Silly Season Saison

The Saison beer style is one I have wanted to brew for some time having first discovered the joys of the traditional Belgium & French Saisons 18 months ago whilst stewarding at the Australian International Beer Awards.  These yeasty fruity light aromatic ales typify to me the 'harvest' ales of Spring to be enjoyed post a hard days work in the fields.  Whilst not many of us toil a day in the fields these days I suspect it would go down a treat post gardening, lawn mowing or with friends over for a BBQ in the heat of Summer.

Taking guidance from the excellent La Sirene Saison brewed by Costa Nikias and shared in the recent Spring issue of Beer & Brewer magazine.  My thought was it be good to get this down and out of the way before the Silly Season (it is more likely I will be bottling in the midst of the silly season!) and there is a famous Saison called Silly, so I was silly enough to call my home brewed on "Silly Season Saison".

Most likely I should be indulging in this little beauty with friends around the BBQ or out and about in mid-late Jan 2014 which is just fine by me :-)

Brew Day - Sat 30 Nov 2013

Ingredient:

• 2.9Kg Gladfield Pilsener Malt
• 1.9Kg Gladifeld Munich Malt
• 0.5Kg Gladfield Wheat Malt
• 52g Tettnang Hops 3.9 A/A 2012 Harvest
• 18g Hallertau Mittelfruh 4.8 A/A 2012 Harvest
• 1tsp Wyeast Yeast Nutrient
• 1/2 Tab Irish Moss
• Wyeast Belgium Saison 3724
• 5g of Calcium Chloride and 5g of Calcium Sulphate (to balance the water)

Mash: (single infusion 60 mins)

Pre-boiled and topped up with pre-boiled water 29.5L of water in the Crown Urn and let it cool to 69 degrees celsius before adding the grain bill which dropped perfectly to 63.5C.  Played with the temp controller and noted some variation up to 67C 30mins later and back down to 62C by time took off to strain 1 hour later.  Took a sample from the grain bag drippings and got a reading of 1.050 pre boil.

Boil: (60 mins)

Put the Urn back up to 110C to get to boil and notice something dodgy as took 1 hour to get to a rolling boil before I left it for 20 mins and added the 52g Tettnang 40 mins from flame out,  8g of Hallertau 20 mins from flame out and Yeast nutrient and immersion chiller into boil 10 mins from flame out and 1/2 tab of Irish Moss and the remaining 10g of Hallertau Mittelfruh hops at flame out.  Immersion chilled and racked off into the fermenter after 30 mins and temp was down to 36C.  Waited for it to cool and pitched the Wyeast Belgium Saison yeast into 24C wort after vigorous aerating shanking of the fermenter and set the Keg King temp controller @23C.  Took a SG and read 1050 for just under 20L of wort which is a miss and pretty sure its time to take the trusty Urn back for an element and temp controller check up!

Primary Fermentation:

Sun 1 Dec and the primary ferment is up and running at velocity with a good krausen forming visible inside the fermenter.  Temp controller is holding stable at 22.5C which is good.  Little check on my Silly Season Saison and its up and running with a full head of steam on Mon 2 Dec - how very exciting & silly.

epic Belgium Imperial Porter ale

Based on the brewers blog from Mitch Steele @Stone Brewing Co 09.09.09 Vertical epic ale and inspired by the original 'Angry man' of Craft Beer turned 'Gandalf' like Greg Koch of Stone Brewing Co this is a bold beer to reflect the rebel within all of us and all that is big, bold and beautiful about the beervolution.

@GladfieldMalt Bill:

• Gladfield Ale Malt 73% 6.2Kg
• Gladfield Crystal Malt 10% 0.9Kg
• Gladfield Chocolate Malt 5% 0.5Kg
• Gladfield Aurora Malt 4% 0.4Kg
• Dark Candi Sugar 3% 0.2 Kg
• Gladfield Brown Malt 2% 0.2 Kg
• Gladfield Redback Malt 2% 0.2Kg

Hops:

• 20g of Magnum 14.4% AA
• 22g of Perle 7% AA

Yeast:

• Wyeast 3522 Belgium Ardennes MFG 24 Jul 13

Spices:

• 30g Sweet Orange Peel
• 1.5 Vanilla Beans (Madagascar)

Mash:

Heated the trusty urn to 70C before dropping in the massive 8.5Kg grain bill with my brewers assistant young Mazzy stirring in the grains as I added it slowly and the mash dropped to 64C after a good stirring.

