Brett and Sour Saisons - Thoughts on production and strain choice

I realized recently that while I put up a bunch of recipes for saisons and generally mention that I split off a carboy where I add Brettanomyces (brett), and frequently Lactobacillus (lacto) as well, I don't generally talk about these funkier and tart versions of the saisons after the brewday. So I figured I would put up a post on my process with these beers. Some of the stuff outlined below might be obvious, but I wanted to be basic enough that people just trying it out for the first time wouldn't be lost while those that have done many brett saisons will still find some useful stuff. Quick terminology: I'll use the term 'clean' to refer to a saison with only Saccharomyces cerevisiae (not including WLP644 'brett' trois, as I will call Sacch trois). This is a bit of a long post, but it's an even longer topic and I think this is a good start.

Cask 200 at Sante Adairius.

Tartness/sourness and brett yeast character fit naturally into the saison style. Historically Belgian saisons have been described as similar to lambics (see Phil Markowski's Farmhouse Ales). Many modern versions, both Belgian and outside of Belgium, are now brewed without brett and bacteria (and I can be a big fan of these when done well). The ones that inspire me the most have a beautiful and balanced brett and tart character and sourness from an extended mixed fermentation. I prefer my sour saisons to be milder on the sourness end than a lambic or many 'American Wild Ales'. I find this lower acidity, somewhere between a normal 'clean' dry saison and an aged lambic, to be extremely refreshing and drinkable. And I find that this level of acidity is much better when produced by bacteria in a longer fermentation than quickly by bacteria in a sour worting or sour mashing or by the addition of elevated acidulated malt (though I like those processes for less acidic 'clean' saisons, see pre-primary souring). I think I prefer the extended aging as it gives time for other flavor production and slightly higher degrees of attenuation which I find lacking in many pre-primary/kettle soured beers.

Similarly, with funky saisons I am not looking for the funkyness of an aggressive lambic, orval-like funkyness, or the frequently even more aggressively funky North American orval-inspired beers. Rather I want something that fits the delicately balanced dry character of a good saison. Many popular North American styles (like IPAs, double/imperial IPAs, bourbon aged stouts, etc.) take the sledgehammer approach, knocking you out with flavor. This at times can be delicious flavor. But it takes a whole different mindset and set of tools to create a beautiful brett/sour saison. There are many great ones out there, and I haven't had most of them, but these are some of my favorites:
(from Belgium and perhaps not all intentionally or consistently with brett and bacteria) Saison de Pipaix, and most anything from Fantome, Saison d'Epeautre (and from the US) everything from the barrel aged saison lineups of Upright, Sante Adairius, and Hill Farmstead.

The mash tun and steam engine at Brasserie a Vapeur (home of Saison de Pipaix)

There is a common misconception that brett adds acidity, and that brett is what makes sour beers sour. It is important to note when discussing brett and sour beers that brett doesn't generally add much acidity. The acidity that brett can add is acetic acid (vinegar), which most people generally want to avoid. So beers with brett won't necessarily be sour beers (many are sour, but those also have bacteria). So if you want to make a sour beer with brett that isn't vinegar you'll want lactic acid bacteria. I'll treat the two (brett non-sour saisons and brett + bacteria sour saisons) together here. Not to try to confuse the potential differences between brett beers and sour beers that I've just outlined, but frequently the two are found together (I've never put lacto into a saison without brett) and having either brett or bacteria would lead to a saison that is not a classic 'clean' saison.

I brewed my first brett saison with a good friend back in 2009, but due to insufficient time to dedicate to brewing/other priorities, shifting general brewing focus, and three instances of moving internationally since then (which provided great opportunities for studying but really got in the way of brewing), it wasn't until summer of 2014 that I really started focusing on brewing them with directed goals and thorough notes. Consequently much of this experience is in development. My viewpoints on a couple strains have already changed over this time and I expect they will continue to change as I try out more strains in the future. I'll be revisiting this post (and/or posting follow-ups) to keep it up to date with my thinking on mixed-fermentation saisons.

Brewing brett (and lacto) saisons on the hot side:
I treat the hot side for saisons that I know will not be kept 'clean' the same as I treat clean saisons. Partly that might be because I generally split batches and do both with the same batch, but I have done the same when brewing an exclusively mixed-fermentation saison.

