Rye Saison IIa

This was the second beer to come out of the kettle on my first brewday back. This was a competition rebrew of my rye saison from this past winter, so not a lot to report on the recipe. The only planned difference was that I added the turbinado to the fermenter as primary slowed rather than adding it to the boil kettle. I actually waited longer than planned for this addition; by the time the turbinado joined the party, the krauesen had completely dropped. The fermenter showed very little activity even with more fermentables added. I gave it a few spins several times a day for about a week and fortunately it finished out properly.

The numbers from BeerSmith have been very different from those on Brewtoad when I first brewed this recipe, most importantly in IBUs and efficiency (versus my OG-to-volume numbers). I may look into the IBU formula settings, but as long as I'm sticking to BeerSmith, I should be able to trust the consistency of my numbers. The efficiency is probably based on different values for the grains between programs; until I get serious enough to input specific numbers for each lot of grain I use, I'll probably stick to relying on BeerSmith.

First taste at bottling displayed a more subdued yeast profile than the previous batch. I pitched very warm, but may have overcooled before fermentation really got going. Next time I may just let WY3711 start in the low 70s and free rise from there; I haven't encountered any issues with it generating fusels or other problematic compounds at elevated temps so far, and hey, it is a saison yeast. We'll see how this iteration does in competition in about a month.

Rye Saison IIa - rebrew for the NV State Homebrewing Championship 2015

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.053
Projected SRM: 5.5
Projected IBU: 23.6
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 70%

Recipe

Brewday: 16 August 2015
5 gallons at 11.2P (1.044) (w/o sugar) to fermenter.
Chilled to 78F, 1 minute of pure O2, placed in swamp cooler. Active fermentation 15 hours later at 66F (cooler temp).
Fermented in swamp cooler at 68F; ramped up to 75F after 1 day of active fermentation.

21 August 2015: Active fermentation ended. Added turbinado (in solution). No activity witnessed over 24 hours; may have happened quickly overnight? Agitated regularly for a week; showed a little activity.

Bottled: 2 September 2015
FG: 1.003
ABV: 6.6%
Bottled with 4.3 oz table sugar.

1st Place, Belgian & French Ales; 3rd Place Best of Show: NV State Homebrew Championship 2015

Summer Pale Ale '15 tasting

This has turned out to be one of my more successful hoppy beers, though it's not as fresh as it once was. The malt character is close to what I'd like out of an American pale: background grain & bread, no more than a hint of sweetness. The hops side still needs to be dialed in; lacking experience with Chinook--and maybe getting something different from the Amarillo than I foresaw--the hop character ended up much darker and heavier than my sense memory had prepared me to expect. If the worst thing that happens, though, is that I have to do more "research" (read: brewing) to learn more, then I think I can live with that.

ALSO: Hey, it's post #100! I've gone through a couple gallons of beer over the last four and a half years since I started whinging about homebrewing. More to come!

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Appearance: Amber-gold, a bit hazy. Moderate head laces down the glass.

Smell: Assertive orange juice, hints of dark pine following up. Very nice.

Taste: Orange juice carries through from the aroma, coupled with firm upfront grapefruit/pine bitterness. Finishes somewhat rough, on the onion/pine end of the spectrum. Malt is slightly warm in the finish, but pretty low; it adds a little complexity to the end. Low for a pale ale; the hops are solidly on top.

Mouthfeel: Carbonation is a little prickly; body is low-medium with a nice creaminess. Squarely a pale ale in this area.

Overall: Not a bad pale ale, though not quite to my taste. The assertive onion/pine character was more than I’d prefer. I’d pinned it to the Chinook, though I’ve recently had it suggested to me that this character may come from certain Amarillo crops. In the end, the principal drawback from its sessionability is the hop character; I keep stopping to consider the hop character. Not a bad thing, honestly.