Readings taken @30m (15 min into mash) at was at 64C then 63C by 17m which was at the same after 45mins.  Step up mash to target 74C for last 15 mins but only reached 67C by end of 15 mins (60 total).  Took a sample of the mash and was reading 1050 at mash temp (not happy).

Boil:

Added the Magnum hops post straining and draining the bag pre boil.  Took up to 50 mins to get up to a rolling boil before adding the Perle hops.  Both hops added at start of 90 mins boil along with Belgium Dark Candy Sugar.

Post Boil/Whirlpool/Immersion Chilling:

Added the Sweet Orange Peel and 1.5 vanilla beans (meat inside pushed out and beans skins chopped up).

Started chilling the wort after 5 mins to avoid DMS build up which took not long to cool to below 50C then 40C.  Cool wort from fridge has read 1065 and after chilled to 32C took another reading which was 1070.  Racked off into fermenter using strainers and tea towel to avoid trub carryover to the fermenter.

Primary Fermentation:

Pitched yeast post placing the fermenter in the fridge when the temp was reading 22-4C and Wyeast smack pack was well bloated @7:45pm.

Big brew day and overall happy with result except the mash which felt was not left long enough to conversion and resulted in an SG of 1070 v target 1088.  Will be looking to pull 5L out post primary to put in my 5L port barrel for some extra conditioning in oak and possibly dry hop.  Set Keg King temp controller @20C and left it to do its thing for 2 weeks.

Racking
Sun 3 Nov took a hydrometer reading of 1.014 and noticably big Krausen all around the rim of the fermenter.  Small bubbles still rising inside.  Racked 17L into a secondary fermenter and set temp controller at 20-2C and poured out 2L of Muscat that has been conditioning the 5L Oak port cask.  Boiled up 200g of Light DME with 500ml water and added in 4.5L of BIPA to create DOBIPA (Double Oak Belgium Imperial Porter Ale) - how truly epic!  Put 17L Keg back in fridge and turned down on Tue to 2C to condition.

5L Oak Port Barrel (Muscat Soaked 2L)

Woody Jura Whisky

French Oak soaking in Jura Single malt

Sat 9 Nov no sign of any noticable ferment in the Oak cask 5l so pitched 7g of dried Cooper's IPA ale yeast into the 5L oak cask.  Also soaked 18g of French Oak chips in a glass of Jura single malt whisky and dropped that into the 17L cold conditioning in the fridge.
Fri 15 Nov dry hopped the DOBIPA with 11g of Northern Brewer to make the DHOBIPA Dry Hop Oak Belgium Imperial Ale - that's bloody epic!  Tasted prior to dry hopping and it was a deep rich port nose tone and lots of wood on the nose and mouth.  Colour was daks woody borwn and taste was smooth and rounded.

Bottling
Bulk primed the 17L in plastic fermenter with 145g of Light DME and had a minor spillage while racking for the bulk priming - Doh!
Emptied the Oak cask into 11 bottles - 10 stubbies and 1x500ml priming with 1/2 tsp of white sugar per stubbie and 3/4 tsp for the 500m..  Tasted some and it was very grassy as well as woody.
Time will tell what this truly epic home brew tastes like :-)

OktoberWeist Bier

Time to reach for the leaderhosen, funny pants, knee high socks, put the hair in piggy tails or try on some skin tight skivvies and put on some strange German techno and put down a traditional Marzen or Octoberfest bier!  Using all Gladfield Malt and a moderate hopping regime for me with just under 40g of Hallertau Mittelfruh and a dash of Warrior at the 60 mins boil mark to hit target 28IBU.  In place of a traditional Weyermann Caramunich III I have substiuted 10% of the grain bill with Gladfield toffee malt.