I am not a fan of mashing higher for lower fermentability for brett beers. This slightly dated practice comes from earlier days of using brett and the thinking behind it was twofold: that you provide more that the sacch can't ferment and it is therefore left for the brett and bacteria and/or you would produce extra unfermentable material to avoid a thin beer with brett. Since brett will ferment longer chain carbohydrates, the latter isn't really true. While the former may be true, I think this advice comes from before it was stressed that the ester and phenol activity of brett is independent of saccharide metabolism. This means that brett doesn't need sugar to change the beer.

I really like Chad Yakobsen's viewpoint on body in brett beers (as I've talked about in this post). He looks to add body from proteins in grains like oats, spelt, rye, and wheat rather than by dextrins. So if you want to build body in a brett saison follow this approach. I find that most saison yeasts produce a beer with a bit of a deceptive body (more than the low FG would suggest, presumably from glycerol production) and therefore haven't worried too much about building body into brett saisons. Mashing high to provide unfermentable sugars may still be a good approach and some folks recommend it, but I think it works better if you are prepared to spend a lot of time (such as in lambic-oriented beers). For saisons I want a faster turnaround and I don't think the beer will be best served by such a prolonged mixed fermentation.

Racking a batch of saison into a barrel with ECY-34.

Brett (and lacto) saisons on the cold side:
I've generally had good results pitching everything in a mixed primary. Sometimes when using a brett blend that I am not as fond of in combination with more finicky sacch strains I have been less pleased with the results. This may be due to the brett strain choice as much as/more than when I pitched it. If the sacch goes trough a healthy and reasonably complete primary fermentation (and I don't see a benefit in trying to make the sacch do anything less than that) then I think adding brett and bacteria in the primary is a good plan. I may then leave it on the cake or rack it to secondary (hazy and still with yeast and bacteria in suspension), depending on how long I plan to leave it and how much hop material there is. Generally I just leave it as I'll bottle it in a few months anyway.

Bottling:
As with any bottling any beer, you'll want the beer to be done fermenting before bottling it. This is a greater concern when working with brett and heterofermentative lacto. Fortunately some of this is alleviated by working with highly attenuative sacch strains, which will do a good job of  dropping the gravity down to a level where you are pretty safe to bottle even if the brett and bacteria take it further in the bottle. I generally bottle at 2-4 months from brew day unless I am adding fruit or somehow changing the base. I may go longer if I feel it isn't ready or if I am barrel aging it, but generally this is an appropriate time frame to start developing the flavors I am looking for.

The beers definitely continue to develop in the bottle. I bottle in high pressure bottles so that takes away the more pressing potential carbonation related issues (there is still the possibility of high enough carbonation that the bottles gush). They don't get excessively carbonated, but I generally prime to the low end of high (2.7-3 volumes of CO2) knowing that the beer may develop a bit more carbonation and also that this is not so low that I will feel the beer is undercarbed. A drop of 1 gravity point will add about 1/2 volume of CO2, so it doesn't take much additional fermentation to increase the carb by a fair amount.

Bretts I've used and my thoughts on them:

My brett and bacteria pure strain and dregs cultures

I generally haven't been interested in some of the classic Belgian bretts (B. lambicus and B. brux) for brett saisons. This is partly because I am more familiar with them than a lot of other strains and partly because I'm not sure that they'll be the best pairing with a saison. As I mentioned above I am looking for more delicate bretts to pair with a saison. Maybe they would work well as a background addition  to a blend of bretts and bacteria. But in order to get to that point I need to come up with that brett blend. So that's sort of what this is - trying out individual strains/blends, bottle dregs, and blends of those to build toward a 'house culture'. I think going with a blend of bretts here will give the more rounded/balanced character that I am looking for so with many of these brett isolate trials I am thinking about what I like about the brett as well as how I think it would work in a blend. I could easily see myself using different blends for different beers depending on what I am going for, but that has to start somewhere. And I'd like to approach coming up with these blends by trying a bunch of bretts selecting for my favorite and really understanding what they do individually before going into a blend.

