Questions on the role of hulls, hay and hops in the mash

I'm interested the role that non-grain additions to the mash may have on the resulting wort and beer - primarily mixed-culture beer, but some of the same considerations would apply to Saccharomyces only beers as well. So in this post I'd like to lay out some quick thoughts on three such additions: hulls, hay or straw, and hops. Sorry this post is poor on the image side. Based on the nature of the post (ramblings on ideas with historic context) I don't have images of my own to share from employing these processes.

A couple factors came together over the last week or two that convinced me to put this quick post together. The first, as addressed in the Hulls section, is the latest malting runs from my friend Mike. And the second were some facebook posts (here and here) from my friend Ed over at Ales of the Riverwards detailing some aspects of a collaboration brew, with among others, another friend James at The Referend Bier Blendery. In this brew they used hay in the mash.

This post is more of an open question about the role that alternative mash additions could have. I haven't tried any of these myself, and it seems that I'm unlikely to get the chance to try much in the near future (more info on that in the coming weeks to months) but there is historic precedent to some. As with many cases, this seems mostly to have been done from a practicality standpoint, though it certainly could have had an impact beyond this practicality on the beer. And in at least one case this is noted by the author writing about it. So anyway, I'd like to more from others results from using some of these ingredients in mixed culture beers. If you've got some experience/thoughts on this, feel free to add them in the comments. The two main points I'm curious about, if you have used hulls/hay/hops in the mash, are: do you think this contributed something to the wort? How far did this characteristic make it through the process?

1) Hulls - The use of grain hulls in the mash is probably the most approachable of the three to modern brewers. Similarly, the use of wheat hulls shows up in multiple different Belgian texts from the 1800s. Perhaps most prominent from what I've seen, is the discussion of mashing presented in Lacambre's 1851 treatise on brewing. Lacambre notes the use of wheat hulls in fairly high levels in lambic mashing to help act as a filter aid. These hulls were added at the beginning and more are throughout the mashing. I've discussed the presence of wheat hulls in lambic previously in this post in a two part series on Lacambre's text (part 2 focuses on bière de mars).

What I think is most interesting to me about this discussion are the closing couple paragraphs of the Brussels section (which focuses on lambic/faro/bière de mars). In these, Lacambre stops to note that he finds this high rate of wheat hull use interesting and, in his mind, wheat hulls are a necessary component of the flavor of lambic. In this, he disagrees with the lambic brewers, who note that they are only used for their practical purpose. Though in defense of the brewers they may be speaking to why they use them and not the complete spectrum of the results (brewers were not be adding wheat hulls for the aroma they contribute, whether or not that is an outcome of their use).

It is also possibly worth noting that this isn't the only place where Lacambre disagreed with lambic brewers. Less trivially, Lacambre wasn't sold on the idea of spontaneous fermentation and thought that lambic brewers should control the fermentation more. I wouldn't be surprised if that opinion was as unpopular then as it would be now. Anyway, whatever the case is with wheat hulls, Lacambre's final words on the section dealing with lambic are that he feels wheat hulls have become an indispensable component which is, in part, responsible for the final aroma of the beer.

The author believes that wheat hulls contribute something important to the character of lambic
and that their use in brewing is necessary for that character. From Lacambre, 1851 (p.394).

Lacambre bases his assertion on the extractions he has made from wheat hulls. Unfortunately I don't have any wheat hulls (or for that matter rice hulls) around to try this out, but assessing the impact in water or wort would be pretty easy task. You could make a tea out of the hulls and taste that. And next time you brew you could pull off a couple mugs of wort and do the same in one while keeping the other as is for a comparison. That would at least inform the initial difference (pre-boil and fermentation), It is likely that impacts may decrease from this point, but perhaps there are compounds that would be altered during fermentation and/or components that would come forward more after sugars are removed and the wort has cooled (think of hot sweetened tea/coffee compared to cold sweetened tea/coffee and cold unsweetened).

On the opposing side, the sorts of processes used by some homebrewers allow some (hull-less or nearly so) beer to be made. If you are using brew in a bag (BIAB) you don't have the same need for husks as a lauter aid as when not using BIAB. My malting friend Mike (of Doehnel Floor Malting and Skagit Valley Malting) just sent me the list of the malts he made this year and one of them was a hull-less barley malt. This might be an interesting malt to brew with and make a beer without hulls or with very little hull material compared to conventional beer while still using a base of primarily or completely barley.

