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