2017 – Gravity sample at 2wks. 1.010 now, putting it at a measly 2.5% ABV and only 65% attenuation, which is surprising. I’ll give it another week but perhaps I’m just looking at a low attenuation with the all-wheat grist, which frankly would be great for a beer this small. I took a taste sample at around 1 week and it was honestly quite terrible. But now that I’ve given things a little more time, I am starting to see that it will round out into something better.  It definitely has a smoked ham character that is not what I’d consider classically enjoyable. But it’s got interesting smoke complexity and it’s not overbearing thanks to the low gravity.

Jan 18, 2017 – Down to 1.007, and cleared up nicely. Still tastes like ham, though the beer is very light thanks to the low gravity. I think with some carbonation this’ll be something I can drink, but I still doubt I’d ever want to use oak smoked wheat again.  I still have 4 lbs I intended to brew a savoury wheatwine with, but have shelved that idea.

Brewed:  Dec 28, 2016

This was another brew day where one mash was used to produce two beers, though quite different from my farmhouse parti-gyle brew day. In this case, I made a 4-gallon batch of 1.045 OG where I drew off 2.5 gallons to ferment with the yeast & bacteria from my wild cider, then diluted the remainder to produce 2.5 gallons of low-OG saison fermented with White Labs’ 568 Belgian saison blend.  The mash itself was a turbid mash with wort removed after the 125F rest, as well as shortly into the saccharification rest and boiled separately on the stove top.  In the wild ale this will hopefully encourage a wider variety of organisms to flourish, while in the petite saison this will hopefully encourage a lower attenuation and more flavourful and full-bodied beer.

The common mash consisted of:

5 lbs Bohemian Pilsner malt (71.4%)

1 lb Wheat malt (14.3%)

1 lb Flaked wheat (14.3%)

The process, hopping, and fermentation are detailed below.

Brew Day Notes:

Started the mash with only 7L of water in the Grainfather, 1L per pound grain. Even though this is slightly higher water ratio than typical of this style mash, due to the false bottom of the grain jacket sitting about 3″ above the bottom of the kettle there isn’t much water available to the grain. Strike temp 117F for dough-in. Started heating 4 gallons of 190F sparge water for various steps along the way. Added 0.75 tsp of both CaCl and Gypsum to this sparge water.

Pulled 1.3L of milky wort after raising the temp to 125F and letting stand for about 20 minutes. Brought to 190F on the stove-top. Added about 2.5 gallons of 180F water to mash and set recirculation up with set temperature of 158F.  Left 45 minutes.  At the 15 minute mark, another ~0.8L of murky wort was pulled and brought near-boil on the stovetop. The remainder left to fully convert.

Mash-out and sparge were performed at 175F.  I didn’t want to go lambic-level hot on the sparge as the petite saison will be consumed young. Once boil was achieved I added about 0.3 oz of Willamette with 3.6% AA, for around 5 IBU of bittering. Pre-boil SG was 1.036.  I pulled the Pomebic portion after 95 minutes of boiling via the counterflow chiller. OG on this was 1.045. The rest was then diluted with boiling water from the stove-top to a SG of 1.030 and hopped with 0.15 oz of Azacca and 0.55 oz of Willamette. It was then boiled 30 minutes, then flame-out hopped with 0.75 oz Azacca and 1.00 oz Willamette and chilled into the Ss Brewtech 3.5 gallon fermentor.  OG of the petite saison going into the fermentor was 1.035, a bit higher than target. Collected about 2.3 gallons, slightly under target volume.

Pomebic:

OG: 1.045

IBU: 5

Fermentation:  Wild apple yeasts, fermentation start 67F, free rise to 73F.  US-05 added at day 5 due to no significant CO2 production. Dregs from Four Winds Pomona added at 2 wks. Dregs from Strange Fellows / Modern Times ‘Strange Times’ added at 4 wks after transfer to secondary & top-up with fresh saison wort. Pellicle formed around 8 wks.