Brett C. starter

Pure strains:
WLP645 Brettanomyces claussenii - Upright uses a lot of Brett c. in their barrel aged beers and their barrel aged saisons are among my favorites. So obviously I was really excited to give this strain a go with my saisons. But initially I wasn't very happy with it. I don't have a very good description for it but it was weird. At a couple of months it was strangely sweaty (and this was an improvement on the previous). But it is starting to turn into something really pleasant. It's subtle and has a nice complimentary and different fruityness. Not really 'funky' but it definitely works well with a rustic (or rustic-inspired) beer which is more what I am going for. I also find this is one of the weirder strains when it comes to body. I find that it can be aggressively flabby. Thin and oddly viscous at the same time. This too seems to clear with time.

I could see this as being a background component in a brett blend in the future. Or even as a main component with the right background strains. I like what this strain gives after waiting out the strange months. It's not fitting for a beer I want to drink younger as I'd be forced to wait through a couple months of sweatyness, but I do think it adds nicely when it settles down.

Yeast Bay Locristi and Wyeast Lacto b.

Yeast Bay Lochristi Brett blend - Initially I was also not as excited about this one. I'm starting to come around, but it is still something I'm planning on (mostly) taking a break from. I find it gives a nice lemony flavor with some depth to it, which I like alright in the right context. But there is also something phenolic/plasticy about it. I had a friend describe it as fresh vinyl, like from a new beach ball or inflatable toy. I completely agreed and I have definitely found that with some Lochristi beers. I think with a bit more time this goes away and the lemon comes forward. Overall that lemon is cool but not what I'm looking for. As a contributing note I think I might like it, but I have to figure out how to get it without the beach ball.

One instance where I think this yeast shines more is when making a lemon beer where you want the lemon to be prominent and complex. I make a lemon saison (zest and juice of 1 lemon in ~3-4 gallons) with this yeast that I quite like. It is not subtle lemon but I think it works well with the saison and it isn't a sweet fruit beer. The Lochristi lemon (which isn't 1D) combined with both the zest and the juice makes for a rounded lemon character that as a cool depth to it. That said, in the latest batch at bottling I preferred the version which had Amalgamation to the one with Lochristi.

Yeast Bay Amalgamation blend - I much prefer this to the Lochristi blend. I find it gives lots of citrus oriented fruit. If I have any reservations about it, it would be that I find that there isn't a lot of depth beyond the great citrus and tropical fruit so this combines with the already estery saisons to make a bit of a fruit bomb. I could see with all the bretts in this blend that it would age very nicely and add a lot of complexity, and I haven't given it as much aging time or as many different tries yet. So for now this is looking pretty promising but I have some mild reservations.

WLP 645 Brett c. and WLP644 trois with Wyeast Lacto b.

WLP644 'brett' trois - I moved away from using this in saisons about the same time that the news broke that this is actually a sacch strain rather than a brett (see here and some more info here). My decision to move away from it in saisons happened before this identity info came out and was independent of the classification of WLP644, but I found the timing funny. The main reason that I'm not interested in exploring this further (for now) is that it just doesn't give the character I'm looking for in a brett saison. I find its fruityness pleasant but I generally prefer a well fermented Wyeast 3724 beer (either 3724 solo or as the main component of a blend) to the same with trois.

Sometimes I find the fruity character of 644 a little flat and it takes away from the sharpness I like in saisons. That's not to say that it can't be good. I've made some that I enjoy a fair bit and I'm sure there are many great saisons with it out there. But part of this search is not settling for good and looking for the best bretts for a saison. I'm looking for something that enhances the characteristics of a saison by doing something a little different from but complimentary to what the main saison yeasts are doing rather than providing another rather similar character (especially when 3724 is generally more appealing to me). I think WLP644 can have a place in brett saisons, but for now I'll be looking elsewhere and if I do come back to it, it will be as a minor contributor to a blend.

ECY-34 Dirty Dozen brett blend -This is pretty young in the assessment stages but so far I am liking it. One beer is conditioned and in bottles with ECY-34 and it seems to add a subtle fruityness (tropical with a bit of a shampoo-like floral/fruit but in a good way) and a great earthy/more classically 'funky' character (but in a wonderfully subtle way). Maybe more on the hay/straw/earth side of barnyard than the goat/horse side. It wasn't as aggressive out of the gate as I was expecting, but perhaps more time will let that come out. But I like what it is adding. The bottled beer i have with ECY-34 also seems to have more of a roundness to it in the mouthfeel, but that could easily be from a factor other than the brett. I'll keep that in mind when looking into future ECY-34 beers. Although it is too young to tell for sure and I haven't replicated the characteristics with other beers, this seems to be hitting all the points for what I am looking for in a brett blend for saisons.

