Saint Germain Saison

There is something about the funky soul and jazz of Saint Germain de Pres and the Saison style of beer from France that I can't resist.  Time to funk it up a little by using some smoke and brett and clash that with the traditional Saison style beer and see what we get.  Oh, and why not some English noble hops and Ale malt base.  Who ever said in Saint Germain you play by the rules.  After all there are no rules in this part of Paris.  You live by the hour and what takes your fancy and I fancy a Smokey Funky French Saison, so here we go...

Smokey Funky Saison Gladfield Malt Bill

45%   2.25 Kg Gladfield Ale Malt

15%   0.75 Kg Gladfield Munich Malt

10%   0.50 Kg  Gladfield Wheat Malt

30%   1.50 Kg Gladfield Manuka Smoke Malt

100% 5.00 Kg Gladfield Malt Total Grain Bill

Hops: grams Variant Time

Bittering:    30 East Kent Goldings  60 mins

Aroma:    50           EK Goldings 10 mins

           40           EK Goldings 0 mins

          120g Total Hop Bill

The Yeast Bay Saison/Brettanomyces Blend

Thanks Nick Race @Barleyman Brewing Supplies - what a a yeast mate!

Inspirational Reciple Sources: Beer & Brewer Iss: 26 Spring 2013, Costa Nikias La Sirene Saison, Owen Johnston Moo Brew Saison

Target Method:

1. Mash - the brewer should do normal mash regime, mashing at 64 C for at least 60 mins

2. Sparge - once again the brewer should do normal regime at around 75C

3. Boil - vigorous boil for 60-90 mins

4. Add 30g of EKG @60 mins, 50g of EKG @50mins and 40g of EK Goldings at 0 mins.

5. Yeast & Fermentation - Aerate well and ferment at 23C until FG is reached

6. Yeast off, mature for 19 days before carbonating.

Batch Size: 21.0 L Boil Time: 60 min

Efficiency: 70.00%

Target: 1.052 OG 1.014 FG

25 IBU 5.0% ABV 6 SRM 0.49 IBU/OG Balanced

Brew Day: Sun 19 Nov

1. Put on 29.5L of water in the trusty crown urn @80C @6:45am
2. Mash in @65C @8:45am pouring grain into 13.5L @80C strick and adding malt and 1L Cold Water to hit 65C in the Rubbermaid (or at least I thought that was the case!).  Later after 60 mins mash tested with two other thermometers and arrggghhhh nooooo!!!! its 70C - F##$%^&KKK! Let's see how this one turns out - argghhhh!! Brewing its like golf - one bad hole ruins a good round and your overall scorecard (end result in the glass).  My bad hole is Mashing for the moment.
3. 10:20am Sparge complete an put onto boil 26L - First wort runnings SG 1.070
4. Start Boil @11am - add first hop edition
5. Pre-Boil wort SG 1.040
6. Boil goes as planned - lid off - then lid one to get rid of DMS.
7. Chill down using immersion chiller and esky ice method
8. Pitch the vial @18C @2pm - SG 1.048 - I'm off to Westgate Brewers with some Eternally Greatful ESB for a well earned beer or two with the homies @Westgate Brewers.
9. Ferment @23C for 6 days.

Music to brew by:

• Salmonella Dub - Outside the Dubplates - why not?
• Scribe

Racking:

• Sat 22nd Nov - FG 1.010 and tasting divine in the glass, smokey and quite drinkable - fingers crossed on this one.  Into a Glass Carboy and plan to leave at 22C for next 2-3 days then crash chill to 2-4 and hold it for 2 weeks conditioning before bottling - champagne bottles for this puppy I think at least for most of it anyway.

Eternally Greatful ESB

Twas time to brew a tribute brew to all things great about Great Britain, little england, In loving memory of English Roses, London Pride, Past Masters, the Queen and that is good and great about a nation that loves its past and style and plum with a passion and for good reason.  They did win a war or 2 least we forget! They gave us James Bond 'shaken but not stirred' and continue to pump out some outstanding ales in glorious reflection of their past but with a modern style and in build British character.  As so aptly spoken by a true British character John Keeling Brewing Director @Fuller's the home of London Pride and ESB "if we are going to brew beer with character we need characters brewing it".  So I set forth with a relatively 'true to style' recipe to pay my respect for great brewing heritage and style with this oh some humble and possibly slightly hoppy tribute to an English Special Bitter

Brew Day: Sat 3 Oct 2014

Gladfield Malt Grain Bill

Kiwi malted made by Kiwi maltsters - they all or most of em descended from Great Britain or close to it and I know for a fact the barley was an English variety, most probably Taverner (an old Guiness variety) grown on the Canterbury plains which are just about as British as the Duke himself.

