Shua Brewing

Brew Day: Washington Lambic

This last weekend my friend David and I completed the first of two brew sessions to fill a 15 gallon plastic barrel of lambic. While I initially dubbed this beer “Washington Lambic”, it is currently a “Mostly Washington Lambic”, since we have yet to successfully culture local yeast and bacteria. We chose to ferment the batch with Wyeast Belgian Lambic Blend instead, along with various dregs of sour beers we drink, as well as any successful local funk we culture in the near future.

Aged Cascades from my neighbors brothers hop farm near Sunnyside

We did manage to keep the rest of the ingredients fairly local as seen in the recipe below. Finishing off my 50 pound bag of Washington select 2-row, unmalted local wheat, and aged cascade hops I had in my attic. Living 30 minutes from the largest hop region in the US makes hops the easiest to obtain by far. While it was nice to keep the hops local it also wasn’t completely ideal because although aged a bit, they still had an estimated 6.0% AA content which did not allow us to pack it full of as many hops as is traditional. Also to be noted is a 66/34 ratio was going to be used for the grain bill but I ran out of unmalted wheat so I added in a little torrified wheat.

David heating Kettle #2 to 176.

Mashing wise we wanted to do a traditional turbid mash. This was surprisingly refreshing reverting back to using my propane burner, since I have been brewing with my full electric rig for the last 2 years. It is odd but I find I at times miss standing in the cold over a propane burner, not having electronics to automatically hit my temperatures. One of my favorite brew days to date.

The boil. 10 Gallon pot was a bit small for this, had to keep topping off.

Below is the steps I set out for the brew day. I was proud of myself, I tend to do stuff on the fly which seemed like trouble waiting to happen on this brew. Turns out planning everything out so well allowed me to hit most of my numbers pretty close for each step.

Turbid Mash Schedule:

1. Heat 5 gallons of water to 150 F in main Kettle.
2. Add 6 qts to MT.
3. Crank heat on main kettle to bring to a boil.
4. When water in MT is at 135.6 F add grain.
5. Planned Temperature: 113 F              Actual Temperature:   ~112.5 F
6. Adjust accordingly. Total Water in MT:  6 qts
7.  Wait 20 minutes
8. Add boiling water until mash hits 136 F.       Actual Temperature:  ~135.5 F
9. Water added  4.5 qts                       Total water in MT: 10.5 qts
10. Wait 5 minutes.
11. Vorlauf to remove big chunks. Pull 1.5 qts to small kettle and heat to 176F.
12. Add boiling water until mash hits 150 F.       Actual Temperature: 151 F
13.  Water added  5  qts                   Total water in MT: 13 qts
14. Top off main kettle.
15. Wait 30 minutes
16. Vorlauf to remove big chunks. Pull 6 qts to small kettle and heat to 176 F.
17. Add boiling water until mash hits 162 F.          Actual Temperature: 161.7 F
18. Water added  8 qts                 Total water in MT:  15 qts
19. Top off main kettle and bring it up to 185F for sparge.
20. Add small kettle to the mash. Bring it to 167 F.
21. Adjust accordingly to hit temp.
22. Wait 10 minute.
23. Recirculate for 10 minutes/Vorlauf tell clear. Start Sparge.

Chilling the wort at the end of the day.

Washington Lambic (1/2 the batch)

OG: 1.051   FG: NA     ABV: NA    IBU: 15.9    SRM: 3.7

Size:8 gallon       Mash:Turbid Mash  Ferment: Garage Ambient ~60 F

Recipe:

66.63% Washington Select Pale malt (GW)

31.78% Unmalted Wheat

1.59% Torrified Wheat (GW)

21g Aged Cascade 150min [15.9IBU]

Yeast: Wyeast Belgian Lambic Blend, Sour Bottle Dregs

Notes:

12/22/12 Brewed the beer, brew day lasted approximately 8 hours. Pretty good for a long mash, and 2.5 hour boil.

12/23/12 Fermentation going in full force.

Planning on brewing the rest of it after Christmas. By then the fermentation should be slowing down, and ready to fill it up to the top. Trying to avoid spewing wort everywhere when its full and fermenting.

After a day of brewing I apparently wasn’t the only one tired. Bella is only 6 months old and hasn’t learned to be lady like yet. Bit of a ho haha.

Elysian Pumpkin Beer Fest

This last weekend I headed to the west side of the state to spend some time with the girl as well as go to the pumpkin beer festival that Elysian puts on every year in Seattle. We met our friend Emily before hand to get some pizza across the street at Stellar Pizza. 2 dollar slices and 3.5 pints of Elysian Night Owl and we were off to a good start.

While I am not a huge pumpkin beer fan, I was very impressed with what I tried of the 60 or so beers they had. While I failed at keeping notes, here is a list of a few of the beers I remember either having myself or had a sip of one of the girls.

1. Russian River Sour Pumpkin
2. Jolly Pumpkin La Parcela
3. Elysian The Gourdfather Pumpkin Barleywine
4. Elysian Blight Pumpkin Ale
5. Elysian Mr. Yuck Sour Pumpkin Ale
6. Elysian/New Belgium Kick
7. Elliott Bay P-Funk
8. Cambridge Stout at the Devil
9. Cambridge Coach and Four
10. Nogne Super Stuck Mash
11. Silver City Punk Rauchin’
12. Hair of the Dog Greg
13. Gigantic/Vertigo We know Jack!