Lacto:
Wyeast 5223-PC Lactobacillus brevis- I really like this lacto strain and I wish it was available all year. I've kept a starter going with it so I keep access to it and I'm oping this lasts until the next release. I find over the course of a few months it develops the level of acidity that I am looking for in a 15-25 IBU beer, which I am really happy with. The fermentation character is otherwise pretty clean and I don't notice any odd flavor contribution from it. My starter is a bit green apple-y, but I suppose that's not surprising and that doesn't translate into the final beer.

Dregs:
Crooked Stave - This is the dominant yeast in the 30 gallon barrel I share with two other homebrewers. I really like the complex fruit forward character of these bretts and are quite happy with them. I feel like I want to come up with a blend similar in feel but different for myself, but I defintiely like what these bretts are doing and would not be opposed to adding them to a house blend.

Bretts waiting to be used:
These blends are either waiting to be used or in use but not yet bottled.

Brett anomala starter

ECY-04 Brett anomala - I have some stuff going with ECY-04 now but not far enough along to give a proper run down of how I feel about it.

ECY-30 Brett nardensis - I have a culture in the fridge but haven't put it to use yet.

BSI Brett drie - I've done one beer with this and am rather happy with the results, but I need to spend some more time with it.

Yeast Bay Beersel brett blend - Another one  that I've only done a batch with so far, but again rather happy with it.

Upright Flora dregs - As mentioned above, Upright produces some of my favorite brett saisons. Perhaps i'm not really getting anything from their beers that I couldn't buy from a yeast company but I don't really see harm in adding it in. I have many other dregs hanging around but I'm not sure that they will fit as well into saisons as Upright dregs do. I have one beer on the go with these but it is too early to evaluate it.

Dark English Mild tasting

Here are my tasting notes for a dark mild I brewed back in mid October (and took notes on in mid December, I know I'm behind). I didn't taste these side by side so the comparisons are based on having them repeatedly over a month or so and my memory of the beers while I was reviewing the others. As I outlined in the recipe post, I've found an unpleasant acrid/roast/tang in my previous milds and many of the commercial milds I've had. My guess going in was that this is due to a combination of the dark malts and low gravity, possibly with oversparging involved. To try to avoid that this time I decided to cold steep my darkest malts. The other new thing for this batch was using East Coast Yeast's British Mild strain (ECY-18). One carboy got ECY-18 and the other two got White Labs Dry English (WLP-007), as I had it on hand from an old ale. One of the two WLP-007 carboys also got a chunk of medium toast oak rod in the primary.

To give away the two big things that came out of this beer right from the beginning: I am very happy with the dark malt character I got out of the cold steeping and I am really happy with ECY-18. The yeast gave a great mild earthy/woodyness and let the malt shine nicely. The ECY-18 version definitely stood out from the others.


ECY-18

Aroma: Nutty, mildly woody, sweet dark caramel (almost burnt caramel), brown malt, wheat toast, chocolate

Appearance: This looks quite pretty. clear reddish amber, low off white/light tan fine head

Taste: For its strength, this has a pleasant rich maltyness. There is a reasonably amount of malt sweetness (not too much to be an issue but maybe a bit more than I'd like). There is a nice mildly toasty brown malt and some chocolate that almost approaches roast as well to help balance the sweetness. I like the yeast character. There is some earthy/woodyness and it does a good job of promoting the maltyness and making this beer seem like more than 3% ABV without being too heavy/sweet. A bit more dark malt might be good.

Mouthfeel: Appropriately low carbonation, medium/light body with a hint of wateryness. It is sweet overall in the balance with low/no hop bitterness (which is okay for what I was going for).

Overall: My favorite of the three. A touch sweeter than I'd like and i think pushing the malt slightly in a dryer/toastier/roastier direction would help to balance that.


WLP-007

Aroma: This batch seems much roastier than ECY-18 (possibly due to being dryer, possibly not). Brown malt and toast crust are on the front end of this beer, along with maple syrup and a nice woody/earthyness (but restrained compared to ECY-18).

Appearance: Medium/thick light tan head, creamy, good retention. Clear mahoganny.