The beer was allowed to condition for 13 months before 800g of Orange Blossom honey was added. After an additional 6 or so months, it was bottled (Sept 9, 2018). At this time it had a nice acidity with mead-like and stone fruit flavours.

Petite Saison (a.k.a. PS30):  

OG: 1.037    FG:  1.003

IBU: 31

Fermentation: WLP568, start at 65F free rise to 73F. Transferred to secondary with about 25% fresh 1.044 wort at 4 weeks and pitched with starter culture from SF/MT collab ‘Strange Times’.

Tasting Notes

Jan 11, 2017 – Gravity sample on the petite saison. Two things surprised me:  the beer is nearly crystal clear, and attenuation was not hindered by the turbid mash. 1.002 at present, or 94% AA. Well it was a good idea in theory, going to need to work on my process there. Also some rather pungent byproducts in the aroma right now – sulphur seems to be a component, but not everything.  Has dissipated now as I write this. Flavour is quite pleasant, grainy and stone fruit with very limited phenols.

Jan 18, 2017 – Still a prominent odour on the petite saison. Foot mixed with sulphur, or something. It does dissipate after a while and the flavour is nice once past that. The plan was to bottle this imminently but with these volatiles in there I am debating two options: transfer to glass and let it condition for longer (and maybe pitch some brett), or bottle it with a brett addition and hope that takes care of the phenols.

Jan 22, 2017 – Transferring Pommebic to secondary.  Still at 1.010, fermented down with US-05. Very nectarine/peach forward fruitiness on the nose. Smells sour, but acidity on the palate is quite minimal at this point. Clean and fruity taste, could be good with time. Topping up with fresh wort from Saison Dorée brew day.  Also, transferred petite saison to secondary where it will receive a mixed Brettanomyces pitch.

Jan 26, 2017 – Pitched a healthy brett-forward starter during high activity which went to work almost immediately on each carboy. Steady bubbles (15-20 min) for a few days. Both carboys developed some krausen again after the top-ups after 2-3 days.

Mar 2, 2017 – Bottled the petite saison. Already showing plenty of character from the secondary pitch, and a pellicle was just starting to form before draining the carboy – sorry beer, but I need that carboy! Bottled at 1.003 with 2.0 oz sugar and 2.6 gallons bottled.  Expecting that it might further attenuate over time, hence bottling at a slightly lower CO2 volume.

Mar 22, 2017 – Drinking the first bottle of the petite saison. Strong apple skin character along with some stone fruit and funky hay. Pretty nice, a little overly cidery but quite drinkable stuff.

June 6, 2017 – Petite Saison (PS30) is developing more of a lemon/apricot character which is pleasant. Carbonation is a little too low to support the low gravity, and thus it comes across a bit watery. Apple character is still there but more balanced now.

June 27, 2017 – Primary pull on Pomebic. SG down to 1.006. Aroma is fruity sour candy, quite lovely. Taste is surprisingly funky given the lack of funk on the nose, similar to a funky cider. Not overly cidery otherwise. Lacks intensity overall but coming along nicely. Will check in a couple months to see if gravity has stabilized.

Nov 26, 2018 – bottle of the Pomebic. Nearly two years since brew date but only a couple months in bottle, this opened with a burst of sulphur but dissipated very quickly, as did the head. After than the nose was pleasantly floral with a bit of underripe stone fruit.  Tastes shows a little funkiness in there but overall it’s lightly acidic and floral.

Feb 4, 2019 – Pomebic has seemingly broken down that sulphur issue with a little more time in bottle. Head retention was a bit better than the previous bottle (see above photo), though it did reduce to trace lacing after maybe 30 – 60 seconds. Bright acidity is on the high end but not out of balance, and it does have great floral complexity.