Hay in the mash. Photo: E Coffey, Ales of the Riverwards

2) Hay and Straw - Moving a step further from the realm or standard brewing ingredients, hay and straw could also be added to mashes. From a practical point of view, this would fill the same role as hulls as discussed above - to aid in the formation of a filter bed. But, as noted by Lacambre, there would likely be a flavor component to it as well. This is the motivation behind some of the modern brewers employing hay in their beer. As I mentioned in the top of this post, seeing a recent collab brew with hay in the mash was one of the prompting factors for this post. Other brewers have also used something similar in the mash, for example hay in Jester King's beer Repose (this is also a repeat connection from the lambic in 1851 post linked above).

And, like wheat hulls, straw has historic precedent in Belgian brewing. In his 1874 book on Grisette, Peslet mentions that when the grisette mash begins, the first thing to happen is to lay down a bed of hulls or short pieces of wheat straw. And I'm sure if I looked around more I would find further mention of the use of straw in historic Belgian brewing. The presence of hulls or straw in the two thorough books that I've spent more time focusing on suggests that record of its use likely shows up elsewhere as well.

Because the motivations for using straw, both on the practical side and the organileptically-active side are basically the same as for hulls, the same considerations apply as noted above - namely that straw contributes a flavor to water and this flavor may be an important component in final beer. Whether the imparted characteristics survive boiling, fermentation and aging is a valid question. But also a question that we can address by brewing and tasting. And some folks out there may have some experience to weigh in on this question. Meanwhile, the rest of us can put it to a test ourselves.

3) Hops - I know the idea and/or practice of mash hopping has been around for hoppy North American beers (IPAs, etc.) for the preservation of some aroma/flavor compounds in a form where they reach the final beer and contribute to the already strong hop character. My personal interests are a bit different. The addition of hops in a mash are mentioned in Pelset's book on Grisette. The author writes that in the warmest months (in the brewing of ordinary/young grisette, as this was the only grisette which would have been brewed at this time of year) that hops would sometimes be added to the mash.

The mention of hops in this setting is rather matter of fact so I don't read it as if it were any sort of radical/especially unique process. When hops were used in the mash they were used in place of the wheat straw/hulls as the first component added to the mash to help provide a filter bed. The substitution is made in hottest months to protect the mash under the influence of bad temperatures, or to prevent bacterial activity during the mash. In the typical modern warmer and faster mashes this is not really an issue, but if there were prolonged rests around 40 C or so then this might be more of a concern.

So hops, like hulls or straw, are performing the function of a filter aid, which seems less necessary (or at least less popular) in modern brewing. But it is quite possible that they had an influence outside of their primary practicality-driven role. In the case of hops in comparison the hulls or straw, perhaps this is lessened by the additions of hops at other points in the process. But the potential additional influences still intrigue me in a beer like young/ordinary grisette which would have been somewhat hoppy but not IPA-style hoppy.

Conclusion/call for input: So there are some quick thoughts on the use of mash filter aids which may also have flavor and aroma contributions to at leas the wort, and possibly the final beer. Hopefully some people out there with experience using these can weigh in and hopefully some of you try this out, possibly in paired brews without hulls/straw/mash hops to see the influence of these ingredients. As I noted above, it is unlikely that I'll get to much of this in the short term, but if/when I do I'll weight in with my thoughts.

Lambic characteristics - FG and IBUs in Geuze

I wanted to put this post to address a couple misconceptions of lambic - bitterness and final gravity (FG). Because modern lambic is generally brewed with aged hops, and the bitter alpha acids in hops oxidize with aging, I think there is the idea that lambic receives no or very little bitterness contribution from hops. And with FG I think there is the idea that, due to the long fermentation and diverse range of microbes with a capacity to attenuate a given wort further than normal brewing yeast, lambic is super-attenuated beyond where other beers might be. While there can be some truth to both of these - lambic can be highly attenuated and aged hops used in lambic probably contribute less bitterness than fresh hops would - this line of thinking over-simplifies lambic and potentially makes a caricature of sorts out of its actual characteristics since lambic can and does have bitterness and it may not be more highly attenuated than saisons or certain Trappist beers.

This post came together from the overlap of a couple different topics that I'm currently looking into. For independent reasons, I've been spending a fair amount of time over the last month or so thinking about the following: hops in lambic (I owe lambic.info a section on this and should simultaneously update/expand what's on Milk the Funk), final gravities and 'dryness' in beer, and the general brewing process and characteristics of lambic (through a series of interesting discussions with a good friend). I think these topics could see expansion in the future, but for now I'll leave it here.