Taste: Again, drier than ecy-18 with bread crust and brown malt. Dark caramel and maple with some woodyness but less than ECY-18. The roast is a bit rougher here, almost having a bit of char. Mild dried fruit and chocolate. Good malt depth but thin in the finish.

Mouthfeel: Medium carbonation (a bit higher than what I was going for), thinner than ECY-18.

Overall: This doesn't seem like the right yeast for the job. OK but the other two treatments are better. Thin in the finish and a bit rough due to thinness and carbonation. there is a bit of the tang that I've gotten in other my previous milds and commercial milds (I don't think it is contamination-related as it tastes otherwise clean and I think this is the yeast choice and the malts working together).


WLP-007 + Oak

Aroma: Strong chocolate and hazelnut, sweet maple syrup. The strong nutty/maple character is surprising

Appearance: Low tan head, fine bubbles, good retention. Clear pretty brown.

Taste: The oak is not easily identifiable but it definitely changes the beer. Richly malty and nutty. Hints at roast but not quite there. Sweet malt forward. Seems more similar to ECY-18 than WLP-007. Similar woody character to the other two.

Mouthfeel: Appropriately low carbonation, slightly watery (it is a pretty low strength beer with low carb, so that's understandable), softer and fuller than the normal 007 version. Low/no hop bitterness but appropriate.

Overall: Nice! The wood adds quite a bit to this without adding any actual 'wood' flavor. Good malt complexity and drinkability. This isn't far behind the ECY-18. I think if noticeable oak flavor came through I wouldn't be happy with it, but getting some of the other benefits of the wood without oak flavor worked out very well.

Overall I'll drop the WLP-007 and switch to a maltier English yeast. I'd like to keep using the ECY-18 when I can get it. And for when I can't, I'll keep working on the sanitized and somewhat neutralized oak for softening and adding complexity. Usually when I have non-sour beers with oak (and no spirits) the tannins tend to sharpen the beer but this did a nice job of smoothing and filling the WLP-007 beer out. I'll continue with the cold steeping and maybe push the malt bill a bit more toward the roast side (keeping in mind the poor extraction efficiency I got from this first try at cold steeping) to counteract some of the sweetness.

Seaside Saison Brewday

Somehow (I don't remember when/how) the idea was planted in my head that the water at Sante Adairius Rustic Ales had elevated levels of sodium and chloride, possibly because they are using well water and are pretty close to the ocean. Since hearing that I feel like I can taste a bit of that saltyness in their beers. Though recently I have looked back to substantiate this long-held idea of mine, I have not been able to find a source to clearly confirm (or invalidate) that information. Whatever the case, drinking some of the fantastic saison-oriented beers from Sante Adairius and perceiving a mild saltyness, the the idea was planted to brew a saison with elevated sodium chloride.

Mashing under my rainy day tarp.

If you aren't familiar with Sante Adairius (SARA for short) they are a small brewery in Capitola, near Santa Cruz Ca. They produce some of the best saisons I've had (along with some really solid hoppy beers) and I really like the outlook that the brewer Tim has. I've never met him, but he shares some of his ideas in his interview on the Brewing Network's Sour Hour. In the interview he also talks about his saison yeasts (he is using a blend of Belgian and French saison yeasts) and he mentions that his water as a high mineral content, and even uses the term 'salty' to describe it (but never specifically mentions sodium or chloride and mentions that pre-boiling the water helps some of these mineral problems suggesting that temporary hardness may be an issue). 

So whether or not SARA actually has elevated sodium chloride, the idea was born and I wanted to try brewing a saison with higher sodium levels. Generally sodium is advised against in brewing and suggested maximum levels are around 75 ppm or below, but up to 150 ppm could be okay. However some styles can make use of higher sodium (such as Gose, a tart German style from the Leipzig area with additions of coriander and salt). Shortly after I put this beer in my brewing schedule I learned from my friend and local maltster Mike Doehnel that he was going to malt some barley that was grown next to the beach at Island View rd. in Saanich (I talked a bit more about Doehnel malts in this post). This seaside-grown barley fit perfectly with the beer I had in mind.

