UPDATE: Saison (HB#4) now bottle conditioning

I rigged up the siphon to my measuring stick so I didn't have to
hold it the whole time the Saison trasnferred to the bottling bucket

This past Thursday (1/19/12) I bottled the Saison, which has been sitting in primary since 12/27/2011. The period of time in the fermentation bucket was about a week shorter than the usual month, but the yeast I used (Wyeast 3711) does some serious work very quickly.

When I opened the bucket for the first time in three weeks I immediately stuck my face in their and took a deep breath in. The strong smell of pepper filled my nose and burnt my sinuses, but smelt really, really good. I decided to leave the peppercorns in the fermenter for the entire primary because I have read the peppercorn flavor/aromas fade fairly quickly if just boiled. The taste was also very peppery, but you could definitely sense the orange peel and coriander. I am very pleased, though I hope the pepper isn't too over powering.

My gravity on bottling day 1.006, which is right about where it should be. Since the yeast strain I used is such a workhorse, the bottle conditioning period shouldn't be too long. I am hoping it will be drinkable in a week or so (this coming Thursday), but I am sure like the other batches that it will only get better with time.

Funkwerks Saison

Funkwerks out of Fort Collins, Colorado is slowly becoming one of my go-to breweries whenever I go to the liquor store with nothing in mind. All of their ales are in someway inspired by classic Belgian styles, particularly saisons, witbiers, and golden ales. I have had their imperial saison ("Tropic King") and witbier ("White") and could not have been more pleased. Yesterday I picked up two more bottles I have yet to try: their flagship "Saison" and a Belgian golden ale called "Aurora." I haven't opened the Aurora yet, but this post will talk about the Belgian style ale simply called "Saison."

From what I have gathered from the Funkwerks website, "Saison" is their flagship beer. They seem to define themselves with this organic version of the classic Belgian saison. Unlike some saisons I have tried, this one was not too complex (which is NOT a bad thing) and was a nice alternative to some of the overly spiced and/or overly fruity examples I have tasted.

First off, this 6.8% saison pours a pale orange color with a thick white head with good retention. Their are strong sweet/citrus fruit and ginger aromas, with some pepper and cinnamon undertones.

The aromas are a very accurate foreshadowing of the flavors. Strong orange and other citrus flavors take center stage with very apparent pepper, ginger, and some cinammon in the background to create a very full flavor. The finish is dry with some bitterness from the German hops.

The ingredients lists only grains, hops, yeast, and water, which means that their was not any pepper, zest, or other adjuncts used to create any of the flavors that make saison the style that it is. It may come as a surprise, but the prominent citrus flavors, and the pepper, ginger, and cinammon flavors/aromas are all derived from the yeast. A lot of renowned brewers state that a really good saison doesn't need a lot (or any) of extra fruits and spices, but the proper yeast, a warm and fairly quick fermentation period, and a healthy bottle conditioning period. This really makes me want to try another Saison recipe with only grains, hops, yeast, and water in order to see just how big of a player the yeast really is in the flavor profile.

More on Funkwerks' "Aurora" to come...

**First two pictures are from Funkwerks.com**

Homebrew #5: Belgian Witbier

Even though I just got through brewing a saison around two weeks ago, I style have a jonesing for Belgian beers that can only be satisfied by more brewing. I thought about doing another saison, but I decided to wait until the saison fermenting now is down so I can taste it, make improvements, and brew the exact same thing again. This seems like the only logical way to actually improving my brewing. Anyways, saison was out, so I decided to take on the Belgian witbier.

I had just had Funkwerks' Belgian White about a week ago and loved it. It drank similar to a ginger beer with lots of citrus and spiciness. I knew I really wanted to capture the strong citurs flavors that were prominent in Funkwerks Belgian White, and most other Belgian witbiers, but I decided to leave out the ginger. After reading too many recipes all over the internet and consulting some of my recipe books, I formulated my own witbier recipe on BeerSmith that I think will really come out strong.

Here it is...

Zach stirring while I add the grains
during mash in.

Brew Day: 1/11/2012

Grains:

5.5 lbs - Pilsner (2 Row) Belgium

5 lbs    - Flaked Wheat

.25 lbs - Munich Malt

Mash Schedule:

Mash in:    3.2 gal at 166*F. Hold at 152*F for 60 minutes

Sparge 1:   2.1 gal at 168*F. Hold at 150*F for 25 minutes

Sparge 2:   2.1 gal at 170*F. Hold at 155*F for 20 minutes

Sparge 3:   2.6 gal at 166*F. Hold at 154*F for 20 minutes.