Girardin Gueuze, which I find has a more
pronounced bitterness than other geuzes.

I should note that the following is the range of information I was able to find, but lambic has considerable diversity among the different producers (as well as with atypical batches within a given producer). I've had conversations with blenders and brewers about 'stuck' barrels that wouldn't attenuate further as well as batches that came out more hoppy than intended and, as such, were still forwardly hoppy after 3-4 years. As shown by the ranges presented in Guinard's book Lambic, there are certainly examples of lambic which are more and less highly attenuated and more and less bitter than the following individual data points. So this is not meant to be exhaustive and all-encompassing, but it is what I was able to find in the published literature, from individuals, and from values reported by breweries.

One last quick note - I'll somewhat indiscriminately compare lambic and geuze in this post. And when I say lambic I may mean both old lambic and gueuze. I realize that in strict definitions one could argue that I ought to treat them more independently, but with the paucity of data I've combined them here.

Lambic and Geuze FG

The reported FGs that I've seen for individual lambic and geuze samples range from ~1.005 to around 1.010 and none of the specific examples are below 1.0045. Note that the scientific literature on lambic is based to a fair degree on one producer. And a case could be made that this producer is not completely representative of other lambic in terms of FG (as well as other characteristics). Anyway, given a FG around 1.005 - 1.010 and a starting gravity in the mid 1.050s, this is an apparent attenuation of about 80-90%. That attenuation is in the range that certain pale ales could fall, and definitely below where some pure culture Belgian beers can be found. See, for example, the saisons presented in the table as well as apparent attenuation of Trappist beers as presented in Brew Like a Monk (where apparent attenuation is generally around 85-90%).

Original gravity, final gravity and apparent attenuation for different lambics, geuzes and saisons.

So lambic FGs aren't necessarily very low, and the attenuation is not abnormally high compared to other Belgian beers of comparable OG. Since we know that lambic microbes can ferment carbohydrates than normal brewing yeast can't, this higher FG likely reflects lambic production methods. The mashing process used in lambic is designed to yield a wort with high extraction from the grains but a fair amount of unfermentable material (for more on turbid mashing, see these two blog posts (first and second) on its use outside of lambic, this section on lambic.info and this page on Milk the Funk). Some of the starches and proteins survive lambic fermentation. And in the end they don't contribute much in the way of a perception of sweetness, but there is definitively something left when lambic fermentation is complete. So, in practice, the attenuation of lambic is a balance between production methods resulting in a more dextrinous wort and the super-attenuation capacity of the microbes found in lambic, which may differ brewery to brewery.

For some more data on lambic FGs check out this post from Kevin (Belgian Beer Geek). Note that the age of the lambic is variable and some are fairly young as the data are from a geuze blending session. But the data are generally in agreement (Cantillon is higher, many around 1.005 or so). The outlier here is Boon, which has a very highly attenuated lambic. I had heard from blenders that Boon finishes quite low so I'm happy to see some FG measurements on it.

Bitterness in Lambic and Geuze

Modern lambic typically uses aged hops (I've written a bit about historic lambic hopping, where non-aged hops were used, and some modern brews with a bit of non-aged hops here). And in these modern lambics, I get the feeling that popular thought (at least in North America) is that they don't contribute bitterness to the beer. This can be seen, for example, in the IBU range for lambic and geuze in the 2015 BJCP guidelines (note that the GABF guidelines present a more reasonable range). I don't generally take these guidelines to be wonderfully accurate, especially with Belgian beers, but they do show the mentality, accurate or less so, of the people who are involved enough in beer and brewing to make the guidelines. And this thinking is transferred to many who read the guidelines.

Measured IBUs in lambics and geuzes (and Iris).

As hops are aging, acids and oils in the hops will oxidize. In this way, the alpha acids that generally are thought of as contributing the bitterness to a beer are degraded and therefore aged hops used in lambic will likely not have much in the way of alpha acids to contribute. However, oxidation products of both alpha acids and beta acids can also contribute bitterness to a beer. Dr. Tom Shellhammer (a professor at Oregon State) and his research group do quite a bit of hop research, including about the bitterness of oxidized hop acids. I talked about a bit of this research in this post following CBC 2015, and there is more info in this 2016 paper by Algazzali and Shellhammer. Humulinones (oxidized alpha acids) and hulupones (oxidized beta acids) are about 66% and 84% as bitter as isomerized alpha acids. These oxidized acids absorb light at the wavelength used for spectrophotometric IBU measurements. and therefore they contribute to IBU measurements. It is also relevant here that hulupones absorb much less strongly the primary wavelength used to measure IBUs, and therefore a given concentration of beta acids will yield fewer IBUs than the same concentration of alpha acids when measured spectrophotometrically. Given the relative similarities of the bitterness intensities of hulupones and iso-alpha acids, this may be important in the relative bitterness of beers deriving bitterness more from oxidized acids compared to iso-alpha acids.