1. Gladfield Ale Malt 4.3 Kg 86%
2. Gladfield Light Crystal Malt 0.4Kg 8%
3. Gladfield Biscuit Malt 0.3Kg 6%

Hops

Two fair English maidens here - true and true to the roses of this great nation! Miss Fuggles & her lovely sister Miss East Kent Goldings

1. 40g Fuggles (pellets) @60 mins
2. 20g Fuggles @30mins
3. 15g EK Goldings @20mins
4. 10g EK Goldings @10mins
5. 10g EK Goldings @0 mins

I digress here a tad before returning to Yeast to mention a trip I was fortunate to make to another great brewing nation - the Netherlands in mid 2013 and stumbled upon a wonderful craft brewery in the red light district - don't ask me what I was doing there - it was a lazy Saturday afternoon walk.  In I went to tour and talk to the brewers who kindly showed me around and informed me they brewed exclusively with German and Czech malts and UK hops and only one hop in particular EK Goldings. No US hops allowed they told me to my amazement. They made every style imaginable from pale ale through to barley wine with Ms Goldings as their flower of choice.  I was fortunate enough to return in the evening that same day and sample rather a few of their great brews with the brewers at the bar (post brew day knock offs) and thoroughly enjoyed the beers so much I vowed to pay some humble tribute in my home brewing to Miss Goldings at some future later date - much later as it turned out!  Another gratuitous brewery bar & beer shots of De Prael...a home of good beer and English hop flowers

 

Yeast

Veered a little West of little England here opting for an Irish yeast

• White Labs WLP004 Irish Ale Yeast

First time to use White Labs and pleased to pick up a fresh vile from my good friends @CoreBrewingConcepts it would not be wasted and was put to good work on an English gent - how dare we do that to poor Molly!

Brewing aids and water treatment

• 5g + 5g of Calcium Chloride & Caclium Sulphate (Gypsum) to treat water
• 1/2 tsp of White Labs Yeast Nutrient + 1/2 tab of Irish Moss

Mash

Nothing abnormal to report this time round and pretty much hit my mash temp in the Rubbermaid Esky did a couple of Iodine tests and got a SG of 1.050 into the boil

Boil

The trusty Crown Urn took a while to get it up but eventually he hit his paces and gave the wort a jolly good boil for 60+ before immersion chill and a new highly experimental esky ice crash chill.

Music to brew by:

• Snow Patrol - are they british?

Knock off beer:

• Boatrocker Alpha Queen a sublime and happy ending

Wash Up:

Was washed up and off to @TwoBirdsBrewing in time to join the Westside Drinkers on their inagrual pub crawl from the Spottiswoode (did they get one?) via TwoBirds Brewery (didn't see either) with a wrap up @JunctionHotelNewport! A suitably happy ending to a happy brew day.

Brown Ale (mighty fine one) @Two Birds Brewery in Spotswood

Racking:

Wed 8th Oct  - racked and dry hopped with 20g of East Kent Goldings (might leave that later next time 2-3 days prior to bottling).  Took a hydrometer reading 1.020

Conditioning:

Wed 15th Oct - chilled down to 8C

Mon 19th Oct - chilled down further to 2C

Sat 25th Oct - FG 1.012 - time to bottle on a Saturday night - what else does on do on a Saturday night?

153g of Briess LME CBW Munich bulk priming and pulled off 19 tallies and 18 stubbies.

Tasting notes:

• First stubbie Sun 2 Nov only a week or 8 days in bottle and suitably cloudy with pronounced hoppiness but not quite in balance
• 3 tallies shared with Ant Delaney Thu 6 Nov and each glass tasted better and better until I was told I was driving the Delaney's home. Doh! Stop!
• 1 Pint on Fri 7th Nov - tasted so good I had to go to the beer fridge and raid my Emersons growler of Unhappy NY Hefe! Bad idea!
• Its morish and has the 'moorishness' that Richard Fuller the Sales Director requests John Keeling brew into his London Pride or at least it does for me anyway.  A rough enough kiwi irish b@#4%^d of an English Special Bitter for me :-)

Hop Frog Garden Pale Ale

Time to brew another garden grown fresh (or almost fresh - snap frozen) Hoppy pale ale with some first year old #WeFo Cascade whole hop cones at flame out.

