When it comes down to it, I’m really just a backyard brewer… There’s not checking of mash pH, the grain bill is weighed out ‘near enough’, fermentation control is lacking and ‘shock horror’ I use my local tap water without filtering. So far I’ve been pretty lucky with the results, either that or this homebrew thing is tollarent to my bad behaviour. This weeks brew is case in point….
I’ve always been incredibly fond of Saisons, to me it is the beer style which can incorporate the widest variety of flavors – you can go hard on the hops, push the temps for fruity/spice or keep it clean and mellow for a ‘lawn mower beer’. This blog already has one of my previous [experiences], here we are pulling out a recipe for one of the first beers I brewed – I call it, ‘Sauvin Saison’. What I really enjoyed about this beer was how well the ‘wine’ from the sauvin hops mellowed with the peppery spice of the yeast, lets see if I can recreate it with this batch.
23L OG 1.060 21 IBU
2.3 kg Pilsner Malt
1.4 kg Pale Malt
900 g Munich Malt
900 g Wheat Malt
500 g Table Sugar (sucrose)
120 g Dark Crystal
14 g Nelson Sauvin @ 20′, 10 and 5′
28 g Nelson Sauvin @ 7 days
Nothing fancy in the mash, rest @ 66C for 90′, sparge @ 77C.
Talking about my fermentation (or lack thereof) – anyone familer with Dunedin weather at this time of year will appreciate this isn’t the best time to attempt to brew with French/Belgian yeast strains. Again I’m using a dry yeast, this one has an optimum working temp of 26-32 C, there are a few things I have done to try and get around this – 1) I’ve pitched the yeast at ~35C and rehydrated in water previously, considering 23L is a decent amount of thermal mass this should ensure temp >20C for the next few days 2) A nice blanket has been wrapped around the fermentor and its sitting in the hot water cupboard 3) I’ve added sucrose to the wort, this should provide some easy initial sugars for the yeast to eat, once a ferment starts it should create its own heat. This pales in comparison to a proper fermentation chamber but it should give me a fighting chance.
Current beer stocks are ok, I’ve finished the last of the mild (which tasted better and better after a bit of conditioning) and there is 3/4 of a crate of PaleAle, 3/4 of a crate of Stout and 1 crate of Dunkelweizen left. Kinda sick of bottles, need to go to kegs….
garden of eden brewing 