If you look at measured IBUs in lambic, the values can be fairly high. Especially considering that these are measured IBUs in beers that are multiple years old. I think it is important to remind ourselves that spectrophotometers aren't tongues and they measure the absorption of light at a given wavelength, which is converted to IBUs, rather than measuring the perception of bitterness in beer. So measured IBUs do not necessarily equate to a certain perceived bitterness. Nevertheless humulinones and hulupones are formed by oxidation of acids, are detected by IBU measurements, and give a perceivable bitterness. And this can definitely be detected in certain gueuzes. For example I find Girardin to be fairly hop-forward (at least among lambics).

So I think the potential impact of hops in lambic from a bitterness standpoint tends to be overlooked. I don't mean to suggest that bitterness in lambic is high and a prominent character of the beer in all cases, but it is definitely non-zero and in the range of perception. And this, along with countless other compounds from the ingredients/brewing process, fermentation and aging, contributes to the final character of lambic. Furthermore, in the case of some lambics, it might be more forward such that is can be a prominent differentiating character between different producers.

Summary and Closing Thoughts

To wrap this up, I think both FG and bitterness are overlooked in lambic due to assumptions (very high attenuation and no bitterness) that don't always match the actual characteristics of the beers. Clearly traditional geuze isn't heavy/sweet (I may have a post in the works about FG, so hopefully more on this to come). And it generally isn't bitter in the same way a pale ale might be even though IBU ranges can overlap. So bitterness is generally not a dominant player in lambic, but it is definitely there and it serves a purpose. And, depending on the producer, it may even be fairly apparent.

Looking back over these data, there is a fair range of variability across different producers and/or vintages in terms of geuze attenuation and bitterness. Attenuation in traditional bottled geuze can range from near to 100% (choosing the top end of the range presented by Guinard) down to about 80% (looking at Cantillon). This variability in FG among producers will reflect the specific aspects of their turbid mash schedule as well as potentially their regional microbes. And this can make things complicated for lambic blenders, as I've noted previously in this post about Tilquin. If higher FGs are due in part to specific microbe populations, then blending a higher stable FG lambic with a more attenuated lambic may lead to the high FG no longer being stable. This can be quite problematic for carbonation. On the more positive side, blenders can use variability in bitterness to their advantage, blending down bitterness in certain batches and/or from certain producers and using a more bitter lambic to add its character to a blend.

I think it is interesting to note that Cantillon tends to fall on the high end of IBU measurements here and it is also a bit higher in FG than others. This could be purely coincidental, but there could also be a couple relationships here. There is the potential for causality. I'm not inclined to put too much stock in this as the lambic doesn't seem to have any problems reaching an appropriate acidity. But it is theoretically possible that certain bacteria with higher hop tolerances and lower ability to break down oligosaccharides are favored over more hop-sensitive and attenuative bacteria. Again, I wouldn't put too much stock in this. Also, the higher bitterness and FG may work to support each other. With more residual material in the beer the bitterness may not jump out as much as it would in an especially low FG beer. And therefore, for the same perception, higher hopping rates/a higher concentration of bitter compounds would be needed. Though it could be simply a coincidence. Finally, and possibly most interesting, perhaps the raw ingredients and mashing process used by Cantillon (which, since they are the most known, are also the most followed by turbid mashing brewers in North America) may be sufficiently different from processes and ingredients used by other brewers to cause these higher FGs.

Thanks for reading. That definitely leads to more to look into (especially the final gravities and their reasons). This was mostly a collection of recent thoughts and I expect there will be more thinking about this sort of thing to come. Feel free to add any thoughts of your own here.