Preparing the tasting

In order to determine how much salt to use for this I did a bit of searching around for what others had done in Gose homebrews. From these values (in g/gallon) I came up with a range of what I wanted to try in ppm from a bit below Gose levels to a bit above. I weighed out the ranges table salt into 50 mL vials and dissolved the salt in 10 mL of water. From these salt solutions I prepared a tasting with 6*10 cl pours from one 750 ml bottle of a previous saison. Each was spiked with 1.1 mL (5 with the concentrated salt solutions and one with 1.1 mL of water as a blank). The final levels in each of the glasses are shown in the table below. Because neither sodium nor chloride are important in hitting pH levels (unlike calcium and the carbonate system), spiking the finished beer in the glass probably comes closer approximating the effect of Na and Cl in the brewing water throughout the process.

salt spiking table

On first tasting I noticed the actual salt in glasses 3-5 (they tasted salty), but in all the glasses I was able to see an overall difference in the beers (from mouthfeel and flavor changes that aren't as identifiable salty-oriented). At first sip nothing was too salty to drink. There was a significant difference between what seemed like an appropriate level at first and what I decided in the end. This may be partially due to the beers warming but I think it might have more to do with the differences between the right level for a few sips and the right level for a small glass. With this reasoning I extrapolated from what I liked in the 10 cl pours to what I would want for a batch (especially knowing that I can always add more salt but removing it isn't an option unless I blend in another beer).

The 5 salt spiked samples and the blank.

As the beers warmed I could taste the salt (saltyness in addition to the other changes mentioned above) in all of them. By the end glasses 4 and 5 were far too salty and I didn't want to finish them. Glass 3 was too salty for this beer but drinkable and maybe more in line with what I might want for something more salt-forward like a Gose. The switch from pleasantly salty to too salty for this beer (when tasting small amounts from the glasses) happened between glasses 2 and 3. For one small 10 cl glass, glass 2 was possibly about the right amount. But glass 1 was rather pleasant and probably better for drinking larger volumes. There was still a touch of saltyness, at least when I was looking for it, but the impact was more on the mouthfeel and the overall flavor than the flavor of saltyness. I decided to go for a bit less than what was in glass 1 for this batch based on the reasoning above and because I'm not looking to create a salty saison (by that I mean a saison tat tastes salty) but rather a more subtle beer with the influence of elevated sodium.

Recipe

Brew Date: 18-January-2015

Target carboy volume: 7.5 gals (28.4l)

OG:1.045

IBU: ~29 (Tinseth)

Color: ~3 SRM

Target FG: ~1.001

Expected ABV: 5.7%

Grist:

The grist.

82.4% Doehnel #30 (Pils oriented malt would work as a substitute) - note that this malt has a lower level of moisture than the average malt so my extraction was a couple points higher than the average pils malt. The percentages of grains in Beersmith are by weight, not extract, so increasing the pils portion if a normal pils is used would closer match this grist.

8.8% Flaked spelt

5.0% Flaked triticale (I would have omitted this if I had more spelt around)

3.9% acidulated malt (Weyermann)

Hops:

31.6 g Sterling pellets 11.1% aa (Hops Direct 2014 harvest)

28 g Saphir pellets 2.8% aa (Hop Union 2013 harvest)

Yeast:

A blend of Wyeast 3724 (Belgian saison), Yeast Bay Wallonian Farmhouse, Wyeast 3726 (Farmhouse ale), and Wyeast 3711 (French saison) (in that order) for the main fermentation. Having been pleased with previous blends using 3724, WF and 3711 I decided to see how 3726 added to the mix. I suspect it will compliment the more fruit-forward 3724 and WF

As I have regularly been doing for recent saisons, I brewed enough to fill a carboy for a mixed yeast and bacteria fermentation and longer term aging. To that carboy I pitched some dregs from sour saison oriented beers that I enjoy as well as some brett strains that have a good mix of fruityness in addition to milder funk and a Lactobacillus strain. This carboy received Yeast Bay amalgamation Brett blend, ECY04 Brett anomala, Crooked Stave brett (from the 30 gallon oak barrel I share with two friends), Upright flora dregs and Wyeast 5223 Lacto brevis.

