I don't drink Saison's very often, mainly because they're so damn expensive, but sometimes the expense is worth it. I had a Saison Dupont last night, and it just reminded me why I love the style so much. Peppery, spicy, and totally balanced. So good.
Today I brewed the second of two Saison's I will brew this year. I did a more classic version a few weeks ago, so today's was a darker brew. I read in Farmhouse Ales that some German's do some variations on the styel, so it seemed like a fun idea to do a darker incarnation that featured some German grains.
Saison Dunkel-
Fermentables-
German Munich Malt- 3 lbs
Belgian Pilsner Malt- 3 lbs
Vienna Malt- 2 lbs
Special B- 8 ounces
CaraFoam- 8 ounces
Sauer Malt- 4 ounces
Hops-
Fuggle- .75 oz- 60 minutes
Fuggle- 1.25 oz- 15 minutes
Yeast-
Yeast cake from Saison #1
Mash-
148/165- hot water infusion with a decoction mash out
Gravity- Target/Actual/Final/ABV
1.053/1.056
I always go back to Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing when I'm putting together a recipe lately. One of the things he talks about is squeezing as much color from your base malt as possible. I had originally planned on using a dark Munich malt instead of a light, but this beer was still noticeably darker than the first one. The Special B is a classic Belgian Dubbel ingredient, so it seemed like the right roasted Malt to use as my other main color adjustment. The yeast does most of the work on this beer, so there's a very small amount of hops in relation to the gravity, but I think this will be a tasty brew.
I was putting together the list of beers I want to make in the next few months, and I've got some really fun things coming up. I will be harvesting some hops here pretty soon, which will go into my first Harvest Ale. I am planning on a Cocoa Porter using some Scharfenberger Cocoa Nibs as a bittering agent. I am also really excited about doing a Scotch Ale, which will employ a small bit of smokey malt. Good times!
Showing posts with label Belgian Ales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Belgian Ales. Show all posts
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Saison #1
My dad has a way of describing jobs around the house by how many beers he needs to drink to get the job done. Cleaning the p-trap in the kitchen sink would be a one beer job. Building a garden box for my mom would probably be a two beer job. Farmers in Belgium 150 years ago felt the same way. Not having much farm work to do in the winter time, they brewed beer, a style called Saison. It was meant to be a low alcohol easy drinking beer to give to the farmhands to refresh them in the hard hot summers.
It is also probably my favorite style of beer to brew. Because it was brewed on every farm, every farmer had his own recipes, typically using whatever ingredients he had on his own farm. This made for some massive diversity, to the point where there is no real standard bearer beer for the style. Brewers know when they're drinking one, but no two are alike. Like the guy at the home brew shop said to the this weekend: "Get the right yeast, throw a bunch of crap in your mash tun, and let it rip!"
Saison #1
Fermentables-
Rahr Premium Pilsner- 8 lbs
Sauer Malt- 5 oz
CaraFoam- 5 oz
CaraVienne- 5 oz
Hops-
Wilammette- 1 oz- 60 minutes
French Streisspalt- 2 oz- 14 minutes
Yeast-
Wyeast Saison 3724- 1000 ml yeast starter- pitched off the stir plate
Mash-
148 single infusion with a 1 gallon decoction mash out
Gravity- Target/Actual/Final/ABV
1.047/1.055/
Saison yeasts are typically very high attenuators, so my aim with the grain bill and mash is to make something that will finish dry. This is the first of a couple Saison's I'm going to do, so I decided this one should be light in color (more of a classic Saison), with small amounts of character malts. The next one will be darker, less classic, and more dependent on darker base and character malts. I wanted an unobtrusive bitterness to balance the grain, so I went with Willamette. The Streisspalt flavor charge is more of the sort of thing you would expect to find in a classic recipe, something a farmer in Wallonia might have growing in a far off corner of his farm. They were unlike any hops I've used before. They didn't have that greeny freshness you find with American hops, but more of a solid spice aroma coming off of them.
It is also probably my favorite style of beer to brew. Because it was brewed on every farm, every farmer had his own recipes, typically using whatever ingredients he had on his own farm. This made for some massive diversity, to the point where there is no real standard bearer beer for the style. Brewers know when they're drinking one, but no two are alike. Like the guy at the home brew shop said to the this weekend: "Get the right yeast, throw a bunch of crap in your mash tun, and let it rip!"
Saison #1
Fermentables-
Rahr Premium Pilsner- 8 lbs
Sauer Malt- 5 oz
CaraFoam- 5 oz
CaraVienne- 5 oz
Hops-
Wilammette- 1 oz- 60 minutes
French Streisspalt- 2 oz- 14 minutes
Yeast-
Wyeast Saison 3724- 1000 ml yeast starter- pitched off the stir plate
Mash-
148 single infusion with a 1 gallon decoction mash out
Gravity- Target/Actual/Final/ABV
1.047/1.055/
Saison yeasts are typically very high attenuators, so my aim with the grain bill and mash is to make something that will finish dry. This is the first of a couple Saison's I'm going to do, so I decided this one should be light in color (more of a classic Saison), with small amounts of character malts. The next one will be darker, less classic, and more dependent on darker base and character malts. I wanted an unobtrusive bitterness to balance the grain, so I went with Willamette. The Streisspalt flavor charge is more of the sort of thing you would expect to find in a classic recipe, something a farmer in Wallonia might have growing in a far off corner of his farm. They were unlike any hops I've used before. They didn't have that greeny freshness you find with American hops, but more of a solid spice aroma coming off of them.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Tripel
And finally the tripel. If you've never had this style of beer, you are seriously missing out. In principle, it's a big refreshing beer. The Belgians are big on talking about digestibility in their beers. Which is to say, something you can sit down and eat with as opposed to something that would fill you up all on it's own. The tripel is sort of the culmination of that, as it's something you sort of NEED to eat a meal with. The style inherently contains a lot of sugar which makes it really high in alcohol. If you sit down after a long day in the garden with a few of these and no food, you can get yourself pretty drunk really fast.