Brewed: Dec 3, 2016
Bottled: Dec 26, 2016
OG: 1.060   FG: 1.002
IBU: 40

Today was supposed to be my Grodziskie brew day, but the oak smoked wheat did not show up when it was supposed to, so I bought the grist I had in mind for a third attempt at a biere de garde instead. The second batch of biere de garde turned out quite well, and was actually well received at a BJCP training session on the style, but I wanted to try a version with a higher proportion of pilsner malt and just a small amount of very dark malt to see how that compares.

However, not finding the yeast I wanted easily and the fact I was going to be bottling two beers at the same time made me realize it would be efficient and economical to use one (or a mix) of the yeast cakes. I decided to go with the WYeast 3711 cake, as WLP550 is showing different esters than I’m looking for. I looked at the grist I had bought and realized it should make a pretty good, slightly darker and maltier saison base.  It was designed to be dry and toasty rather than caramel or fruity, so it should work well.  I added some dextrose to further dry it out and allow me to brew a slightly larger batch size than I planned with the biere de garde.

The recipe is as follows, for a 3.3 gallon batch (approx 72% efficiency):

5.04 lb Bohemian Pilsner malt  
1.05 lb Munich 10L malt
0.56 lb  Flaked wheat
0.35 lb  Dextrose
0.06 lb  Victory malt
0.05 lb  Carafa II (de-husked)

0.5 oz Apollo (13.6% AA) at 90 minutes (~37 IBU)
1.0 oz Styrian Goldings (3.9% AA) at 10 minutes (~5 IBU)

Fermented with WY3711 (pitched onto fresh yeast cake from table saison brew) at 65-67F ambient to try to keep things cool, though with the knowledge that 3711 will give similar character regardless.

Tasting Notes: 

Dec 26, 2016 – Bottled. Checked FG from the bottling bucket and even with the priming sugar it read 1.002. 3711 sure is a beast. Tastes good – bitterness is assertive enough to balance the darker malts without overpowering.

Jan 8, 2017 – First bottle.  Carb is about right. Both aroma and taste is very bready with plummy fruit flavours as well. The spice from the French saison yeast is there but not as dominant as in more pale recipes. Bit heavy on the back end but I think that’s likely due to the beer’s youth at this point. Looking forward to seeing how this ages.

June 19, 2017 – This beer developed nicely, not particularly interesting but very dry, and the malt character is pleasantly bready with a little bit of red fruit peeking through. While the use of WY3711 definitely balanced the malt with great dryness, it also limited the expression of the beer.

Parti-gyle Brew:  Euka and Zoa

Date Brewed: Nov 19, 2016

This was my first foray into parti-gyle brewing. The common grist is being used to product a brett saison with the higher gravity portion and a Belgian table ale with the lower gravity portion. Performed on the Grainfather, I drew off first runnings after only a small fraction of the sparge water had been run through the grain bed into a separate pot and boiled that on the stove-top. Then I used the remainder of the sparge water to fill the Grainfather with enough runnings for the small beer. Full details of the process are below.

The common grist:  

74%  Bohemian Pilsner malt (9.25 lb)

12%  Wheat malt (1.5 lb)

8%  Flaked wheat (1 lb)

4%  Munich II malt (0.5 lb)

2%  Acidulated malt (0.25 lb)

Hopping:

Willamette (details forthcoming)

Zoa Details:   OG: 1.035  FG: 1.002  IBU: 32  ABV: 4.3%   90% WY3711, 10% WLP550

Euka Details:   OG: 1.058  FG: 1.000  IBU: 30  ABV: 7.6%   75% WLP550, 25% WY3711, Yeast Bay Lochristi secondary 4 months

The mash was carried out at 155F in order to try to keep some residual sugar in the wort. This will help the grisette keep some body and flavour, and will help the saison keep some food for the brett to eat over the next 6 months.