Gladfield Malt Bill

• 4.5 Kg Gladfield Ale Malt (78%)
• 0.5 Kg Gladfield Wheat Malt (9%)
• 0.25 Kg Gladfield Biscuit Malt (4%)
• 0.25 Kg Gladfield Red Back Malt (4%)
• 0.25 Kg Gladfield Light Crystal Malt (4%)

Hops

• 20g East Kent Goldings 2013 4.6% A/A @75 mins
• 20g Centennial 2013 8.2% A/A @75 mins
• 20g East Kent Goldings 2013 4.6% A/A @10 mins
• 20g Centennial 2013 8.2% A/A @10 mins
• 70g Cascade 2014 ??? A/A Whole Hop Cones @0 mins (flame out)

Yeast

• Fermentis Safale US-05

Water

• 5g Calcium Sulphate and 5g Calcium Chloride in the Mash Water.

Mash

• Planned for an infusion Mash @64 degrees Celsius with 18L of Water and Sparge with 16L to hit a combined wort in the kettle of 26L.

Brewday

Got off to a flying start on Sun 13th July with Malt (aka Mazzy - age 5 ) & Hop (aka Lola - age 3) assisting Dad with milling the malt into a new malt catcher using the trusty Chinese Barley Crusher.  Many huffs and puffs later - might use the drill next time we were off to mash into the Rubbermaid esky/chilly bin.  The Crown Urn had brought the water to strike temperature at 75C but I lost a good 15C by the time I empty into the Rubbermaid (lost 5C) and then added grain (lost 10C) so starting mashing (step style) at 60C before adding additional hot water to lift it to 64C with a few lid lifts and stirs to keep me occupied.
Sparging was going really well right up unto the point I realised I had the Urn tap on and was pouring valuable first wort through the deck on hallowed soil below - arrggghh!!! When will I learn the error of my ways.  Continued to sparge until clear runnings and 26L in the Crown Urn. With the heat cut out switch removed (thx Graeme @Crown Industries) I was able to get to boil and hold it (only vigorously with lid on though) and hit all my timings on hop additions including the whole Cascade hop cones at flame out.  Immersion chilled the brew and racked off to 28C and pitched yeast before transfer to fridge in the shed for rapid chilling to 18C with some ice packs and fridge on full bore.  Was down to 18C by night fall and have since adjusted the Keg King temp controller for 18C primary fermentation.

Cleaned up wrapped up and enjoyed a tub, scrub and couple of delightful Belgium Misfits from @Boatrocker - a truly top drop at the end of an every improving slowly brew day!

AoteaGrower Pilsner

Garden Grown Saaz - 1 year old in #WeFo Brauhaus Garden

Time to brew a 'Kiwi as Bro!' AoteaGrower Pilsner with a twist.  Home grown Saaz hops from the garden late addition to the kettle, Kiwi as Gladfield Pils Light Munich & Vienna Malts some Magnum hop for bittering and Motueka 'sticky green' for aromatics. Oh, and do not forget that Saflager S-23 dried lager yeast - better do it right bro - Choice!

In the style of a rapidly emerging new style - NZ Pilsner we are looking for some light colour European style malt body backed up with some residual sweetness from the Munich & Vienna Malts, moderate bitterness - is there such a thing in Craft beer and good aromatic late hop additions for a bit more character in the glass and on the tongue.

Brew Day: Sat 10th May 2014 (Target Recipe)

Gladfield Malt Bill (Kg)

5.00	Pils Light	91%
0.25	Munich	5%
0.25	Gladiator	5%

Hops:

20g Magnum AA 13.5% @60 mins

20g Motueka 2013 AA 6.9% @30 mins

20g Motueka 2013 AA 6.9% @10 mins

50g Garden Grown Saaz Hop Cones @Flame out

Yeast:

Saflager S-23 11.5g

Mash: 1) 55C for 30 mins 12L 2) 64C for 60 mins 6L 3) Rest 70C for 10 mins 5L 4) Mash off: 70C for 15 mins

Water Treatment: 5g of Calcium Sulphate - thx Ryan Vine & Dave Edney for that brewers tip on the fly!