Recipes and Brewdays: Turbid Mashed Petite Saisons

After many months focused on historic beer research and beer travels, I'm stably back home (BC, Canada) and am back to brewing. The blog's facebook page has been actively reflecting this with photos, partial recipes and process info, but it's time to put some of the new brews up on the blog itself. My latest brew excluded, my activity so far has focused on brewing and re-brewing two basic recipes - a grisette and a 1.030 OG saison. Through posts, interviews and presentations I've put forward a lot of my recent thoughts on grisette (see these posts, an AHA presentation if you are an AHA member, this interview with Basic Brewing Radio, and this interview with Fuhmentaboudit!) so this post will focus on low-strength saisons. These are some of my favorite beers to drink and with the warm weather of summer when I returned to brewing they are what I've wanted.

The finished wort.

When I think about commercial low-strength saisons, one primary example comes to mind as my clear favorite - La Petite Princesse from Brasserie Thiriez. Regular followers of this blog and friends of mine will known I am a vocal proponent of this beer. This brew started as a collaborative brew with Jester King (following their Le Petit Prince closely) and Daniel continues to brew it. I love how refreshing this beer is and how it carries way more flavor than you would expect from a ~1.020-1.025 beer. Of course there are other great examples out there (including the Jester King beer, which is great but unfortunately I am much less familiar with it, and Brasserie Dupont's Biolégère/Avril). Unfortunately none of these examples are especially widely available, at least fresh examples. So if you're curious about this sort of beer but you can't find a commercial example, either local or imported, then you may just have to try brewing your own.

I broke down my thinking in building a low-OG saison recipe in this recent post discussion my recipe formulation process. All of the goals and general plans for the brew are outlined there so here I'll jump into the recipe.

Malt #46 - Concerto barley.

Grains and mashing: Before getting into recipes/brewdays I want to spend a bit of time focusing on grain and mashing, both because I made very deliberate and potentially unique choices in this beer and because I am using malts that are not available to a wide audience. I am now almost exclusively using locally grown and malted barley for my base malt in all my brewing. This malt comes from my friend Mike who runs a small floor maltery (Doehnel Floor Malting) and who is involved with Skagit Valley Malting. While this may mean some of my malt specifics might be less useful to an audience that can't get these malts, I'll try to provide a bit more detail about the malts. Hopefully the end result of this is more thinking about/knowledge about malt that couldn't be gained by simply listing a style or internationally available commercial producer.

I've been using Doehnel batch #46 as the base malt for my recent low-OG saisons. This malt is made from Concerto barley (a spring 2 row variety). It has a very thin husk and a lightly colored blue aleurone (which you can sort of see in the photo). Although it is kilned to around a pilsner level in terms of color, it is richer and tastes somewhere between pils and vienna. The FAN is fairly low, which makes it suitable for more intensive mashing procedures. The friability is in between pilsner and North American malts and the difference in extract between coarse and fine grind is low, suggesting a fairly well-modified malt (a good amount more modified than what I've been using for grisettes). So to sum that up, very light color but rich flavor, low FAN so I'll want to address that in mashing, and pretty good modification. Without analyzing spec sheets, if you were to try to come up with a similar base malt from commercial varieties maybe consider a more characterful pils like some of the special pils malts Weyermann has (Barke and/or floor malted), or blending in continental European pale malts and/or Vienna with your base pils.

Based on discussions with Mike and the malt I've been able to get form him, I've had the opportunity to work with more intensive mashing procedures. I feel like I am getting a good graininess out of this (turbid wort tastes unlike any wort I've tasted from a normal mash), and I think it is helping me to brew very light beers which don't seem to be lacking malt character and complexity. But I can't approach the tastings in an unbiased way and I haven't done any comparisons with the same recipe made from normally mashed wort. Anyway, the opportunity to get a bit more involved in mashing leads me to the inspiration on that side - historic texts.

Pulling some turbid wort.

My recent low-OG saisons take inspiration from a text written by George Johnson in 1918 (see this post for a discussion of that text) as well as other historic texts such as Evans, 1905 (as discussed in this post) discussing turbid mashing for a wider range than considered by most in the modern world (the original historic texts are also linked in both of those posts). Johnson's text promotes turbid mashing as a technique that is desirable for producing low-gravity beers of fairly rapid turnaround. This is different from turbid mashing in lambic, where a major goal of turbid mashing is to provide carbohydrate and nutrient sources for a diverse range of microbes with diverse metabolic capacities and needs over a long time. But there is reasoning for Johnsons's advice - lower attenuation and the additional extraction from turbid mashing would work well, at least in theory, in low-OG beers. So I wanted to try it out.

Recipe:

Target OG: 1.030
Actual OG: 1.032
FG: 1.008
ABV: 3.1 %
Batch Size: ~7 gal / 26.5 L in carboys

The first mash step.