Brew Day Notes

Mash started at 11:45am at 155F, 5.5 gallons. Using Grainfather, so just set temp to 155 and let it adjust after grain was stirred in.  Dipped to 151F during start of recirculation but bounced back within 5 minutes. Checked gravity at 12:40pm, 1.056 at 112F (1.o65 corrected).  Higher than I expected but I don’t really know what I’m going to get on sparge.  Minus grain absorption, expecting 4 gallons at this gravity. Mashed out at 170F for 10-15 minutes. Realized I hadn’t heated sparge water, oops! 4.5 gallons sparge water heated until it was north of 160F.

Before sparging, pulled just under 3 gallons into secondary kettle. A bit more than I expect to be needed but I can blend them to be closer in gravity, not farther. Got that heating on the stove top while sparging with 4.5 gallons into the Grainfather. Once the grain was drained I had about 5 gallons in the GF, so I pulled about 0.6 gallons from the stove-top boil (now boiling) and replenished about 0.4 gal of that with water. I didn’t check final pre-boil gravities after this change, but stove-top was 1.062 and GF was 1.029 before the adjustment.

Boil started at 1:55pm on the stove-top (big beer) and 2:10pm on the Grainfather (small beer). Added 90m addition of 0.33oz Willamette to big beer and 0.66oz Willamette to small beer. Targeting about 25 IBU on the big beer so the Lochristi characteristics will shine, and 30 IBU on the small beer. Boil was quite vigorous on both kettles. Added second hop addition at 3:35pm with the intention that it will boil about 30 minutes in the big beer and 10 minutes in the small beer – since the stove-top will keep boiling while I chill and transfer the small beer from the Grainfather.

Circulated the wort chiller for 10 minutes without cooling water to sterilize, then chilled. Transferred to fermentor at appoximately 65F. Collected 4.3 gallons of 1.039 wort – a bit low on volume and high on SG. Topped up to 5 gallons with boiled and cooled water. Transferred the big beer to the GF afterwards (after removing a couple scoops of hop residue) and hit the chiller again. The ~120 minute vigorous boil reduced volume a lot more than expected, and gravity was very high as a result. Collected a measly 1.8 gallons at a huge 1.080 SG. Topped up with boiled and cooled water to 2.5 gallons.

I then hit both Brew Buckets with 30 seconds of pure O2 each, and then proceeded to make the biggest bone-head move possible – I pitched the White Labs Belgian ale yeast into the 3 gallon Brew Bucket instead of the French Saison yeast it was supposed to get. Well… guess I am putting the 3711 into the small beer. So the final beers are not going to be what I originally envisioned. I quickly re-tooled my plan, and I think I’ll transfer a blend of each to the glass carboy I plan to pitch the Lochristi blend into. Likely it will be the full volume of the Belgian ale (which will be around 7% I think) and top up with the table saison. The table saison is going to be a different character than I wanted since it’s now going to have the spicy character of the 3711 but hopefully it’ll be good.

So in the end I have 5 gallons of 1.034 wort being fermented by WY3711 and 2.5 gallons of 1.058 wort being fermented by WLP550. The decision of what goes into the 3-gallon glass carboy for a Lochristi brett secondary will be decided post-fermentation.

Photos

Mashing in with flaked oats in the mix.

The wort after 5 minutes or so of re-circulation. Starchy and cloudy.

The wort after about 45 minutes of re-circulation, very clear.

Transferring first runnings to a secondary kettle for the ‘big beer’ portion.

Clearing some trub out before transferring the stove-top boiled beer to the freshly emptied Grainfather so I can run it through the chiller.

Tasting / Fermentation Notes:

[24hr update] The wort for each was chilled to about 65F and allowed to free rise to 72F (room temp) ambient. The WLP550 took off after 10 hours and has been bubbling feverishly up to now (24h).  The 3711 was not too far behind, getting going quick but not picking up the pace until about 15-16 hours in. It hasn’t hit the intensity of the 550, but is bubbling plenty steadily (60+ bubbles per min, whereas the WLP550 is easily 100+).