Ferment: Target 10C for 2 weeks

OG: 1.058 FG: 1.016  ABV: 5.45% IBU: 52  SRM: 4.5

Saaz on the Scales 150g Cones to 50g dried & fresh frozen

Brew Day Reality:

11:15am 11L into Rubbermaid Esky @55C (top 57C / bottom 54C) for 1hour then up to 63C top / 60 C bottom for 30 mins, Sparge 3 x 4L buckets @80C (music playing: Chris Knox - Stroke & Garageland - Keepin it Kiwi Cous)

2pm Boil on with First Wort @1.052 SG

2:47pm Boiling and frist 20g of Magnum in the kettle and Motueka hop additions as per plan, then disaster strikes!  Where has my 50g of fresh frozen Garden Grown Saaz Hops gone for flame out!!! Arrggh!!! Panic!  Mazzy - 'how do you spell thank-you? Dad'  "T Maz - where is my hops?"  "Oh, Lola what do I do, I think Charlie the Dog stole our hops!, ARRGHHH!!' 

Lola and the Hop Thief - AKA Charlie the Czech Saaz Hound

"Mazzy - T - what's next Dad", oh "H, whatabout I just throw some Garden Grown Cascade in Maz?  Great Idea, Dad!  How Much Lola - 20g or the whole 70g? Just 20g Dad,  Maz - nah throw the lot in Dad"  Oh dear - recipe adjustment on the home brewing fly - 20g of Cascade garden grown into the kettle at flame out, immersion chill the beer.  SG 1.056

Yeast (rehydrated in 500ml water and 200ml wort) pitched Sat @22C

Sun Temp @18C - oh darn! Fridge is F@#4ed - just my luck!

Mon AM Temp 16C

17.5.2014 Temp 16C

Monday - God Save the Queen Birthday - rack off 17.5L FG 1.012

9.6.2014 FG 1.005 (that's dry)

Bottle off @14-16C (not 10C as planned) or even cold conditioned at 2C as planned - bl@#$y t*&^kish Fridge :-(

Bulk Prime with 120g of Table Sugar filling 21 Tallies and 16 Stubbies (smallies)

Tasting: good clear light yellow colour.  Nice Clean Flavour.

AoteaGrower Pils - without the Saaz and Head :-(

Fri 20 & Sun 22 June Tasting notes: Good colour, nice clean flavour, some bitterness there, low/no carbonation - Doh!  Oh, and guess what I found in the garden stashed behind the rodadendrums rotting in a freezer bag - my Garden Grown Charlie Chewed on Saaz Hops - arrrggghhh!!!Charlie  - this will not happen for the next Garden Grown Pale Ale coming soon...

Siberian Tiger & Tigress - Baltic Porter

Born on Sun 9 March 2014:

With autumn and winter coming around the corner not to mention the Westgate Brewers Baltic Porter comp. in May I decided it was time to turn my hand to a style I have wanted to brew for a long time and one that would showcase Gladfield Malt in all its glory and pay respect to an endangered animal I much admire - the Siberian Tiger.  Having watched a film on the flight home with Mazzy on a crazy Korean who camped out for 5 years to film Siberian Tigers only to see all of them shot over the course of his camping by poachers I thought who better to be the figure head for this wonderful style of Porter originally brewed with a lager yeast in cold conditions with high abv for a journey from London to the Baltic States.

Mining the wonderful world of the Tinternet I stumbled across BrewToad.com and a wealth of good recipes some of which recommended an Irish Ale Wyeast so why not break with brewing convention.  I adapted, tweaked and put my own flavour on the grain bill and a moderate hop regime.  Ingredients below:

Gladfield Malt Bill (Kg)
1.50	Vienna	26%
1.50	Munich	26%
1.50	Ale	26%
0.40	Aurora	7%
0.40	Red Back	7%
0.20	Biscuit	3%
0.20	Brown	3%
0.16	Roast Barley	3%
5.86	Total
Hops:
Northern Brewer (NB) & Magnum
25g NB A/A 10.6% & 15g Magnum A/A 14.4% at start of boil
15g NB @Flame out
Wyeast: Irish Ale		1084
Adjuncts:	2 x Vanilla beans (split) in secondary
Ferment:	18C
Sources: Brewtoad, Homebrew Handbook, Key concept in water treatment, The complete Joy of Homebrewing, Beer & Brewer

Mash:

