'Tis the Saison

Nov 20, 2009 17:50

I'm quite glad to be brewing again, after my birthday gifts this past month. I've already bottled my first new brew, a basic English brown ale, and a week ago I brewed up a winter ale, which I've now got in the carboy finishing up the fermentation.

The recipe borrows a lot from Belgian ales, in broad strokes rather than any specific style, but the local brewer's shop didn't have the sort of high-gravity Abbey yeast I meant to use; the closest they had was a Saison yeast, which is usually used for much lighter beers but is still fairly alcohol tolerant, so I'm hoping ferment out pretty well despite this. The end result should be sweet and spicy, with a lot of complex esters and (I'm guessing) low carbonation in the bottle for at least a month or so. I'm using a partial mash, which for a big beer is pretty much a must if you aren't doing a full mash (I would need more equipment for that) to get something that isn't overly cidery.

I'll post the recipe and brew log to date; I'll post updates later on at some point.

2009 Holiday Ale (partial mash)
5 lb. light LME
1 lb. dark LME
1 lb. German 2-row pale malt
1/3 lb. Belgian aromatic malt
1/3 lb. honey malt
1/3 lb. biscuit malt
4 oz. dark candi sugar
1 oz. dried orange peel
1 oz. cinnamon sticks
2 tbp. ground nutmeg
2 tbp. honey citron tea
2 tbp. honey ginger tea
1 1/2 oz. 5.1%AA Tettnang (bittering)
1/2 oz. 5.1%AA Tettnang (flavor)
WYeast Belgian Saison Ale (WLP-568) liquid yeast

2009:11:13
1500: Sanitized primary fermenter with chlorine bleach soak.
1730: Began heated 10qt water. While heating, took yeast out of refrigerator to warm to room temp., shaking periodically.
1800: Infused large grain sock with grain bill for beta rest at 145F, for 30 min. Checked temp. at 1810 and 1820, heating gently as needed.
1830: Added 2qt. cool water. Slowly heated to alpha rest strike temp.
1850: Temp 158F. Turned off heat for alpha rest. Checked temp. at 1915 (155F) and 1940 (148F, raised to 155F).
1950: Removed grain bag from wort and drained. Washed grain bag into separate pot using 5 qt. cool water. NB - there was a concerning amount of farinaceous trub, which may affect boil, but I don't think there would be any useful means to remove it. Also, because the current total of 16 qts of wort, I will need to boil off some of the excess so that the LME can be added.
1955: Started heating wort for boil. Attempted to skim off excess surface trub (with little success); fortunately, trub appears to mostly be endosperm and undissolved starch, with relatively little husk material. It's still concerning, esp. about haze, but might not cause a lot of astringency.
2055: Reached boiling. Interestingly, both thermometers gave a reading around 205F, which means that either both are inaccurate in about the same way, or the baro pressure is lower than normal, or the sugars and other material in the wort lowered the boiling point rather than raising it. Stirring frequently with large plastic paddle, scraping the bottom to reduce carmelization.
2140: Dissolved candi sugar into wort on metal spoon.
2145: Dissolved LME into wort.
2205: fortified wort reaches boiling.
2220: Added bittering hops in bag.
2250: Added flavor hops, cinnamon and orange peel in bag.
2255: Added nutmeg, honey citron and honey ginger.
2300: took boiler off heat, covered, and immersed in ice water (with hop bags still in wort).

2009:11:14
0030: Rinsed chlorine out of primary fermenter. Filled primary with 6qt cold water. Poured cooled wort into fermenter, topped to 20qt., pitched yeast (directly from yeast test tube) and sealed cover. Filled airlock with a mixture of water and alcohol and inserted. Drew off sample for hydrometer reading, showing an original gravity of 1.075 at 70F.

2009:11:20
1700: Sanitized secondary fermenter and rack cane and tube, racked beer to secondary, sanitized primary fermenter and stored (without rinsing off chlorine). Mid-fermentation hydrometer reading: 1.020 SP, 7.22% ABV; This is probably pretty close to what the final gravity will be. The taste is slightly drier than expected, though still having plenty of residual sweetness, with a rich, malty and spicy nose and an aftertaste that is hard to describe. Hardly any hop bitterness to speak of.

I just wish I could share this with my friends on the Left Coast *sniff*
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