Here it is, the first batch of homebrew I made. Started all-grain with a simple saison recipe as per below. The name Pappy Saison came from the fact my very elderly cat passed away the day before brew day.
I brewed this with a friend/coworker who had a bunch of equipment from his brother’s wine making project. Turns out the pot which we thought was 7.5 gallon was only 5 gallon. So we ended up having to make a smaller volume of higher gravity wort and then diluting it with boiled and cooled water.
Particulars:
10 lbs Pilsner malt
2 lbs Wheat malt
0.5 lbs Honey (cheap stuff)
1.25 oz Azacca @ 15 min
1.25 oz Azacca @ 5 min
2 oz Azacca dry hop
WYeast 3711 – French Saison
Mash @ 154F for 60 minutes, boil for 90 minutes
OG: 1.055 (after dilution) IBU: 30
Fermented at 67F for 2 weeks
Brewed: March 29, 2015
Bottled: April 12, 2015
I learned many things from this brew, as one usually does during their inaugural brew day. I learned that leaf hops loose in the boil is a major pain in the ass to deal with. I learned that expecting 70% efficiency as a noob using BIAB was not a good idea. But, to my great joy, the beer tasted like beer. It was actually getting better and better but because I was overly excited to share my first homebrew with friends, and because our lower efficiency led to a lot less beer, I drank my last bottle at 3 months in bottle. It was the best one of the bunch, too.