Other:

10.0 g CaSO4 - +77 ppm Ca2+, +184 ppm SO42- in 7.5 gal strike water

6.5 g CaSO4 - +67 ppm Ca2+, +161 ppm SO42- in 5.5 gal sparge water

I decided not to add any CaCl2 due o the high levels of Cl- I was adding from the sea salt

9.0 g sea salt +117 ppm Na+, +183 ppm Cl- in 30 l (approximately my target final volume) added to the boil

1 tab whirlfloc

3.3g Wyeast yeast nutrients

Mash:

I used my typical 2 step saison mash profile of 146 F (63.3 C) for 50 minutes and 154 F (66.7 C) for 20. I didn't mash out above 158 F (70 C) to prevent denaturing the enzymes and allow conversion throughout sparging and into the kettle.

Boil:

I did a 90 minute boil expecting 1 gallon per hour of boil off and 1.25 gallons of trub loss. I pulled about 2 l of wort before adding hops to activate/wake up the 3724 I had in the fridge. I am doing a couple trials to see if it helps this finicky yeast to go into a fermentation active rather than dormant. The Sterling was added with 40 minutes left in the boil and the Saphir was added at flame out. I did a 25 minute hot steep/whirlpool.

Fermentation:

I pitched at ~68 F (20 C) and raised it to 78 F (25.6 C) over the first 3 days, where it is sitting now.

The final wort was pleasantly different from previous saisons I've made with a similar recipe. I couldn't really pick out salt, but I imagine that had something to do with it. I'll fill in updates as this beer progresses.

Here are tasting notes for the Seaside Saison.

New Year's Plans and 2014 Reflection

A bit of non-beer time in northern Italy

For the past couple months I've noticed that I have often been independently on the same page for brewing with Amos at Browne and Bitter (hop-forward saisons, spontaneous fermentation, sour soleras...). But I can claim no such thing with this post. I shamelessly got this idea from reading his recent plans for 2015 post (an idea he says he got from other blogs). Although perhaps there won't be too much in the way of technical brewing info or recipes in this post, I'll benefit from laying these ideas out (and thinking them through a bit more as making such a list entails) and hopefully you'll benefit from either being prompted to make a similar list of your own or from seeing my process for why I am focusing on what I am focusing on.

One of my favorites from 2013-14: Geuzestekerij De Cam

I'll start with a quick breakdown of what stands out to me as I look back on my last year of brewing. I spent about 9 months away from brewing due to a move to Mainz, Germany from the start of October 2013 until the end of May 2014. While this provided plenty of great opportunities to visit breweries, try beers, and speak with brewers in Europe (mostly Belgium) as well as time to do a bit of traveling not related to beer, by the time I returned I was really ready to get back to brewing. Spending that long not brewing but thinking and reading about the beers I wanted to brew and planning out some recipes, combined with wanting to make up for lost time, had a big impact on the brewing that I did in 2014.


Year in review

One boil split into 4 different petite saisons.

1) Directed, planned and repeated brewing - I did this sort of thing before 2014, but planning and specific goals directed my brewing this year much more than before. Most of the beers I brewed in 2014 were in a pretty similar range, and I repeated multiple recipes with minor changes while the memory of the earlier batch was still fresh in my mind and while some bottles were still around. In addition to these replicates with different hot sides and slightly different recipes, I split a lot of batches for different treatments in the carboy (or at bottling). This regular and repeated brewing let me directly test certain aspects of my process while eliminating almost all of the other variables, which let me improve what I'm doing with a bit more confidence that the results weren't due to something other than what I intended to change.

When I wasn't brewing a variation of a recipe (and even when I was) I spent more time planning the brew day and what processes I was going to use. Full disclosure - I spend a lot of time planning and taking notes. Some of my friends give me a good-natured hard time because of it. And I know that some people don't enjoy those parts of brewing and would rather brew a bit more spontaneously. That doesn't work as well for me but if that's what you find enjoyable about the hobby and you are happy with that, then I think you are fine to keep with it. Anyway, this planning helped things run smoother on brew day, but more importantly the brews were easier to learn from since I knew and thought about what I was going to do before I did it. Therefore I was able to test out more stuff, and when not directly testing something I still had a good record of what I did and what my reasoning was for doing it.

Racking from the open primary into barrels and secondary.