Decided to try a step mash not that Gladfield Malt (fully modified) required it but more because I have been extremely unhappy with my mash results in the untrusty Crown Urn brew in a bag set up:

Step 1: 30 mins @55 degrees Celsius

Step 2: 30 mins @66 degrees Celsius

Rest: 10 mins @66 C

Step 4: Mash off @70C for 15 mins

Racking: to create a Siberian Tigress

Sun 16th March racked off 16L into a secondary fermenter and 5L into an Oak Barrel which had been presoaked with Victorian Muscat and was primed with 200g of Dark Belgium Candy Sugar.  Upon tasting there was some nice roasted malt flavour and good body, hop tones and a mellow finish. My hope was this Tigress would be gentle but lethal just the same :-)

Bottling

Bulk primed 500ml of boiling water with 160g of dark brown sugar and bottled off the Siberian Tiger.  The Tigress was bottled a week later with just 12 bottles of this lethal she cat that will benefit from extended bottle conditioning.

Tastings

Been enjoying a few of these Tigers in May as the mercury drops and they are very morish :-)  Have not tempted the Tigress but plan to showcase her in all her glory with a heavy lamb shank, rich red meat dish or a saucy chocolate dessert to round out her malty smooth character and muscat on oak charms.  Just need to be careful as the Tigress will have a bite!

Hoppy Unhappy New Year Hefe

Rise and shine, its New Years Day 2014 and all was quiet in the deep dark wood of #WeFo hood.  What better day or time of the year to put down a Hoppy NY Hefe or so I thought reaching into the fridge at some ungodly hour to smack the Wyeast 5068 Weihenstephaner liquid yeast pack.  After all I had spent most of the preceding two weeks drinking exemplary examples of the style including Weihenstephaner , Erdinger, and Schöfferhofer thinking this has got to be one of the simplest styles to brew at home - surely I can not stuff it up!  Little did I know the unhappy mess I was about to get myself into on this fateful New Years day.The seeds of my demise on brew day had been sewn the night before, the week before having worked all through the festive season with the exception of Christmas and Boxing Day I thought nothing could be better than brewing on NY day with a long weekend ahead my better half would understand my thinking. Did I seek clarification and understanding before this undertaking - no I did not!  The brewing gods would have their revenge on this fateful brew day.

Heated the urn or 13L of water in it to 70 degrees Celsius.  Waited for the temperature to fall to 67C then added 2.5Kg each of Gladfield Pils & Wheat malts.  The temp plummeted to 60C and I panicked turning on the trusty Crown urn with the dodgy thermostat to crank it back up to my target mash temp of 64-66C.  Turned my back to get a cuppa or the girls aka 'malt' & 'hop' their breakfast only to return 10 mins later and find the temp up at 75C killing the enzymes needed in the malt for conversion - arrrghhh!!!!

Furiously ran around adding ice to cool bring down 1C every five mins over an hour to 64C.  My SG was 1.056 @64C and I was in trouble - not enough conversion as I sparged with 78C water adding another 14L into the boil for a pre-boil SG of 1.024 - oh dear a light weight weissbier here my friends.  By now its mid-day Mrs D is unhappy I am brewing without prior clearance and I am frantically tipping in 1.5Kg of Briess Dry Malt Extract to get the SG up to 1.04, but that is still not high enough - out with the dreaded adjunct 1Kg of Raw Sugar breaking all my brewing conventions and the Reinheitsgebot .  Will I ever be forgiven for such brewing sins on this unhappy NY day?

Might as well push onto the unhappy finish line.

60 mins boil with additions of 80g of Hersbrucker hops 3.4 Alpha Acids with 60g @60mins, 15g at 15 mins and 15g (5g Herbrucker and 10g of Perle 7.6% A/A) at 5 mins.  Immersion chill it down and pitch the Wyeast 5068 Weihenstephaner and beg forgiveness for my far too understanding wife and children.What monster in a plastic fermenter was I creating here?

Not content with the creation or creative destruction of german brewing heritage and style to date I dry hopped on 5 Jan with 30g Tettnang 3.9% A/A racked off on 12 Jan and turn the temp controller to 17C leaving until 26th Jan - Aus Day of all days to bottle bulk priming with 180g of sugar (no DME left!) a very thin, dry, hoppy and oh so unhappy NY Hefe :-(

Not my best work in the brauhaus but tomorrow is another brew day as they say...

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.