Libre's Libation Ale - Brewing the Everyday Monk Bier

Press Release: Dank Brewing brewhouse just doubled in size!   Now doing 10 gallon batch's...

Here is what went down.   I was on my way to the Redbull Flugtag contest in St. Paul on Saturday when I realized that 94 was shut down.  Screw that, I'm going to Northern Brewer!   I'd been contemplating doing a 10 gallon batch ever since I cut the top off my 16 barrel kegs.  Yeah, I don't have any fittings to drain the wort, but I do have a siphon.   I got carboy's empty.  So i went in and bought up a lower gravity beer that will be able to fit into my mash tun.  I went with their Patersbier recipe which is about 5% and 18 lbs of grain.  I figured that it would fit since the last batch I did for 5 gallons had 23 lbs of grain and there was some space at the top of the mash tun.

This is actually a really cool beer, very simple and easy drinking, yet very complex flavors mostly from the yeast.   This is apparently something that the Belgian monks would have brewed for themselves as an every day drinker type beer.   100% Belgian Pilsner malt, Tradition hops for bittering at 30 ibu's, Saaz at 10 minutes and then pitch with Belgian yeast and ferment high for optimum yeastiness!  The yeast is the key in this bad boy. 

I just finished reading the book "Farmhouse Ales: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition" by Phil Markowski, and in the book they talked about a typical infusion mash for Saisons that is common to this very day amongst Belgian brewers.  Also,  Dupont has a beer that they use 100% Belgian Pilsner malt just like this recipe here.  So, I ended up doing an infusion step mash.   It went pretty well mostly because I dominate!

Grain
18 lbs. Belgian Pilsner Malt

Hops 
First Wort Hops 2 oz Tradition
10 Minutes - 1 oz Czech Saaz

Yeast 
Wyeast 3787 - Trappist High Gravity
Pitched at 75 degrees.  Keeped at 67 degrees for 2 days, and then I brought it up to 70 degrees for 2 days, and then 75-80 to finish off fermentation and stress the yeast for maximum flavor.  Hopefully the steps up in temp will lower the banana esters.   I'm thinking about splitting this one 4 ways.  2.5 gallons with 3 lbs of local North Star tart cherries, 2.5 gallons dry hopped with a bunch of old-ish Slovenian Celeia  hops, 2.5 gallons with 1-2 lbs honey, and 2.5 gallons normal!

ABV 5.1%
IBU 29

Traditional Saison Mash Schedule

Protein Rest at 115 degrees for 30 minutes
Peptidase rest at 136 degrees for 25 minutes
Saccrification Rest at 145 for 30 minutes
Dextrine rest at 156 for 15 minutes
Mashed out and got about 7 gallons
Sparged at 167 for 30 minutes and got a total of 14 gallons.

I boiled for a whoopping 2 hours!  I'm thinking it may be a little bit more bitter then planned since I did the First Wort Hop method.  That's fine with me!

After 2 hours of boiling I got 9.5 gallons at 1.048!  

The Chronic Ale - Super Dank Series (01)

This is a super duper hopped up Imperial IPA with a nice mix of Piney, and Fruity hops. This just may be the beginning of my Super Dank series of beers. Or it may be a total bomb and a bummer, or I may do a bunch of Session beers after this. No restraints, no restrictions...just straight up fun! A few things are for sure on this one, it'll be really strong, and it'll be really hoppy!

I'm hoping that the Honey helps this to be not as syrupy as many DIPA out there, with the Honey Malt helping to get a little honey like sweetness left in the finished brew. I'm also hoping that I get really good head retention because you get so much of the hop aroma from that. I'm planning on a fairly low mash temp (150 degrees) for a longer period (75-90min), first wort hops to get a nice smooth hop bitterness, and if I have enough wort, a nice long boil to really get all of the bitterness out of the hops!

I'll be brewing this tomorrow morning so more updates shall come soon on how the brew day goes. I know you'll all be sitting at the edge of your seats because that kinda stuff is soooo interesting.

5.5 Gallons
Fermentables - 23lbs

9 lbs Golden Promise
8 lbs American Two-row
.5 lb Honey Malt
2 lbs Flaked Oats
.5 lb Cara-foam/Dextrine
3 lbs Honey

Hops - 9oz

First Wort Hop (1 oz each)
Magnum and Nugget

20, 15, 10, 5 minute additions (1 oz each combined and split into 4 additions)
Chinook, Columbus, Cascade, Simcoe

Dry Hop (1 oz each)
Centennial, Palisade, Amarillo

Mashed in at 150 degrees and held for 90 minutes. Sparged at 165 degrees for 30. Collected 7 1/2 gallons and boiled down to 5.5 gallons. Gravity reading at 77 degrees was 1.095.

Yeast
US-05 2-packs

OG=1.095
FG=1.012
ABV - 11.3%

Cheers. Smoke em if you got em!

Brothers Avett are some passionate folk!

Last weekend we had a Pederson family reunion with family coming from all over the country. Awesome time with some hilarious Cousins and Uncles. I ended up going to the Basilica Block party to check out the Avett Brothers and was thoroughly impressed by these brothers. Man they play with passion. It was quite refreshing after unfortunately hearing the end of the Guster set...blah. The Avett Brothers have a unique sound..almost a little bit of Neil Young on crack! Their Cello player rocked all night long screaming the lyrics along with brothers Avett! They encored with this song and I was completely blown away. ***Unfortunately they were only serving crap beer at the event...but still...very good times were had by all!

Also...it reminded me just how very old I am. I hadn't been to the Basilica Block party since High School when I went to see Tina and the B-Side Movement. Then I was disgusted further when I figured out that my cousin, who I was with this time around, was only 1 year old 15 years ago when I last attended the event. I still totally kick ass though!

A little word play and funk fo yo Friday!

MF Doom..."We'll be right back after these messages, Fellas grab your nut sacks, chicks squeeze ur breastases