Read on for Brewers Friend recipe and brew day notes - Sat 10 Aug 2013.  Will be targetting a 1 month extended cold lagering post racking after primary and secondary fermentation and pre-bottling which should hit its straps right on time for octoberfest - umpha umpha :-)

Marzen

  Method:   BIAB 

Style: Oktoberfest/Märzen 

Boil Time: 90 min 

Batch Size: 23 liters (fermentor volume)

Boil Size: 28 liters 

Boil Gravity: 1.045 (recipe based estimate) 

Efficiency: 70% (brew house)

Source: Michael Wallace 

Original Gravity:

1.054

Final Gravity:

1.014

ABV (standard):

5.36%

IBU (tinseth):

28.55

SRM (morey):

11.55

Fermentables

Amount	Fermentable	PPG	°L	Bill %
2.3 kg	Gladfield - Pilsner	38	1.6	39.8%
1.73 kg	Gladfield - Munich	37	6	29.9%
1.12 kg	Gladfield - Vienna	37	4	19.4%
0.63 kg	Gladfield - Toffee	34	57	10.9%
5.78 kg	Total

Hops

Amount	Variety	Type	AA	Use	Time	IBU
35 g	Hallertau Mittelfruh	Pellet	4.8	Boil	60 min	19.44
4 g	Warrior	Pellet	16.7	Boil	60 min	7.73
5 g	Hallertau Mittelfruh	Pellet	4.8	Boil	15 min	1.38

Hops Summary

Amount	Variety	Type	AA
40 g	Hallertau Mittelfruh	Pellet	4.8
4 g	Warrior	Pellet	16.7

Mash Guidelines

Amount	Description	Type	Temp	Time
28 L		Temperature	66 C	60 min

Yeast

Wyeast - Octoberfest Lager Blend 2633

Attenuation (avg): 75% Flocculation: Med-Low Optimum Temp: 8.9 - 14.4 °C Starter: No Fermentation Temp: 12 °C Pitch Rate: -

Notes

Michael Wallace 2nd in NSW Championship and 4th in the Australian championship Marzen/Octoberfest Lager - all grain with some edits using Gladfield malts in place of Weyermann including Gladfield Toffee malt in place of Caramunich III.  Also a small addition of Warrior hops at start of boil to get target IBU of 28.

Heated the Urn to 72C before lettting it cool down to 66C and putting the grain in and tweaking as required for 1 hour for the mash.  Hung and strained the grain bag off the trusty ladder and put the wort back on to boil.  Took nearly 30 mins to get to a rolling boil before adding the 35g Hallertau and 4g of Warrior at 60 mins in hops sock and the final 5g of Hallertau 15 mins before flame out.  Immersion chilled quite rapidly down to 35C then racked off into the fermenter for a starting gravity of 1054 (right on) but pulled through a lot of trub by mistake having forgot to strain the trub through a tea-towel or similar.

Planted the fermenter outside in the turkish beer fridge and primed with Wyeast 2633 which had been popped since 1pm but showed no/low swell and was dated Apr 13 (not good).  Primed at 24C and set the fridge for maximum temp.  Checked on Sunday morning and the brew is at 14C with a target fermentation temp of 12C.

Sluggish on the get go this bier took till the following Thursday to get a good ferment going with a decent head on top and Krauzen forming.  Once up and running I maintained a temp on the Keg King fridge controller of 12C although it did seem to fluctuate a little up and down for my liking.

Racked off the beer on Sat 24th Aug @12C and managed to get 21L transfered across into the conditioning vessel with a FG of 1012 as Brewers Friend predicted ;-) Thanks Brewers Friend ;-)

Bottled off on Sat 14 Sep adding 180g of DME to 500mL of boiling water to bulk prime and filling over a dozen champagne style 750ml bottles and over a dozen stubbies and a few Bombers 650s.  Tasting the beer it was very clear with a nice golden amber hue and a very mild hop palate as expected.  Tasted clean and put it away back in the friendly Turkish neighbours beer fridge turned up to 12C to bottle condition for coming 10 days before chilling again for a few more weeks cold conditioning in the bottles.

