An important part of WIB since its inception has been our homebrewing community. We never cease to be amazed by the creativity, talent and sometimes utterly bizarre creations they come up with, using the ingredients from our shelves. We've often said we wish we could share the brews that make it to our monthly homebrew club with the rest of the world, so now we are!
The challenge for July was Saison. We had a couple of great examples, plus other great beers as usual. Check out the recipes for the club’s favourite beers!
Alban shared his dry hopped saison with us - it was a great example of the style…
The primary goal with this saison was to try out the new Lallemand Farmhouse Yeast as I normally use their Belle Saison. The yeast is described as a hybrid, but after a bit of research I think the main difference is that the new yeast is non-diastatic. This was by no means a scientific experiment!
Unusually (for me) I was going to dry-hop the beer so I decided to mash a little higher to balance out an expected IBU of 27.3, so I mashed in at 69C which dropped to 66.5C over the hour.
|
Fermentables |
Hops & Additions |
||
|
3 kg [64.9%] |
Pilsen |
20g |
Brewers Gold @ 120 min |
|
910g [19.7%] |
Pale Wheat Malt |
15 g |
Hallertau Mittelfrüh @ 15 min |
|
388g [8.4%] |
Pale Rye |
29 g |
Tettnanger @ 5 min |
|
223g [4.8%] |
Acidulated Malt |
25g |
Sweet Orange Peel @ 5 min |
|
100g [2.2%] |
Belgian Candi Sugar Dark |
14g |
Coriander (dry fried to toast and then crushed) @ 5 min |
|
|
|
5g |
Whole Black Peppercorns @ 5 min |
|
|
|
100g |
Belgian Candi Sugar Dark @ 5 min |
|
|
|
42g |
Huell Melon dry hop for 4 days |
As usual, there was an element of using up some ingredients alongside some classic saison ingredients.
I collected more wort than I’d expected so ended up with a 2 hour boil to hit my intended OG of 1.048. Yeast was pitched at 26C (stated range for the yeast is 20-30C) and was pleasantly surprised by how quickly fermentation kicked in (about 8 hours). I let the temperature drop to 20C and then slowly raised it to 29C over the space of 8 days. After 4 days I added the dry hop and removed it 4 days later. Up to this point things all seemed to be going to plan.
Once fermentation had fully finished and I’d let the beer sit at around 15C for a couple of days the first surprise came in that the FG was sitting and staying at 1.0085. Belle Saison normally finishes at 1.003-4 in my setup and despite the slightly higher mash temperature, this was sweeter than I’d expected. Acidulated malt can also affect the FG but again I wouldn’t have expected a 4-5 point difference. I left it for a total of 2 weeks before bottling but then surprise #2 came.
The beer had developed a thin film on the surface, something that would’ve been welcome if I was brewing a brett but unexpected for this brew, until that is, I remembered I’d consciously moved my steel fermenter to my brett collection of vessels when I brewed a BA American farmhouse table saison in it about a year earlier. Despite my fastidious cleaning routine I had missed a rubber washer where I hadn’t expected one to be, so I had inadvertently brewed a
lightly-bretted saison. However, I had many tastings between bottling and brew club to check I wasn’t going to poison anyone but actually it tasted pretty good.
In hindsight, there are too many variables to pass judgement on the new yeast. The beer isn’t as dry as a saison should be, but with any luck the brett character will develop over the next 6-12 months. The orange, pepper and coriander additions are very-subtle to non-existent so I might increase the amounts of these in a future version. I quite like the slight chewiness of the Rye but would maybe reduce or forgo the acidulated malt, subtle though it is.
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Matt brought in his take of a Flanders Red, an incredible beer!
Brewed in August 2017
Recipe for 23 litres:
Malt
1.7kg Maris otter
1.5kg Munich
2kg lager malt
0.23kg special B
0.23kg aromatic
0.23kg crystal 40
Hops
35g EKG 60mins
Yeast
1 packet S04 for primary, 3 weeks
Then WLP665 Flemish ale blend into secondary for 6 months.
(I may have pitched them together and I'm afraid I can't remember!)
OG was 1.056 (poor mash efficiency, maybe 60%) and it fermented down to 1.003.
I was going to bottle after 6 months but tasted and didn't like it - very acetic. Decided to add a kilo of blueberries to see if it would help. I think I had googled flanders reds and seen an American brewery that had done this. So thought it wouldn't hurt to try. A kg of blueberries would have added about 0.5% more alcohol, I seem to remember calculating at the time. So an FG of about 7.5% sounds about right. I bottled about a month later.
The blueberries added colour, tannins and a hint of sweetness. Definitely took the harsh edges away. What they didn't do was add any blueberry flavour. Any flavour they did add wore off pretty quickly. I entered the beer into a competition in 2019 in the sour fruited section. Got 40 points and was pleased with that but was told I may have scored a bit better if I'd entered it as a straight Flanders red. I have six bottles left and keep thinking about sticking them into another competition to see how they do. However, I think I'll just drink them once a year at homebrew till I run out!
I must brew it again - it was one of my most successful beers. I'd repeat the blueberry experiment on half the batch, or maybe all of it. A bit like a Flaming Mo, don't ask me why but blueberries made it good...
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Adrian and Will shared a great red IPA.
The Red IPA is an all grain recipe brewed in the garden using all home made equipment. The day went well, soundtracked by a mixture of music, on the heavy end of the spectrum.
The brew days food accompaniment was chicken wings.
Much beer was imbibed.
Beer style (main): Speciality IPA for the Brew Comp (Elusive?)
Beer style (sub): Red IPA
Batch size: 23L
Original Gravity: 1.048
Final Gravity: 1.006
ABV: 5.5%
IBU: 40
Mash temp: 67C
Mash length: 60 min
Out temp: 70'ish
Out time: About 10 minutes
Boil time: 60 mins
Additions:
10g Columbus @ 60 mins
15g Idaho 7 @ 10 mins
15g Strata @ 10 mins
20g Idaho 7 @ flameout
20g Strata @ flameout
30g Columbus, 3 day dry hop
30g Idaho 7, 3 day dry hop
30g Strata, 3 day dry hop
Yeast - Lalbrew Bry-97
Ferm temp: 18C-20C
And that’s that!
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waterintobeer Homebrew Club takes place on the first Sunday of the month at 2pm.