**My mash schedule was not supposed to look like this at all. Belgian Witbier recipes usually require you to gradually increase the temperature of the mash-in from around 122*F to 154*F, but as far as I know I cannot do that with a plastic cooler, so I planned to mash in at 154*F with 3.3 gal and do two sparges with about 2.3 gallons. However, after I saw how much wort the mash-in yielded, I knew my plans were going to change drastically. (The mash-in yielded 1.5 gallons. Sparge 1 yielded 1.5 gallons. Sparge 2 yielded 2 gallons, and Sparge 3 yielded enough to bring the preboil volume to 7.5 gallons and with some to spare) The sparge temperatures and times listed under the mash schedule were not planned. They are the result of reaction to the mash-in yielding so little wort.**

Pre-Boil Volume: 7.5 gallons

The ingredients for the boil less the hops.

Boil:

Boil Time: 90 Minutes

1 oz       German Hallertauer Hops       90 minutes

12 oz     Seville Orange Marmalade       5 minutes

.75 oz    Coriander Seed, crushed         5 minutes

1 g         100% Chamomile                  5 Minutes

4g          Fresh Grapefruit zest              0 minutes

Cool down with wort chiller and snow to 168*F

**Our hose was was completely frozen since it was snowing, so while I boiled some water to dump on the hose to thaw it out, I put the kettle in a mound of snow in order to start cooling as much as I could. If it wasn't for Mother Nature I would have been in quite the bind. The hose was thawed with one kettle of water dumped on it.**

Post Boil Volume: 6 gallons

**The opposite of the boil off situation with the saison happened with this brew. I over compensated for the boil off and ended up with 1 gal more of wort than intended. A large part of this is due to the type of boil I utilized. Instead of having a roaring boil, I kept the pot just hot enough to be at a boil, though not rapid. Beacause the boil wasn't as intense as HB#4, I think less water was boiled off. Luckily my fermenter can handle 6 gallons**

Original Gravity: 1.048 (target was 1.050)

**I am assuming the gravity is off by the small amount because I have more water than anticipated. The slightly lower OG should not be much of a problem.""

Pitch 2 packages of Wyeast 3944 Belgiant Wit yeast

Even though the mash schedule was completely off and I had to pretty much make up what I was doing along the way, my numbers still came out around the targets, so I can say things went pretty well. The beer tasted extremely good out of the tester. Citrus and orange flavors are on the forefront with some spice from the coriander and earthiness from the chamomile, while the hops add a bit of bitterness to dry it out just a tad. The only downside I can think of is the color. It looked on the light brown side of yellow, which is a bit off putting to be honest. Hopefully some of the sediment will settle and allow the color to be less muddy looking.

This was a really fun beer to brew despite taking more or less an entire day. This is my first recipe that I more or less created so I am interested in seeing how it comes out...

*UPDATE* I noticed the airlock on the fermenter bubbling rapidly at the 12hr mark. Fermenation seems to be progressing nicely.

The sources I use to learn about beer and brewing

Knowledge of craft beer and brewing goes beyond the simple ability to brew beer and appreciate (drink) it. Really anyone can brew beer like I am doing now if they have access to the equipment. However, being able to boil ingredients in water and ferment the wort at a certain temperature does not instill an understanding of what goes on in the brewing process in order to create different beer styles and flavors. There is a great deal of science that has to be considered, by home and micro brewers alike, in order to fully grasp how to make great beer (that can be re-created if desired).

I would like to think I know a great deal about a lot of what it takes to brew beer, but I by no means am in any way shape or form a self proclaimed expert, know-it-all, or any other similar title. That being said, I am constantly reading and researching different things to try and broaden my understanding of all aspects of craft beer, ranging from the science of the brewing process to the historical and cultural significance of beer. Now I am getting to the point of this post: I want to share the main resources I use since I find myself saying "I read..." a lot without stating where exactly.

We will start with the websites I mainly use:

-r/beer/ : A subreddit that is all things beer related. I mainly use this to keep up to date on news and releases. 

-r/homebrewing: Another subreddit. This is the primary forum I use to ask questions about all the things I dont understand about homebrewing

-American Homebrewers Association: Has a great forum for all things beer and brewing. Also a good resource to see inside micro-breweries and stay informed on things like the GABF and homebrew competitions.

-HomeBrewTalk : One of the bigger Homebrewing forums. More or less every question or problem I have run into has been discussed on at least 5 different occasions so it is a great resource. Also a great recipe database.

-Hopville : User submitted recipe databse.

And now the books:

-How To Brew by John Palmer. Bought this book way before I bought any equipment to brew. It is a great resource to walk you through every part of the brewing process for beginners, and then gets into the nitty gritty stuff as you get more comfortable. I have read this book at least 2 times cover to cover.