 

First tasting on Fri 11 Oct in Christchurch with Billy Keane and Arthur Keane.  Good colour but a little hazy perhaps due to the transit and felt could benefit from more lagering.  Pleasantly suprised by the hop tones given low IBU.  Still fresh and there but may disappate with extended lagering.  Home supply still under cold bottle conditioning in readiness for the OktoberWest celebration on Sat 26 Oct @Dowlhaus.  Should be fun!

Inspiration Pale Ale

Based on a true trailblazer in the US Craft Beer Scene - Dale's Pale Ale, first brewed in Lyons, Colorado by Dale as a side project at his now infamous Oskar Blues BrewPub, this is a big American Pale Ale that found its way into cans and is a very popular drop in the US.  Tasted it loved it and love the work of Oskar Blues with their REEB moutain bikes, craft beer in cans and love of good tunes, brews and life in the Colorado mountains - what is there not to love.  Time to pay some homage and try and home brew something inspirational like Dale & the gang!

Brew Day: Sat 27th Apr 2013

Ingredients:
MALT
4.5Kg Simpson Maris Otter
2Kg Best Munich
400g Simpsons Crystal
HOPS
20g Northern Brewer 2012 Harvest 10.6% Alpha Acid (AA) @60mins
20g Cascade 2012 Harvest 6.7% AA @30mins
10g Columbus 2011 Harvest 13.9% AA @30mins
20g Centennial 2012 Harvest 9.2% AA @15mins
20g Cascade @5 mins
20g Columbus @5 mins
YEAST
Wyeast 1272 American Ale II

With a 6.5Kg grain bill and enough hops to knock your socks off, we targetted 70% efficiency using brew in the bag and to aim for 6.5% abv and 65 IBU with trusty help of my BrewersFriend.com and Ryan Vine who travelled all the way over from Ringwood to join in the fun on brew day and of course have a few brews while we are here!

Mashed in @70 degrees Celsius and temperature dropped rapidly to 65C then settled for most of the mash @64C. We mashed off for 10mins @72C before straining and draining using the good old trusty ladder.  It was outdoors brewing weather so all activities were on the back porch - New Orleans style with some good tunes in the background and some past brews enjoyed in between tasks!  Not sure if we will have any wild yeasts join the party but suspect not.  No sparge.  Just a gravity strain and drain of the grain.

Boil took slower and longer to reach than the 35C hell brews days for Westside Pale Ale indoors and we used the full hop quotas pretty much in line with the programme to the letter/time clock.  When it came time to chill the wort and fill the fermenter we netted off 22L and took a SG of 1060 - bang on target - thanks Ryan.  Pitched the yeast and it was bubbling by bed time @32C.  Used Nick's trusty temp regular and the fridge to bring down to 20C by Sun night - thx Nick @no. 27 - neighbourhood collaborator homebrewing at this best!

Wrapped up a good day's brewing with Mrs D fine Pork Noddles, bathed and put the kids to bed and then proceeded to have a coffee before a Pale Ale vertical tasting - a great day's brewing.  Thanks Ryan from #Ringwood for joining the #WeFo action and to Nick for the loaner on the temp controller.  Looking forward to seeing little Dale develop over the weeks ahead ;-)

Fermented Sat - Thu week @18 degrees Celsius and racked on Thu 9 May adding the remaining 44g of Centennial I had left into the secondary fermenter and left @ 18C until Mon 13/5 when I turned the temp controller down to 3C and then on Sat 18th May turned it down to 4C.  Bottled on Sat 25 May with a FG of 1012 and bulk primed with 186g of light golden dried malt extract.

Tasted from the bright beer fermenter and must say it was looking good for 4 weeks old.  Quite smooth in terms of body and not to astringent but some definite strong hop character and ability to dry the sweetness of the palate.  Hoping the flavours continue to develop and round out nicely in the bottle over the coming two weeks.  Special thanks to Ryan for all the help on brew day and Nick for the loan of the temp controller - definitely going to get one of those now!

cheers

Westside Pale Ale

Paying homage to all things West and Best in Craft Beer the Westside Pale Ale takes it's from and inspiration from the West of Centre. Firstly its a beer made famous on the West Coast of America or the Pacific North West modelled on an American Pale Ale that found its way to the West Coast of Australia and the recipe comes from a former Westgate Home Brewer of the Year and Pro-Brewer @LittleCreatures in times past - thanks Alex Troncosco.  As we all know sometimes you have to go west of centre or away from the masses and this is hopefully what this beer will achieve.  As my first all grain brew in the bag using the Christmas present from Mrs D it was with great excitement and trepidation that I set about brew day on a very balmy 32C Melbourne Saturday in what has been a long run of Pilsener or Hefe Weissbier weather here this summer and certainly this week.