Grist:
70.6% Doehnel #46
17.6% Flaked Wheat
11.8% Flaked Oats

Mashing:
I won't discuss mashing in length here as that is covered in this post focused on Johnson's text (this was also linked to above). In brief, this is a turbid mash with one pull of turbid wort (more are optional). There is a beta glucan rest around 108 F / 42 C which is rather dry, a protein rest around 125 F / 51.7 C, and a saccharification rest around 156 F / 69 C. The turbid pull comes between the second and third rests and optionally spends some time at a saccharificaiton rest while it is heated to boiling. After the main mash is drained the turbid portion is added back and allowed to rest at a high saccharification temp for a fair amount of time. This is then drained and the grain is sparged more or less as normal.

Just after turning the flame off and adding whirlpool hops.

I'm used to a 'Cantillon-style' turbid mash and am comfortable with that, but this was my first time I've used a turbid mash modeled after Johnson, 1918. Things went generally smoothly, but as with any somewhat complicated process that you try for the first time, it didn't all go exactly as planned. My turbid pull didn't get as much time at a saccharification temp before boiling as I would have liked, and in general I didn't hit my target temps as closely as desired. This probably influences the lower than expected attenuation, but the beer doesn't taste sweet or heavy and I'm pretty happy with how it came out. I suspect more experience with this mash and a bit more focus on brew day will help for next time.

Hopping: ~1 g/l Sterling pellets to bitter with 30 min left in the boil (calculates out to a contribution of 21 IBU, but from brewing with this same sterling before I think it is closer to 10-15), and ~5 g/l Hallertau Tradition whole hops at flame out for a 25 minute hop stand/whirlpool. The end result is a calculated 40 IBU but I think it is more likely on the 30 side. And the hopping, as is clear from this recipe, is balanced toward the flavor side rather than bitterness.

Racking onto dry hops.

Fermentation: I used yeast cultured from a bottle of Thiriez beer. This is what I've been using in most of my beers lately and I quite like it. I've talked a fair bit about this yeast but, in brief, it is different from Wyeast 3711 in fermentation behavior/appearance, attenuation, and flavor/aroma profile. If I am going to use a single yeast strain then this is the one I want to use.

The carboys fermented in the low 70s F / ~22-23 C. The beers were given on the order of a week for primary and then one carboy was racked onto ~1 g/l Styrian Golding pellets. This beer was given 6 days of contact time at room temp. The non-dry hopped version was bottled 12 days after brew and the dry hopped was bottled 14 days after brew. This is a bit longer than I've been giving other similar beers recently based on my schedule/availability. I've generally been shooting for around 10 days brew to bottle, with both dry hopped and non-dry hopped beers.

The beers were given a couple weeks conditioning at room temps (so for me that is around 64 F / 18 C, I'd like to condition a bit warmer) with corked 750s conditioned horizontally. After the conditioning time the beer was moved to a cooler room and the horizontal bottles were put upright or left horizontal, depending on what storage space I had open for them.

I'm quite happy with how the final beers came out, especially the dry hopped version. Perhaps I'll put up some tasting notes in the coming week(s).

Thoughts on recipe formulation

Grab yourself a beer. Philosophical ramblings on beer are probably best served with a beer as accompaniment. And preferably a beer you like and want to re-brew or brew something similar to. That will help for the following discussion.

I'd like to present a rundown of how I go about formulating recipes, focusing on the thought process I go through for ingredient and process selection. On the logistics/calculations side I use BeerSmith, so I won't do any discussion of calculations/etc. I also won't spend time on ingredient selection in the sense of not using old/bad malt or hops. You should taste and smell your ingredients so you get familiar with what good hops of a given variety smell like compared to bad hops, and what fresh malt tastes/feels like compared to stale malt. In full disclosure, I'm a person that spends an unreasonable amount of time thinking about beer and I try to take pretty detailed notes. In-depth thinking about beer is part of how I approach it and I enjoy it but it might not work for everyone. Not everyone is in a beer or brewing-related hobby/business to spend lots of time thinking about beer (though those people probably don't spend much time reading blogs either). So no worries if this isn't for you. But this is how I do it.

I don't mean to suggest that this is all easy and this is probably geared to the intermediate to more advanced brewer. But I think the considerations I discuss below can be helpful to some degree no matter what level of brewing you are at. If you are just beginning and are making your first recipes, taking initial steps toward thinking in this way will help you ask questions to be more likely to get the answers you are looking for more clearly. When a brewer says something like 'I want to brew a -blank-' and asks for advice, I regularly follow that up with questions about the different directions within that idea/style/etc. which one could go to try to best be able to offer guidance toward their end goal. And if you are very experienced with making recipes, thinking in this sort of way will make active ingredient and process decisions easy (rather than just doing something a certain way because you've always done it that way or because someone else did it that way).