-The Oxford Companion to Beer by Garrett Oliver. This book is just short of 1000 pages. It is more or less a beer encyclopedia with everything from breweries, to ingredients, to brewing techniques. This is my new go-to book.

-Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff. Recipe book full of award winning homebrew recipes. The author is world renowned. Recipe books are actually a great way to become familiar with what ingredients are used in certain styles and things like that.

-The Homebrewers' Recipe Guide by Patrick Higgins et al. Another recipe book. Recipes are submitted by different people. There are little anecdotes and informative blurbs that make it a bit more interesting then just reading recipes.

Other resources worth mentioning:

-Beer Wars is a great documentary (that you can stream on Netflix) that concerns the roles of macro and micro breweries in the national and international beer market. There are segments on New Belgium, Sam Adams, and Dogfish Head just to name a few.

I realize this is a pretty dry and boring post, but I really felt the need to post all the resources I use to learn from. Like I said, beer is a science that goes far beyond boiling water, so there is a lot to learn and understand in order to achieve a strong comprehension of water exactly beer is.

A look at the spices used in the Saison (HB#4)

I don't feel the adjuncts in the saison got enough focus in the original post. This is the first time I used any sort of non hop or grain ingredient in a recipe. I tried to sample a little of each ingredient to see what it tastes and smells like so I can see how it will be showcased in the final product.

Corriander seeds have been prevelant in Belgian-style beers since the Middle ages. It was used to balance of the malt sweetness with some spiciness and bitterness. The flavor and aromas are more prevalent and last longer in the beer if the seeds are crushed, so I put the coriander seeds in a ziplock bag and rolled a soup can over them just enough to crack the them open. After the whole crushing process, the seeds smelt of flowers and citrus. The taste was very similar to the smell. The floral and citrus flavors are in the forefront with a bitterness and sweetness in the back, which really makes the taste and smell pleasant. The flavor and aroma profile is actually very similar to some hops.

Orange peel is also a common ingredient Belgian-style ales, particular Whites, that has been used since the Middle Ages. The peel I used came in packets in dried form, though you can use fresh peel if you want. There is sweet and bitter orange peel, and for this recipe I used the sweet. It gives off very strong, sweet, orange aromas. Despite the strong smell, there is not much taste. There are some hints of orange and a nearly untraceable amount of bitterness.

I had to go to Whole Foods to get pink peppercorns since they aren't necessarily that common in homebrewing. They tasted very much like peppermint with strong spiciness and some hints of fruit/sweetness.  I added the pink peppercorns at flame out and now they are sitting in primary while the beer ferments, so this Saison should have a very spicy pepper flavor and smell.

Though not a spice, the amber Belgian candi sugar is an ingredient I have yet to work with. It literally looks, smells, and tastes like flavorless rock candy. It will add some sweetness to the flavor, darken the color a bit, and increase the head retention. Since it is sugar, it will also act as more "food" for the yeast to convert into alcohol and carbon dioxide.The yeast strain is also worthy of mention, since yeast adds a huge amount of flavor to beer in general. For the saison I used Wyeast 3711 French Saison yeast. This yeast will enhance the spiciness and citrus notes in the beer as well as give it a smooth mouth feel. It is also common in high alcohol beers, which I have a feeling my Saison will be turn out on the stronger side.

I can't wait to try this beer. I am hoping the spiciness will be really prevalent in the forefront, but the floral and citrus flavors will smooth out the finish and make it drinkable. Right now (1/8) the beer is fermenting at 80 degrees. It has slowly been rising from 65 degree F on brew day to where it is now, with some minor fluctuations along the way. I don't have any way to regulate fermentation temperatures, though I am aiming for 80 degrees F, but I have the fermenter bucket wrapped in blankets and coats and I put a space heater on it every once in a while. I am working on having more control on the fermentation temperature, and since it is winter time I will be starting with heat. More to come on that soon....

Homebrew #4: Saison

It is becoming a trend for me as craft beer drinker to get caught up in phases where I search out all there is to offer for particular styles of beers. At first it was reds and browns, then stouts and IPAs, and now I am on a Belgian beer bender. "Belgian" is not so much a style of beer in itself, but about the region where the beer comes from ("No way! Belgians come from Belgium?!"), the people who make it, and most importantly the yeast strains used. I won't go to deep in to Belgians because it would make this post way too long, but something soon to come will discuss all that good stuff...

