Giant Sized Saison

Once again, we find ourselves making an almost ludicrous quantity of beer on our undersized homebrew setup. This has been happening more and more often, since our time to brew is limited by all of our other projects (and our actual jobs) and we consistently want a lot of beer to play with. This time, we wanted 10 gallons of saison to go into our 10-gallon barrel, which just passed the four-month mark for the beer that's currently aging in it. 

That beer was meant to be an American-style barleywine, but considering where it ended up, I would say it's more like a partial-kvass American Tripel, hopefully with lots of funky brett character. I'm pretty excited about it. I suspect that we'll bottle half of it immediately and give the other half a big dry hop to really push the juicy American flavors.

While we were at it, we figured we ought to brew some beer that we can drink ASAP. Because we landed on a relatively pale saison this time, we decided to take another shot at a hazy IPA. Proving that we are, in fact, capable of learning from our mistakes, we also decided not to try to mash and sparge our way through 50 lbs of grain and simply did two turns with the same grain bill. This was clearly the right choice. It took us a little bit longer than our regular brew day to do both mashes and boils, but it meant infinitely less headache.

For the IPAs, we used Pahto hops at 60 minutes for about 15 IBU. Some folks don't do any bittering for their hazy IPAs, and I can respect that, but we like a bit of a snap at the back of each sip to hold everything together. I cannot for the life of me remember why I bought so many Pahto hops, but they are perfect, cheap bittering hops that don't add a lot of flavor or vegetal material. They did get a big whirlpool (~7g/l) with a variety of American hops, including Citra Lupomax, which I am absolutely loving right now. 

For the saisons, we kept things pretty simple. They got 2.5 oz of Chech Saaz at 60 minutes and another 2.5 oz at whirlpool. I've heard that aged beers lose their hop character over time anyway, so you could make an argument that the whirlpool hops weren't worth doing, but personally, I would be surprised if more flavor compounds in didn't end up as more flavor compounds out, at least in some form.

We chilled everything down, got them into fermenters, and then I remembered that I had planned to add 2 oz of Phantasm powder to one of the IPAs. Ideally, you're supposed to add Phantasm powder at whirlpool, but so far that doesn't seem to be an issue. Both saisons and the half of the IPA that didn't get Phantasm powder we transferred to carboys - the half that did was transferred to corny keg with a Floatit 2.0 floating dip tube. Incidentally, I finally broke down and got a few Floatit 2.0s after getting frustrated with the cheap standard floating dip tubes that seem to be everywhere and the difference is night and day.

The saisons split a starter of WLP-4020 Wallonian Farmhouse, which I bought after doing a bit of research into saison yeasts. I wanted something that produces interesting fruity esters and a bit of that lactic kick that some saisons have (without actually producing a sour). Fingers crossed. Those flavors should be compounded by the six strains of brett that live happily in our 10-gallon barrel once we transfer them in after a primary fermentation.

The IPA in the carboy got a starter of WLP-4053 Midtbust Kveik and a heating jacket to keep temperatures around 90F. After about three days, we soft crashed temperatures down to around 65F and dry hopped with Galaxy and more Citra Lupomax. Three days after that, we bottled. Gotta love kveik. 

The IPA in the corny keg got a starter of OYL-402 Cosmic Punch, a thiolizing yeast. I'm sure some folks feel weird about scientists using Crispr to whip up yeasts in a lab, but I think it's awesome. We gave it a week to ferment in primary without a dry hop before we transferred it off its yeast cake and onto a dry hop in another purged corny keg with another floating dip tube and brought it down to 60F. We figure that's enough time to get through most of the sugars but soon enough that the hop compounds should undergo a bit of biotransformation. We also gave this one three days on the dry hop before we transferred it to yet another purged corny keg and started force carbonating. 

It'll be another week or two before this one is fully carbonated, but I've had a few sneaky glasses already and even flat, it's excellent. We're pretty excited about the bottled IPAs as well, if nothing else because they'll be way easier to share. And needless to say, we're foaming at the mouth to try those barrel tripels, although it may be a little bit before we find time to bottle and do the transfer.

Stats:

Volume in Fermentor: 10 Gallons / 5 Gallons / 5 Gallons

Starting Gravity: 1.056

Water:

• 10 Gallons Infustion Mash 1
• 4 Gallons Batch Sparge 1
• 10 Gallons Infusion Mash 2
• 4 Gallons Batch Sparge 2

Fermentables:

• (Note: Both 10 gallon mashes used identical recipes)
• 15 lbs Dingemans Pilsen Malt
• 3.5 lbs Briess White Wheat Malt
• 2.5 lbs Weyermann Munich Malt
• 2 lbs Briess Flaked Oats
• 2 lbs Briess Flaked Rye
• 8 oz Weyermann Caramunich II
• 1.5 oz Acidulated Malt

Bittering/Flavoring Additions:

Boil 1

• 0.5 oz Pahto @ 60M
• 5 oz Amarillo @ Whirlpool (185F)
• 5 oz ID-158 @ Whirlpool (185F)
• 3.35 oz Citra Lupomax @ Whirlpool (185F)

(Boil 1) Fermenter A

• 3.2 oz Amarillo @ Dry Hop
• 3.2 oz Citra Lupomax @ Dry Hop
• 3.2 oz Galaxy @ Dry Hop

(Boil 1) Fermenter B

• 1.9 oz Citra Lupomax @ Dry Hop
• 1.8 oz Galaxy @ Dry Hop

Boil 2

• 2.5 oz Saaz @ 60M
• 2.5 oz Saaz @ Whirlpool (185F)

Other:

• 8.1g Gypsum*
• 9.6g Chalk*
• 26.8ml Lactic Acid 88%*
• 2 tsp Yeast Nutrient
• 2 tsp Irish Moss
• 2 lb Rice Hulls
• (Fermenter A) 2 oz Phantasm Powder

Microbes:

• Fermentor A: (Starter) OYL-402 Cosmic Punch
• Fermentor B:  (Starter) WLP-4053 Midtbust Kveik
• Fermentors C&D: (Starter) WLP-4020 Wallonian Farmhouse + Barrel Microbes

Schedule:

• Mash for 60 minutes at 150F with Mash 1 fermentables, then drain to first kettle
• Batch sparge for 20 minutes, then drain to first kettle and begin boil
• As first boil proceeds, mash for 60 minutes at 155F with Mash 2 fermentables, then drain to second kettle
• Batch sparge for 20 minutes, then drain to second kettle and begin boil
• Boil both worts for 60 minutes, adding hops, nutrient, and Irish Moss according to schedule
• Cool, transfer to fermenters, oxidate and add yeast

Notes:

* These additions are specific to Maryland-area water chemistry, calculated using Bru'n Water Calculator