2) First commercial brew - In October a local brewery Moon Under Water asked me to collaborate with them on a saison. This was a big milestone for me as a brewer and an awesome experience. The brewers Clay and Jeff were great to work with. I've continued to work with them on barrel aging projects and general brewery operations, which has helped me to do more with barrel aging and souring than I could as a homebrewer and helped me learn about the day to day operations of a brewer. Like many homebrewers I have had thoughts of commercial brewing. I'm not sure if it is right for me and if it would take some of the fun out of brewing, but starting to work with commercial brewers and learning more about commercial brewing definitely helps me know what I would be in for if I were to go that route. And if not it is a pretty fun experience for expanding my homebrewing and getting to sit down in a bar with friends and drink the beer.

3) Connecting with others thinking about similar things -Starting up this blog has connected me with other brewers outside of my local homebrewing community. There are plenty of great brewers locally and I definitely learn from the things that they are doing, but discussions with others in different areas thinking about the same sorts of questions and brewing the same sorts of beers as me has helped me learn more about brewing the styles I am interested in (from both the discussions and the research I do to help feed the discussions) and has given me some new ideas. This is something that has happened much more than I expected it would.

4) Milk the Funk - In the later part of 2014 I started contributing to the Wiki for Milk the Funk, a new facebook group, forum and wiki for info about brewing sour and funky beers. I'll admit that I'm not a huge fan of the name, but perhaps there is a good story about why they chose it that will make me like it (I felt the same way about The Rare Barrel until I heard their story). Anyway, that doesn't change the fact that it is a great resource for and community of brewers who love brewing the sour and funky beers. If that's the sort of thing you are interested in and haven't checked it out yet, you should. I'm happy to be contributing to the wiki to help bring together one site for info about brewing these types of beers and resources for learning more. It's a work in progress (as wikis will forever be) but some great stuff has been put up in a relatively short amount of time so far.

Plans for 2015

1) Work on blending - The 'magic' of many of the beers I am most inspired by comes in how the beer develops in the barrel and how the brewer/blender uses the unique character of each to create a final product or final products that they are looking for. There are a few non-blended sour beers that I've had that I thought were really excellent, but the vast majority are blended. I've done a small amount of blending so far, but this has mostly been at bottling or in the glass with different homebrews

By 2016 my barrel capacity won't be this awesome, but there is room to dream. At 3F.

This sort of thing requires sufficient time input to have enough aged beers around for the blending, and I now have enough aging beer around that I think I can get more into blending. And using the characteristics of some to add a missing element to others. To further this I have brewed an acid blending beer (basically a rather acidic beer that I can use to adjust the acidity of others) that I plan to keep around and top up as needed with fresh wort. And I also have a brett blending beer around, and will likely brew a second in the coming months. I'll use these more acidic or brett-forward beers to guide a series of soured saisons, which may also be blended together, to what I am looking for in aged and somewhat but not sharply acidic saisons.

I expect a long learning curve for this. I imagine I'll try a couple of processes for the blending before I come up with the best one. And I would like to practice on shorter time scale brews like saisons before venturing into lambic-oriented blending of long-term complex mixed-microbe fermentation brews. I may also extend this blending to some clean beers, but for now the focus will be on soured saisons. It will be almost all carboy sours at this point as well, but hopefully I can put the two oak barrels that I share with friends to use with blending (and also hopefully expand my barrel aging).

2) Continue targeted brewing with style focuses - I think many of the advances I have made this year in brewing are due to pretty directed brewing. I'd like to continue with the yeast blending work I've been doing and solidify some blend selections. I also plan to work toward a blend of different bretts that I am happy with. I like some of the brett stuff I've done so far but I haven't found the right combination to get what I am looking for. So I'll probably transition a bit more toward working on adding single strains and blends to saisons to find the brett blend I'm looking for.

If I decide to step away from brewing funky and saison-oriented beers I'd like to do some focused work on hoppy pale ales. Over the last year I have been shifting toward lower abv more drinkable beers. I generally like having larger volumes of good low ABV beers (that are still flavorful) than A DIPA/barleywine/imperial whatever. Not that I don't also like those in moderation, but that's the way my brewing and beer consumption has been shifting. I like drinking beer, what can I say... So anyway, the goal with the hoppy pale ales is to try different processes for trying to get the hop character in some of my favorite commercial hoppy beers. I've brewed some alright IPAs before and I've been happy with them, but some breweries just really stand out in excellent hop use (and it's not always more is better) and I want to work on that. We'll see if I can be torn away from saisons and funky/sour beers long enough to work on this.