Right now, my holy grail is a good Saison (here are some of my favorites: Tank 7, Tropic King, Hennepin). Traditionally, Saisons were brewed in farmhouses in a French speaking part of Belgium, and for very practical reasons. First and foremost, Saisons were brewed to refresh farmers in the hot months of Spring going into Summer. Secondly, brewing beer was a way for farmers to continue to work (and make money) during the off season of the farm. Last, the spent grains from the brewing process make for great animal feed. Today, I would argue that Saisons are brewed simply because of the way they taste. Saisons have become a very popular beer in the American craft beer world, and thus has developed into a style that is very hard to generally categorize. Typically Saisons are light colored, in the 6-7% ABV range, and have spicy and fruity qualities. That being said, Saisons can be dark, over 10% ABV, and be extremely hoppy, so it is almost pointless to try and reduce the style of Saison to a simple description anymore.

The Saison recipe I put together was inspired by a recipe I found on the HomebrewTalk forums. I took the ingredients and some of the procedures and reworked them in the BeerSmith software in order to get a recipe that will produce quality beer with the equipment set up I have. This beer involves some spices (pink peppercorns, corriander seeds) and fruits (orange peel zest) which should add nicely to the flavor profile. So here is what the recipe looks like:

Brew day: 12/27/11

Grains:
-6 lb 4 oz - Belgian Pilsner Malt
-3 lb 12 oz - Maris Otter, Pale Malt
-2 lb 8 oz - White Wheat Malt
-5 oz - Aromatic Malt
-5 oz Biscuit Malt


Mash Schedule:

-Mash Grains with 4.5 gal 161 degree F water at 147 degree F for 75 minutes.
-Sparge ~1 gal of 175 degree F water for 10 min
-Sparge ~1.5 gal of 175 degree F water for 10 min
-Sparge ~1.5 gal of 175 degree water for 10 min

Pre Boil Volume: ~8 gal

Pre Boil Gravity: 1.051 (right on target)

Boil Schedule (90 minutes):

-1/2 oz - Magnum Hops (flake)             @ 90 min
-1 lb - Amber Candi Sugar                    @ 60 min
-1 oz Hallertauer Hops                         @ 10 min
- Super Moss                                      @ 10 min
-1 oz - Corriander Seed (crushed)         @ 5 min
-1 oz - Orange Peel, Sweet                  @ 5 min
-1 oz - Hallertauer Hops                       @ 0 min
-1 oz - Pink Pepper Corns                    @ 0 min

I put the Magnum hops in a hop bag during the boil since they were in flake form. I didn't want to have too much sediment in primary and I heard flake hops can get messy, so I decided to try the hop bag. I ended up doing all the hop and other spices additions into the same hop as the Magnum hops so as to keep the wart free of sediment. The pink peppercorns were put into its own hop bag because I decided to leave them in the carboy during primary to give it a really strong peppery flavor.


Post Boil Volume: 4.1 gal
Post Boil Gravity: 1.088 (WAY to high*)

Once the boil was over, I cooled the wort down to 65 degree F with my wort chiller and some snow. I dumped the wort vigorously into the fermentation bucket in order to aerate it a bit, and then stirred it rapidly to oxygenate it some more. I then added 1 packet of Wyeast 3711 French Saison yeast. Because my gravity is so high, some would say I need more yeast to get full fermentation, but I am going to wait it out and see what happens. I can always add yeast later...

*Unfortunately the program I used to help make this recipe (BeerSmith) crashed and didn't save the recipe I used for this batch, so I don't have specific numbers for things like target gravity. What I do know is that 1.088 was extremely high. The gravity was supposed to be in the realm of 1.071, so something was definitely off. After a some panicking and a little research it seems that two major things happened. First, I didn't mash enough water to have 5 gallons of wort after a 90 minute boil (I need to adjust my boil off rate). Second, I formulated my recipe assuming I would only get about 65% efficiency from the grains. The percentage of efficiency is how much sugar you extracted from the grains during mashing. In general, you have lower efficiency when you first start all grain because you need to get used to your equipment and get good at hitting and maintaining mash temperatures for long periods of times. Apparently I had good luck, and had around 75-80% efficiency. Lesson Learned: It will take a few batches to get used to equipment in order to create perfect recipes with precise amounts of ingredients. Practice makes perfect....

The beer started fermenting at 65 degrees F and has since naturally risen to ~72 degrees F (1/3). In the next week it will hopefully get up to ~78 degrees F and I will have to somehow boost and maintain the fermentation at 80 for a few days before letting it come back down and the bottling it. Fermentation temperature is crucial in the outcome of Saisons. Although a lot of flavor is being derived from the malts, hops, and adjuncts I boiled in, most of it is actually being produced by the yeast, which reacts in different ways depending on temperature.

I am trying to keep my expectations low since this is my first all grain batch, but at the same time I hope this is as good as it smells...