Furthermore:  WLP550 actually started to blow off slightly on day 2/3 despite a full gallon of headspace on 2.5 gallons of wort. Pretty serious stuff.

Dec 3, 2016 – Racked a blend of 75% Euka (the stronger, Belgian ale) and 25% Zoa (table saison) into a 3-gallon glass carboy and pitched The Yeast Bay’s Lochristi brett blend.  Bottled the remainder (about 3 gallons, with about half a gallon being the stronger Belgian ale) into 18 x 750mL bottles with 3.4 oz corn sugar.  The table saison finished at 1.002 and the Belgian ale at 1.010.  The table saison tasted nice but very weak, as expected. The Belgian ale is highly phenolic with spice on the finish and a bit of banana, oddly. We’ll see how that one ages out.

Dec 18, 2016 – Drank a bottle of the table saison blend.  It is quite surprising how much the character of the Belgian ale comes through, despite being by far the smaller component.  Much more full-bodied than expected as well, considering it is only about 4%. Lots of Belgian esters and phenols which push it out of the typical saison realm but a pleasurable enough beer to drink!

Feb 19, 2017 – Zoa (the table saison) is tasting good. Quite a phenolic Belgian character with light malt and balanced bitterness. Carbonation is strong but not too strong, giving the beer a lively feel without gushing or being tough to pour.

Mar 26, 2017 – Gravity sample and bottling prep for Euka. Down to 1.000, as I’d hoped. Tasting nice – gooseberry white wine character, some orange stone fruit character, and little to no funk at the moment.

Jun 6, 2017 – First bottle of Euka. Quite heavy on the apple skin character, not in a bad way but it’s drinking a bit cidery. Grainy beyond that and a bit of diacetyl at the moment.

Fermentation Start: Nov 3, 2016

Bottled on:  Dec 11, 2016

On November 3rd I had two 3-gallon carboys filled up with about 10L of fresh-pressed, unpasteurized apple juice organized by Alvaro in our homebrew club, Vanbrewers. The mix is 50% jonagold, 25% granny smith, and 25% is a mix of fuji and honey crisp. pH is 3.3 and my hydro check showed 1.052 for a starting gravity.

I’ve allowed one carboy to wild ferment with whatever critters were already in the juice, while the other I added a packet of Pasteur Champagne yeast to for competitive advantage. Both carboys got a feeding of 1 tsp each yeast ‘Superfood’ and energizer as well as a vigorous shaking. Each also got a scant tsp of malic acid.

Fermentation Details:

After 3 days, the wild ferment was just starting but the champagne pitch was well underway. After a few more days the champagne pitch started to calm down despite never getting any krausen at all. The wild ferment built up a small krausen and fermented well from day 3 to 8 or so. The champagne version smelled citrusy at one point, the wild more funky.

The image above is the two after 2 weeks, champagne pitch is on the right. Surprisingly the wild ferment with no yeast added has a thicker yeast cake settled out, though it doesn’t appear as dense. It is, as you can probably tell, still settling out whereas the champagne pitch is much more settled and clear. Neither are clear yet but the champagne pitch is not far off.

Dec 11, 2016 – Bottling day.  Both the ciders have begun to clarify, and I wanted to prime without added yeast so I figured I might as well get on with it. The champagne ferment got a bit of malic and tartaric acid added (about 1 tsp of each in 2.5 gallons) while the wild ferment got no additions.  Both were primed to about 2.9 volumes of CO2. Both taste nice. I noticed after bottling that the wild ferment has a touch of sulphur on the aroma which I later found out is not something that will improve in the bottle, so that’s unfortunate. It is not at a very high level though, so I am hoping it will remain enjoyable enough as it gets older.

Jan 7, 2016 – Bottle of the champagne pitch. Drinking excellent, really pleased. I tried the 100% wild cider and it’s got a sulphur issue unfortunately but this is clean, tart, and tasty. Also it’s carbonated almost to where I want it with a nice lively feel.