So I started off my Sunday all bright eyed and ready to go. I'd finished one complete week of p90X! I'd recommend p90X to anyone who's gotten a little loose around the edges from brewing and drinking. To reward myself (for this small accomplishment) I decided that I deserved a Brew Day! Remember.... 90 is for 90 days...and X is for Xtreme! Bring IT!!!
The Disappearing Yeast
In my head I wanted to do a 10 gallon batch of what I had planned on being a Saison Brett experiment that could be drank next summer. I was going to pit
WLP 670 American Farmhouse Blend (presumably
The Lost Abbey strain (brett. b.) against the
ECY 03 Farmhouse Brett. I know at one point a few months ago I had that damn vial of WL hanging out in my keezer but for the life of me I could not find it, and it probably was a little old any ways. That throw a little monkey wrench in my plans. Luckily I had another vial of
East Coast Yeast sitting in my fridge, ECY 02 which is a flemish blend. I didn't think the Flemish blend would be appropriate for the Hoppy Siason Brett I had been planning so I ended up boiling two separate pots and leaving out the 60 minute hop addition for the Saison turned Flemish Wild Ale (too many IBU's can restrict Lactobacillus). What started out as a Saison Brett experiment turned into a East Coast Yeast experiment and I can't wait to taste that ECY02 eight to twelve months from now! So... I had that yeast/changing up my recipe at the last minute issue.
The Stuck Mash
Then I had the whole stuck mash issue. This was a fun one to deal with...really fun. I have never had a stuck mash or sparge before in almost 50 beers. I've heard of them, dreaded them, learned to deal with them from horror stories, but had somehow eluded one for almost 3 years. This was a 10 gallon batch so it wasn't exactly a small issue. I don't know why I had a stuck mash since I've used unmalted wheat, wheat, oats, spelt, and lots of gelatinous stuff in my mash's before and never used rice hulls. My guess is because I threw in a pound of unmalted wheat at the last minute. I knew that I needed to either do a more complex mash schedule or do a cereal mash on the side if I really wanted to get much of anything from them, but I decided to just throw them in and hope that they create some long chain sugars that would be available for the brett, pedio, lacto, and whatever else is in these yeast blends from Al Buck. Anyways, as I tried to run off my first runnings the grain bed would get so compact that it would slow my run off to a trickle. Since I usually batch sparge, I ended up switching it up a bit. As the wort would slowly drain off I would pour some of my hot sparge water in the top and stir it up to hopefully thin out the mash some. Then I'd vorlauf again and continue the process. I did this a few times, and eventually it started flowing a little better. I ended up eventually doing my first pseudo fly sparge as I trickled sparge water over the top of the grain bed. I ended up with 10 gallons of sugary water in the end so I guess everything worked out. I made it happen and that's all that matters.
The Truth Will be Told
I heard this quote (not word for word) from one of the brewers on the Surly website at one point and it stuck with me. "Any brewer can make a fantastic beer under perfect conditions, but it takes a great brewer to make a fantastic beer when everything goes wrong." Hopefully I prove to be the latter.
My original recipe was a sort of, psuedo Boulevard Saison Brett clone so the Saison portion should be something similar to that. The Flemish funk portion should be something like a barrel aged Lambic type version of Boulevard Saison Brett. And then I had an extra couple of gallons of 2nd runnings and added about .75 ounce of 3 year old Celiea hops. Hopefully I'll be able to pour the dregs and propagate Boulevard Saison Brett yeast for future batch's!
The Wedge - Saison Brett
malt & fermentables
%
|
LB
|
OZ
|
Malt or Fermentable
|
ppg
|
°L
|
60%
|
8
|
0
|
Rahr Pilsner Malt
|
34
|
2
|
26%
|
3
|
8
|
American White Wheat
|
39
|
2
|
6%
|
0
|
12
|
Corn, Flaked
|
37
|
1
|
4%
|
0
|
8
|
Belgian Candy Sugar Light
|
36
|
0
|
4%
|
0
|
8
|
Wheat, Unmalted (Wheat Berries)
|
34
|
5
|
0%
|
0
|
1
|
Carafa III
|
32
|
525
|
|
13
|
5
|
|
|
|
Original Gravity
1.052 measured
Final Gravity
Color
8° SRM / 15° EBC
(Gold to Copper)
hops
use
|
time
|
oz
|
variety
|
form
|
aa
|
boil
|
60 mins
|
0.7
|
Simcoe
|
leaf
|
13.0
|
boil
|
20 mins
|
0.6
|
Simcoe
|
leaf
|
13.0
|
boil
|
15 mins
|
0.5
|
Amarillo
|
leaf
|
7.0
|
boil
|
10 mins
|
0.5
|
Amarillo
|
leaf
|
7.0
|
dry hop
|
10 days
|
2.0
|
Amarillo
|
leaf
|
7.0
|
Boil: 6.5 avg gallons for 90 minutes
Bitterness
41.3 IBU / 23 HBU
ƒ: Average
BU:GU
0.77
yeast
ECY03 Farmhouse Brett
ale yeast in liquid form with low flocculation and 90% attenuation
|
Alcohol
6.4% ABV
The Great Divide - Flemish Golden Wild Ale
malt & fermentables
%
|
LB
|
OZ
|
Malt or Fermentable
|
ppg
|
°L
|
60%
|
8
|
0
|
Rahr Pilsner Malt
|
34
|
2
|
26%
|
3
|
8
|
American White Wheat
|
39
|
2
|
6%
|
0
|
12
|
Corn, Flaked
|
37
|
1
|
4%
|
0
|
8
|
Belgian Candy Sugar Light
|
36
|
0
|
4%
|
0
|
8
|
Wheat, Unmalted (Wheat Berries)
|
34
|
5
|
0%
|
0
|
1
|
Carafa III
|
32
|
525
|
|
13
|
5
|
|
|
|
Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Original Gravity
1.060 measured
Final Gravity
Color
8° SRM / 15° EBC
(Gold to Copper)
hops
use
|
time
|
oz
|
variety
|
form
|
aa
|
boil
|
20 mins
|
0.6
|
Simcoe
|
leaf
|
13.0
|
boil
|
15 mins
|
0.5
|
Amarillo
|
leaf
|
7.0
|
boil
|
10 mins
|
0.5
|
Amarillo
|
leaf
|
7.0
|
dry hop
|
10 days
|
2.0
|
Amarillo
|
leaf
|
7.0
|
Bitterness
15.8 IBU
yeast
ECY02 Flemish Ale
ale yeast in liquid form with low flocculation and 90% attenuation
|
Alcohol
7.3% ABV
***I mashed high, in the 158-160 range
3.20.12 - Sampled it and took a PH reading. PH is at 3.8. The taste is a nice funky saison with wheat and hops and tartness all intermingling nicely. Fruity brett with a little musty brett in the nose. Very fruity and refreshing in the taste.
5.18.12 - Added 1/4 ounce Medium Toast French Cubes to both ECY03 and ECY02 versions.
5.28.12 - Bottled ECY03 Saison Brett version with 7.1 ounces of corn sugar in Champagne and Belgian (750's and 375's) to reach 4 volumes of Co2.