But again, that's not really the point. Beer, while refreshing and fun on it's own, is best enjoyed with food. I continually see articles in Bon Appetit where people are mentioning beer more and more in food pairings. And there are some foods that just pair better with beer than with wine, so it makes sense that you would start to see this. According to Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster of The Brooklyn Brewery, it's a good style for game birds and gamy hams like prosciutto. I am psyched about having this beer with a nice big dagwood type ham sandwich in August on the picnic table.
On to the recipe!
Tripel-
Fermentables-
Belgian Pilsner- 8 lbs
Vienna Malt- 2 lbs
Belgian Aromatic- 4 ounces
Carapils- 4 ounces
Clear Homemade Candi Sugar- 2 lbs- put in the boil at 45 minutes
Hops-
Kent Goldings- 4.6- 1 ounce- 60 minutes
Chinook- 13- .25 ounces- 13 minutes
Yeast-
Wyeast 1388- Belgian Strong Ale- yeast cake from Single and Dubbel batches
Mash-
149/167- hot water infusion with a decoction mashout
Gravity- Target/Actual/Final/ABV
1.069/1.064/1.006/7.61%
The grain bill of a tripel is geared toward being able to stand up to the large amount of sugar that's going into the beer. That sugar ferments completely, so you need good stuff on the front end to make sure it's got a bit of malt and body to hold up under all that alcohol. Good Pilsner and Vienna malts are perfect for this. The Vienna especially is going to leave a little something that the yeast can't convert. The Kent Golding hops as a bittering addition are a traditional tripel ingredient. The Chinook not so much. I was kind of inspired by Chris, my neighbor who brews for Three Floyds, after talking to him about my single to try some unconventional hop additions. I probably should have done a little more research about the hop pairing of Goldings and Chinook (in truth, I didn't do any research at all), but homebrewing is about experimentation, and the Chinook addition is a tiny one at 1/4 of an ounce, so I don't think it will impart too much harshness. I added the sugar during the boil. Some people have been advocating adding it to the secondary, but I kind of like the idea of getting a little character from what happens when the sugar is a part of the boil.
The gravity came out a little low. I think if there is one aspect to my brewing that I have not really been able to get a handle on yet, it would be evaporation rate. I was unaware of how much volume would be added from the two pounds of sugar syrup, along with the relatively imprecise measurements on the side of my kettle for volume (I basically took a metal file and marked the side as best I could for the 3 to 7 gallon marks). This can get really imprecise when you put multiple whole hop additions in the kettle, along with the immersion chiller and the hop screen. Definitely something I plan on working on. In the end, I collected 5.5 gallons of beer into the carboy, which made my gravity almost the same as with the dubbel. The good news is that there was an extra pound of sugar in there, so I should get the divergence I was looking for from the two beers.
But again, that's not really the point. Beer, while refreshing and fun on it's own, is best enjoyed with food. I continually see articles in Bon Appetit where people are mentioning beer more and more in food pairings. And there are some foods that just pair better with beer than with wine, so it makes sense that you would start to see this. According to Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster of The Brooklyn Brewery, it's a good style for game birds and gamy hams like prosciutto. I am psyched about having this beer with a nice big dagwood type ham sandwich in August on the picnic table.
On to the recipe!
Tripel-
Fermentables-
Belgian Pilsner- 8 lbs
Vienna Malt- 2 lbs
Belgian Aromatic- 4 ounces
Carapils- 4 ounces
Clear Homemade Candi Sugar- 2 lbs- put in the boil at 45 minutes
Hops-
Kent Goldings- 4.6- 1 ounce- 60 minutes
Chinook- 13- .25 ounces- 13 minutes
Yeast-
Wyeast 1388- Belgian Strong Ale- yeast cake from Single and Dubbel batches
Mash-
149/167- hot water infusion with a decoction mashout
Gravity- Target/Actual/Final/ABV
1.069/1.064/1.006/7.61%
The grain bill of a tripel is geared toward being able to stand up to the large amount of sugar that's going into the beer. That sugar ferments completely, so you need good stuff on the front end to make sure it's got a bit of malt and body to hold up under all that alcohol. Good Pilsner and Vienna malts are perfect for this. The Vienna especially is going to leave a little something that the yeast can't convert. The Kent Golding hops as a bittering addition are a traditional tripel ingredient. The Chinook not so much. I was kind of inspired by Chris, my neighbor who brews for Three Floyds, after talking to him about my single to try some unconventional hop additions. I probably should have done a little more research about the hop pairing of Goldings and Chinook (in truth, I didn't do any research at all), but homebrewing is about experimentation, and the Chinook addition is a tiny one at 1/4 of an ounce, so I don't think it will impart too much harshness. I added the sugar during the boil. Some people have been advocating adding it to the secondary, but I kind of like the idea of getting a little character from what happens when the sugar is a part of the boil.
The gravity came out a little low. I think if there is one aspect to my brewing that I have not really been able to get a handle on yet, it would be evaporation rate. I was unaware of how much volume would be added from the two pounds of sugar syrup, along with the relatively imprecise measurements on the side of my kettle for volume (I basically took a metal file and marked the side as best I could for the 3 to 7 gallon marks). This can get really imprecise when you put multiple whole hop additions in the kettle, along with the immersion chiller and the hop screen. Definitely something I plan on working on. In the end, I collected 5.5 gallons of beer into the carboy, which made my gravity almost the same as with the dubbel. The good news is that there was an extra pound of sugar in there, so I should get the divergence I was looking for from the two beers.
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