Reading and critically analyzing your beer and commercial beer give you a great tool set for creating recipes. I take lots
of notes to help this: brew logs at bottom left, commercial beer notes at bot. right and travel/brewery visit notes at top left.

Motivation and intention: To me recipe formulation starts with and spends the bulk of the time focusing on motivation and intention. I think one should always go into a brew thinking about their motivation behind the brew and their intention with the finished beer. This may seem fairly rudimentary, but I think that it doesn't happen a surprising amount of the time. For most of my brewing years I didn't really stop to think in detail about what I really wanted in the final beer beyond the base style and following a more or less random recipe. So I mean going deeper than something like I want a saison, or I want a hoppy sour beer, etc.

Perhaps you are brewing to try out a given ingredient or process. What setting do you want to test that in? Something that makes the difference easiest to see, or a setting where you are most likely to actually want to use that ingredient or process? Both have their merits and limitations.

Or perhaps your goals are more finished beer-driven. If you want a saison, what strength? What sort of hop presence? What color? Do you want it to be balanced more toward fruit/esters or spice/phenols? Or an even mix of both? What sort of body are you looking for? Maybe picture a commercial example you know and like. In an ideal world, how might you want the final characteristics changed to make it your ideal beer? Spending more time nailing down your motivation for the beer in question and your desired result in the finished beer are the first big step - you know exactly what you want.

La Petite Princesse from Thiriez. Drinking & discussing
this beer has inspired me considerably in making recipes.

So I start with basics and step forward from that to target details and what ingredients and/or process will get me there (or ask questions/research/set trials to learn what will get me there). This can make recipe formulation an easier step-by-step process and/or help you choose between different already published recipes. Note that building the skills to do this may require similar critical thinking about beers you drink to come up with a good sort of context for the direction you want your soon-to-be-brewed beer to head. Talking to brewers is a good way to augment this critical tasting of commercial or homebrewed beer.

Setting fundamental goals: Okay, so you've thought about the motivation and intention. I break that into a few fundamental goals to work from. To illustrate my process, I'll work through the following recipe formulation with a low-OG saison. I think this sort of thinking is much more valuable than simply giving a recipe, as hopefully it helps others to think in more detail about their brews and improve their brewing. I am planning a recipe/brewday post on the same beer in the near future, so don't worry - an actual recipe is coming.

The basic essential elements that I am looking for in my homebrews of low-strength saisons or my favorite commercial examples are: A) a refreshing/thirst quenching quality, B) sufficiently low strength that I can drink multiple, possibly during the daytime, without feeling the effect of the alcohol, C) something that doesn't taste/feel especially watery or thin and D) good yeast expression, balanced toward floral/fruity but without anything toward bubblegum. These basic motivations will drive all my recipe/process decisions behind making this beer. Keep in mind that all of the following are based on my personal tastes.

Turning those goals into process: Those were pretty basic goals. I don't mean to suggest that the following is easy and obvious. Knowing the results of recipe and process changes can come from trials, research, and discussions with other brewers but they aren't inherent knowledge. The following breakdown of my goals comes from years of experience in my own brewing, discussions with fellow homebrewers as well as Belgian and French commercial brewers, and reading about saison and Belgian brewing. That experience was built slowly, piece by piece, and thinking in this way helped me to build it and connect those pieces.

Taste testing two different base malts.

Goal A means that I want a fairly firm bitterness (keeping in mind the context of the OG). By my experience (commercial beers I like and homebrews) this means a BU:GU ratio of about 1.25 [Edit 21-Sept-16: 1.0 is more representative of a larger number of recent beers. I have done low-OG saisons with 1.3-1.4 that came out with the bitterness I was looking for, but I think the bitterness calculation was a fair amount higher than what I actually got for those, probably due to the hops I was using. By re-brewing the same recipe with the same hops but increasing the hopping, I was able to get the bitterness I wanted by going up to 1.3+]. It also means that, to my taste, I want the bitter/flavor qualities of noble-type hops rather than something like typical Pacific NW IPA hops. I find IPA hops to bring a perception of sweetness with their fruity flavors as well as a resinous quality, both of which detract from a refreshing quality to me. I find a more resinous or pithy bitterness can clash with the dryness of saisons and the yeast to me, such that the finish can be a bit harsh in a way that doesn't leave me wanting another sip. So I want a more delicate fruity/floral and a firmer spice/herbal character and I don't want something resinous.