*I know I had more then this but as the night went on I remember far less haha.

I started the night going for Russian River and Jolly Pumpkin, firstly because I love sours, but second they always put out excellent beers. They did not disappoint. While those two obviously stand out as being excellent, a few others that I really enjoyed were Hair of the Dog Greg, Silver City Punk Rauchin’, and Cambridge Coach and Four.

I wish I would of taken more pictures of the info cards for each beer, but at least I have one, Greg was very good.

It was a pretty cold night in Georgetown but was nice that the festival was both inside Elysians production brewery and outside in there parking lot. Inside they opened up a lot of area to look at all there shiny stainless steel. My favorite was when they had a few tables up on there brew system, looking down over the festival and the fermenters.

Alyse and Emily.

So much Stainless.

Yeast Propagation, and a blurry picture of the white board showing whats in each tank and the status.

I think one of my favorite things other then brewing is brewing automation. I don’t think I ever did a full write up on my brewing system, but I have been slightly obsessed with upgrading it and making it even more automated since I first made it. At times I think I focus more on building then brewing.  So of course seeing Elysians brewing system automation was amazing. I am an engineer at heart and I just cant help it, fixing something that isn’t broken is just part of the territory.

Overall the festival was great, and I hope I can make it back again. On the homebrew side of things I think I want to make a pumpkin beer next year. From what I liked that wasn’t a sour, I was most impressed with the pumpkin beers that used Belgian ales as the base, particularly Coach and Four stood out as an excellent example to go by. I also learned that going to a beer festival with 2 girls means that I got many free beer tickets (probably close to 15 were given to them). It was a good day!

West Coast Saison (wet hop)

In the last few years I have put together a small garden of hops on the side of my parents house. Currently I have 4 plants, the cascade and centennial are 3 years old and the columbus and goldings are 2 years old. My parents live in eastern Washington roughly 20 minutes from the largest hop growing area in the nation so the conditions are ideal to say the least.

Unfortunately with the timing of school and harvest I always have to really plan out how I am going to do my wet hop ale. Last year I tried freezing them and then brewing with them a couple weeks later. This method was awful, and I would not suggest attempting it. This year luckily my friend David took a half day on Friday, stopped by my parents house, cut the vines, put them in bags and drove the 2 hour drive up to school. We planned a double brew day, 10 gallons of saison, and 10 gallons of IPA. Definitely a long one, heat on at 4:30 and in bed around 3AM.

I am excited about this brew and how most of the ingredients represent the area quite well. I really like the idea of the combo of saison yeast and fresh American hops. The base malt is Washington Select 2Row, as well as a healthy dose of wheat for which Washington is a major grower of. While I have no idea where the munich 10L is from I thought it would add a bit of complexity into the pretty straight forward malt bill. While I was tempted to up the bitterness to really represent a “west coast” brew I thought it would be better to focus more on flavor and aroma then bitterness, let the dry spicy saison provide a great base for the plethora of hops.

West Coast Saison

OG: 1.055   FG: not yet     ABV: not yet    IBU: 28.9    SRM:6.5

Size:10 gallon       Mash:148F  Ferment: 68F / 20C avg

Recipe:

79.65% Washington Select 2 Row (GW)

10.00% Munich 10L (GW)

10.00% White Wheat (GW)

00.35% Chocolate Malt 413L (Crisp) (for color)

16g Magnum 60min [15.5IBU]

150g Wet Columbus 15min [9.5IBU]

150g Wet Centennial 10min [3.5IBU]

150g Wet Cascade 5min [0.4IBU]

150g of each of them at flame out

Yeast: 50% 3711, 50% US-05

Notes:

9/7/12 Brewed with David. Brew day went pretty well, especially since it was my first one back in Pullman. Hit 75% eff as expected. Pretty good start. Pitched starter of 3711 and us-05 that was dropped on the stir plate 30 minutes before pitch.

9/12/12 Bumped up the temp on the fermentation chamber to 21C to help it finish out.

9/13/12 Bumped up the temp on the fermentation chamber to 22C

But you’re still brewing and that’s what counts!

Agree. But now I believe I am out of kegs. Apparently drinking 5 gallons a week is not as easy as one would think! … actually I give a good amount away, or send growlers with people but still. I think this weekend will be taken off. I really need to give the system a good cleaning anyways. And I have a suspicion that my temp prob is in need of some calibration. The last few brews have finished far lower then expected. 1.006-1.008. Well other then my Saison… I cant catch a break. haha.

I am terribly behind on posting what I have been brewing. I have been brewing with my friend David pretty much every weekend the last month or so. Maybe this week I will catch up. Work and building the kegerator has taken over my life.

Saison Tasting

Appearance - Big white head when poured with a finger thick white top which forms whenever you spin it up until the very end of the glass. Active carbonation bubbling up. In the tulip glass it looks a light golden color and cloudy. In a smaller glass it is amazingly clear.