Goal was a 20L batch and the ingredients below were used from good old @grainandgrape

Malts

4.6Kgs of Joe White Pale Malt (Australia's finest)

300gm of Dark Munich

250gm Caramalt

500gm Wheat Malt

Hops

20g EK Goldings 2011 Harvest 5.6% AA at beginning of boil

40g Cascade 2012 Harvest 7.2% AA at 65 mins of boil

40g Cascade 2012 Harvest 7.2% AA at 75 mins (close of boil)

20g Galaxy 2012 Harvest 14.9% AA at 75 mins (close of boil)

Yeast

Wyeast 1056 American Ale MFG 06 Feb 13

Used my shiny new 40 L Crown Urn (tx Santa Kate) to heat up 23L of water to 75 degrees before loading in the bag of grain which instantly dropped it to 72 degrees celcius and mashed in for an hour stirring periodically and taking temperature readings.  Perhaps it was the stinking hot day but only lost 1 degree from start of mash to finish at 71 degrees 1 hour later.

Lifted the grain bag onto a ladder to strain the grain for a good 45 minutes.

After straining the grain (no lautering this time) I then pitched in 20g of East Kent Goldings and boiled that for 65 mins before adding 40g of Cascade hops and ten minutes later another 40g of Cascade and 20g of Galaxy hops.  Used Nick's trusty coil to immersion chill the wort which took about 45 mins and strained off the wort into the fermenter topping up with fresh cold water to 20L and pitched the yeast after taking a hydrometer reading of 1050.  The pitch temperature was about ambient room temperature and the fermenter has been sitting at ambient room temperature of 32C which is 10C higher than I would like but will have to do for now.

Looking forward to watching this little Westie do its thing in the fermenter over the coming 2 weeks and thinking about whether or not to do a dry hop addition post primary fermentation or just let it be the little Westie.  Brew on :-)

Brewing in a heat wave is never a good idea and the fermentation has suffered the effects as well running from Sat - Tue in the fermenter @28-32 degrees C due to a heat wave.  Bit the bullet on Tue night transfering to the new 'beer' fridge in the shed and crash chilling it down to 20C by Wed morning.  By Thu night I had to turn off the fridge as it has dropped to 12C which is too cold for an ale yeast.  By Friday I had it back up to 18C and it stayed solid around there through to Sat 17th March when I racked off the beer into a secondary fermenter took a hydrometer reading @1020 and dry hop socked it with remaining 20g of East Kent Goldings.  On Wed 20th March I turned on the fridge again for two weeks cold conditioning eventually getting the fridge down to a respectable 4C over a couple of days of playing with the fridge controls.  Having checked out Nick's kegking fridge temp controller which can dual both a fridge and heat pad I have found my next brew toy wish list post purchase of a copper cooling coil.

Like its neighbourhood this Westside Pale Ale is getting a rough treatment and it will be interesting to see what emerges from the fermenter in another 10 days time and how it conditions in bottles 2 weeks thereafter.  If it pulls through on the taste, body and flavour it will be a bit of a battered baby turned good not unlike a lot of #WeFo sibblings I suspect that rise to glory in their fields of passion.

Thu 4/4/13 turned the fridge off to let the temperature slowly rise back up ahead of bottling this weekend.  Sterilised a hop sock and injected the last 20g or 1/2 of the 40g left over Galaxy for a fast dry hop aroma benefit for final few days pre bottling. Took another reading @1020 so clearly a lot of dextrin leftover from the higher than planned mash temp.  Bottling this weekend and drinking Westside in a fortnight with my massive :-)

Did some tasting of the Westside Pale Ale vs some fine examples of the style on Sat 27th April and very pleased with how it turned out all things considered.  Certainly not lasting long in the fridge this easy drinking pale ale.