It also means that I want a pretty forward hop flavor, therefore I'll be loading up on finishing hops and dry hopping. But through my experience I have found that if I go too far in the finishing hop direction, while I may get great hop flavor, something is missing in the perception of a drying bitter finish. The exact breakdown here will depend on aa of my hops and such, but I've been happy recently with a roughly even split in theoretical IBUs from "bittering" and finishing when using low alpha hops to finish. I quote bittering because to me this could mean 30 minutes left in the boil.

Finally it means that I will want to keep the grain bill rather pale to let that crispness come through. That means a base of pils malt is good. Some Vienna, or a move in that direction, would also be fine as the OG is so low. That basically settles the hops in terms of variety, usage rates, and schedules of additions. And it gives me a pretty good constraint of my malt bill. I am looking at grains no darker than Vienna.

Goal B means that I am shooting for something at or below ~3.5% ABV. The corresponding original gravity for this will depend on mashing and yeast choice. I have been working on raising my FGs a bit so that my OG can be up to 1.030. Getting the ABV down to about 3.5% with a 1.030 OG came from changing my yeasts and changing my mash profile.

Goal C means that I want to maximize character from my grain and mashing process, as grain level will obviously be the one factor most restricted by my ABV target. Mashing in a bit more of an intensive way to maximize extraction and development of flavors will also help and, depending on yeast choice, mashing for less fermentability could help. I generally try not to do this with 3711 as the yeast seems to attenuate quite a bit of stuff that others won't so it can just end up extending the fermentation timescale. For the same reasoning I would not mash for low attenuation when making a beer with brett that I also wanted to be a quick turnaround beer. Building body with certain grains like oats or rye and selecting yeast for more glycerin production can also help to build more body if you are looking for it. Finally, dry hopping can add a nice structure in addition to the flavor/aroma that it brings.

Pulling starchy wort during a turbid mash.

So to sum this up, for my tastes I will probably choose a more intensive mashing profile (more on this to come in later posts) and flaked grains and then dry hop with noble or noble-type hops for both the flavor and structure components I am looking for.

Goal D is fairly straightforward - it means that I'll choose a yeast blend or single strain and fermentation temperature profile that I am pretty happy with. Or if I want to try something out or don't know what strain/blend/temperature to use then I'll test some out, likely by splitting a batch to help constrain variables in the test.

A mixed yeast and bacteria blend can be a great way to add fermentation complexity. Think about something like Le Petite Prince with a bit more age or Jolly Pumpkin's Bam Bière (which, at 4.5% might be a bit stronger than the rest of this example focuses on, but that can be scaled back if needed for your goals). Mixed culture expression will of course come as a trade off with hop impression, which again comes back to careful consideration of what you are looking for.

For my recent beers, since it was already summer by the time I was brewing, I focused on quick turnaround. From travel experience visiting the brewery and talking with Daniel, I knew that the Thiriez yeast was a great choice (see this somewhat dated post from my visits there as well as this post from Farmhouse Beer Blog). Note that the fermentation appearance of this yeast, the flavor profile, and the behavior (especially attenuation) are different from Wyeast 3711, of which Brasserie Thiriez is reportedly the origin.

So from these 4 goals, I have set my OG and IBUs, the hops I am going to use and rough hopping schedule, most of the grist, and my yeast choice. I've also got a good direction to go for mashing. And since I've chosen my yeast I have a good idea what sort of fermentation profile to use (or what ranges to test in a split batch). In the coming week(s) I'll wrap this exercise up with the actual recipes this thinking led to in a post to come on the brewdays for some recent low-OG saisons.

Closing thoughts: Following this through exercise is best as a cyclic process. Design the beer, brew it, and then taste. While tasting it, think about your recipe and process, which will help you learn how specific ingredients and process led to your beer. Also think about what direction you would like it to go with the beer for next time. Having a good starting point for directions to grow helps narrow down the goals quite a bit, which gives you a great head start for repeating this exercise.

Ok, that's if for now. As said above, none of this is an easy process. Any level of brewer will learn as they go through this to better understand the results of ingredients and process changes/choices. So don't feel overwhelmed by this and if you don't know the answers you are looking for, read/ask around for advice and/or design trials to figure them out for yourself.