Aroma - Aroma is very pleasant, I am terrible at explaining it but it has the definite “belgian” aroma, herbal, spicy, a little fruity.
Taste - Starts out herbal, spicy, phenolic. That standard Belgian yeast character. Extremely crisp and a bit grainy. Ends on a bit of a fruity note with a slightly tart finish which is really refreshing.
Mouthfeel - Extremely dry, but also smooth with a body that makes it hard to believe it finished at 1.000.
Overall - This was by far my best Saison to date. As well as one of my favorite beers I have brewed. I really enjoyed the character but also the simplicity. I loved the slightly tart finish which was a result of accidentally acidifying my sparge water a bit to much. Next time I am going to ditch the oats and bump up the wheat a bit, maybe around 15%. And possibly the rye as well. I might also add in a few %’s of acid malt or possibly a sour mash, while lowering the honey down to 5% and raising the mash temp a couple degrees. Would be happier if it landed in the 1.002-1.004 range.  Hop wise I plan on upping the finishing hops a bit as well.

Recipe

Vienna Pale Ale

I got the urge to brew about 2 weeks ago and decided I should just check what I had on hand and make it work. As it turned out I had a lot of Vienna malt and Challenger Hops so I decided to do a SMASH (Single Malt and Single Hop). I really love the Challenger hops and am running out of them. I decided to really hit it hard with them (I did forget a bit of finishing hops in it since I am an idiot) and finish off my bag. This includes 2 large quick dry hop additions. One at the end of primary at room temp and one in the keg as it chills and carbonates. We will see how this goes. This was my first brew back at my parents place this summer as I work. It went fairly smooth other then forgetting part of the hops and losing a couple points on expected gravity. Other then that was solid. Here ya go.

Vienna Pale Ale

OG: 1.050   FG: not yet     ABV: not yet    IBU: 44.5     SRM:5.3

Size:5 gallon       Mash:154F  Ferment: 67F / 19.44C avg

Recipe:

100% Vienna (GW)

21g Challenger 60min [23.9IBU]

28g Challenger 20min [19.3IBU]

28g Challenger 1min [1.4IBU]

56g Challenger Dry Hopped 1st addition

56g Challenger Dry Hopped 2nd addition

Yeast: US-05

Notes:

5/14/12 Brewed by myself at my parents place. First brew of summer. Went relatively well but forgot to add my 2nd ounce of hops in the middle of the chill.

5/26/12 Added 56g (~2 ounces) of Challenger hops to primary. I dont plan to secondary this so I am doing the first dry hop now, and second in the keg.

they had an article about Saison in the latest BYO magazine and i’m interested in brewing one. unfortunatly it’s winter here and i doubt i’d be much interested in drinking it when i have lots of lovely dark english beers around. hurry up spring!

Yeah I get the reasoning for dark english ales over saison. But I would suggest brewing one at some point for when it does get warm. I think it is a great style, but also one that is incredibly large and can be made in so many ways. I am really interested in brewing one for each season, this one for summer, a bit maltier one for fall, a darker one for winter and then maybe a sour mashed one for spring.

Saison

I almost forgot about this post. I brewed the Saison roughly 2 weeks ago. After brewing one each of the last two summers, I thought I might as well do it again. I also made sure to at least brew this one a touch early so that I can enjoy it during the 100 degree days in the Eastern Washington that pretty much demand to have a beer like this on tap. This recipe is pretty basic, I wanted a small rustic saison. I thought it would be interesting to use rye in it, as well as honey so that a simple sugar was included to really dry the beer out. Along with that I added a touch of wheat and oats to benefit mouth feel. I also decided to add some cascade hops at the end of the boil for a bit of fruit to go with the yeasts spicyness. Speaking of yeast, I decided to use my now go to saison yeast, Wyeast 3711 French Saison. It can be fermented at a normal temperature and eats everything up without fears of getting stuck like other yeasts out there. I originally was thinking of doing a 10 gallon batch of this and doing half with a brett secondary but those plans just never came together. In the end I hope this turns out to be extremely refreshing on a hot summer day in the sun. Here is the recipe:

Saison

OG: 1.045   FG: not yet     ABV: not yet    IBU: 29.2     SRM:4.6

Size:5.25 gallon       Mash:122F and 147F  Ferment: 68F / 20C avg

Recipe:

72.25% Pilsner (Best Malz)

10% Rye Malt (GW)

10% Honey

5% Torrified Wheat(GW)

2.5% Quick Oats (Quaker)

.25% Black Malt (GW) *for color

13g Magnum 60min [24.7IBU]

14g Saaz 15min [3.8IBU]

14g Cascade 1min [.7IBU]

Yeast: Wyeast 3711 French Saison

Notes:

4/11/12 1L starter from smack pack of 3711

4/12/12 Brewed on a sunny afternoon. Overall it went pretty well, stopped sparge a bit short since SG was getting to low.

4/19/12 checked gravity, at 1.004. Letting it warm up and sit at 70 for a few days and then I’ll crash cool it if no change in gravity.

73.5 Ca, 16.4 MG, 9.9 Na, 126.1 S04, 5 Cl