Brewday: Business Time Saison

I've brewed several saisons over the last couple of years and aside from this one, I've been more disappointed than pleased with how they turned out. Some of it has been bad luck, some of it bad decision making and some of it is that Fantôme and Dupont set an impossibly high standard for saisons. The feedback I got from my mate Nick G about the good one was that it was a nice saison but lacked an 'x factor'. I think he was spot on about that so this year I'm going to be brewing a few different versions of it to try and see whether I can find that x factor.

That's easier said than done. It's hard to know what will give it that hook that turns it from a nice beer to a truly compelling one. Will incremental changes be enough or does the whole recipe need a makeover? At the moment my incremental ideas are to increase the gravity, to try different hops or different yeast management. I'll also bottle several bottles of each with some different strains of brett as another potential x factor.

My first attempt is pretty simple, just brewing a higher gravity (1.050 compared to 1.040) version of the original. I would have kept everything else the same but since I harvested my hops a day before brewing I thought I'd use some fresh ones for the late hops.

WY3725 has become one of my favourite strains of yeast. It works quickly and at relatively high temperatures, gives a lovely lightly apricot and strawberry lolly and leaves a soft malt flavour. I pitched a very healthy dose of yeast and oxygenated for 60 seconds. Fermentation kicked off nice and quickly at 23C and after 36 hours I allowed it to rise to 25C and plan to increase it one degree each day after that until it is finished.

The actual brewing went nice and smoothly so there's not much to report on that front. I'm comfortable with how my process is working and the beer seems to be turning out well.

Check out the fresh hops and the not so
creative photography!

Business Time Saison (21L batch)
OG: 1.050 (measured)
FG: 1.005
IBU: 22
EBC: 6.3
ABV: 5.9%


Recipe
82% Dingemans pilsner malt
11% Weyermann rye malt
7% Best Malz wheat malt

20g Aramis @ 60 min
100g fresh Hallertau @ 15 min
150g fresh Hallertau @ 0 min

Wyeast 3725


Method
Mash:

• 3g CaSO4, 5g CaCl2, 3g MgSO4 for a balanced water profile with calcium increased for yeast happiness
• 4ml lactic acid for mash pH correction
• Stepped mash: 62C (45 minutes), 72C (15 minutes) and a mash out at 78C

Boil:

• 90 minute boil
• 20g Aramis @ FWH
• 100g Hallertau @ 15 minutes
• 1/2 tab of Whirlfloc @ 10 minutes
• 150g Hallertau @ 0 minutes
• 10 minute steep post-boil

Fermentation:

• Oxygenated for 60 seconds
• Pitched an estimated 210 billion cells
• 23C increased to 30C over the week

15/02/14 - Brewed

22/02/14 - Bottled, ~2/3 straight and 1/3 with Brett II

Brewday: Belgian IPA

Belgian IPA is one of those styles, kind of cool among some beer geeks but the feedback on most Belgian IPAs is mixed at best. Recently Little Creatures released another single batch beer, Quiet American. It's hopped with big, bold American hops and uses a Belgian yeast. I haven't managed to pick one up yet but from what I've read, the main criticism is that it's cloyingly sweet, with some also saying that the yeast doesn't play nicely with the hops.

The hops, minus the first wort addition

I've been keen to have a crack at this style for a little while now and the De Ranke XX Bitter was the beer to finally push me to give it a go. These are the factors that have guided my recipe design:

• A dry finish. This suits both Belgians and IPAs although IPAs aren't usually quite as dry. For this beer I'm aiming at a FG of about 1.008
• Bold use of hops but not crazy American 'C' hops. I got a packet of the newish Aramis and some Saaz too, aiming for a bitter, spicy, herbal, lemony hop combination. I want to achieve an IPA level hoppiness without forcing overwhelming flavours into it.
• Because of the high attenuation, the IBUs don't need to be as high as a classic IPA to still have the same effect as an IPA. The balance value formula was very helpful in working out how far to go with bitterness. An OG of 1.057, FG of 1.008 and IBUs of 45 give this beer a pretty classic American IPA balance.
• I made a starter with the dregs from a bottle of XX Bitter. I liked how the De Ranke yeast was mild but still Belgian. That little touch of clove complimented the whole beer but didn't dominate the way a Belgian yeast often wants to.
• Pale colour, light body and fairly high alcohol content. I'm borrowing pretty heavily from the Belgian Blonde Ale style here. My OG is a little low for a Blonde Ale but the attenuation will boost the alcohol percentage.

This Belgian IPA is much more about Belgium than America

Brewing was pretty straight forward. I used a slightly simplified mash schedule, 55/64/78'C for 10/60/10 minutes. I added some acidulated malt to the mash to get the pH in the right range. I ended up getting better efficiency than I expected, it ended up at 1.060 so if it attenuates well it could end up around 7% abv. The Aramis hops smelled amazing when I opened the package. Lemongrass, fruity, delicious.

I chilled the starter in the fridge, then decanted most of the liquid, gave a good shake and then pitched the slurry into the fermenter. The taste of the starter had exactly the right character from the yeast. It's sitting at 20.5'C and had visible signs of fermentation in about 10 hours.

Hopefully I'll get my hands on a bottle of Quiet American and do a side by side comparison as examples of the style.