Spring Cleaning: Light

Brew Shop!

Time to get back on the horse. It's been four months since I last homebrewed so we've got a lot of ground to make up. My first 'recipe' of the year will be a spring cleaning brew. We've accumulated over a dozen specialty malts in fractional quantities with some nearing a year old. So it's time to use up the old and make room for the brew (new... brew... get it?) This first spring cleaner will incorporate all the pale and crystal malts we've got in the inventory. In a couple of weeks I plan to do a spring cleaning 'dark' in which we use every malt that starts with 'chocolate', 'roasted', or 'black'.

Spring cleaning the hops out of the freezer means this brew is getting a generous helping of Willamette and the rest of the Centennial. I've had these hops in the freezer since I just started homebrewing when I decided then I would only brew Guinness and Two Hearted clones. Time to move on. 18 month old hops... get in there!

I also want to use up some of the dry yeast that's been in the fridge for a few months. We received some free packets of dry belgian saison yeast last year at the AHA conference so this one's getting the saison treatment. It will most likely be cold fermented in our chilly basement at around 60-65 farenheit. We'll see if that saison flavor can power through at the low ferm temps.

Oh, also this is the first recipe I made with our new app, 'Brew Shop.' Things went pretty well except I found out the malts in the app aren't alphabetizing correctly. TODO++;

Recipe Notes
Style: Um... what kind of bagel is an 'everything' bagel?

Batch Volume: 5 gal.
Color: 11.4 SRM
Target Bitterness: 43 IBU
Target OG: 1.043

Grist
6 lb. 8.5 oz. 2-Row
11.1 oz. Rye Malt
8.1 oz. Special Roast
7.2 oz. Crystal 120L
4.7 oz. White Wheat Malt
4.6 oz. Acid Malt

1.25 oz. Willamette 5% (FWH)
1 oz. Willamette 5% (20 min.)
1 oz. Willamette 5% (10 min.)
1.25 oz. Centennial (Whirlpool)

0.5 oz. Amarillo (Dry Hop 4 Days)
0.5 oz. Simcoe (Dry Hop 4 Days)

0.5 oz. Crystal (Dry Hop 4 Days)

Dry Belgian Saison Yeast

Brew Notes
Brew Date: 2/8/15
Mash Temp: 150F
Mash Time: 90 min.
Boil Time: 60 min.
Fermenter Volume: 4.6 gal
Measured OG: 1.043 (1.043 @ 70°F)
Brewhouse Efficiency: Too lazy...

Brought 5.5 gallons of water up to 157F. Doughed in all at once dropping the temp to 150. Mashed for about 90 minutes stirring once. Temperature finished at 148. Collected 5 gal wort after squeezing the BIAB bag. Losing only 1/2 gal to grain absorption sounds pretty good. Brought the wort to a boil at 216F... maybe time to re-calibrate the thermometer. After boil, added whirlpool hops after dropping tempt to 190F to reduce AA isomerization and bitterness. Poured wort through BIAB bag to filter out hop matter. This took a while since there was a lot of hop crap in there. Measured gravity at 1.047 for 4.25 gal of wort. Added ~0.4 gal. of water to hit target gravity of 1.043 with final volume of ~4.6 gal. Pitched yeast, aerated, and let it do its thing.

Update 2/13/15 - Pulled a hydrometer sample just out of curiosity. Sitting at 1.008. Smells saison-y and a little sulfurous. Tastes pretty grainy (young?) and has a little bit of a sharp bite at the finish. Is that the saison yeast or the acid malt? IDK.

Update 2/15/15 - Racked to secondary to make room for a dark hefe in primary. Gravity is 1.006. The aroma is starting to come together. Smells great. Has a deep cloudy orange color. Pretty excited to put this one on tap. Maybe dry hopping for a few days beforehand. We'll see.

Update 2/18/15 - Dry hopped in a sanitized hop bag. Swirled the beer around a bit to coat the hop bag. Planning to keg after four days on the hops.

Update 2/20/15 - Pulled a gravity sample to measure and taste. Gravity remains at 1.006 (whew) and smells like the inside of a peach. Saison acidic bite on the back of the throat. Like if a citrus peach existed this would be the flavor. A couple more days on hops then into the keg with you.

Kegging Notes
Measured FG: 1.006
Attenuation: 86% (yikes!)
ABV: 4.9%
Calories:139 per 12oz.
Carbonation: 2.5 volumes

Update 2/22/15 - Racked to the new keg I got for Christmas after four days on hops. New keg is nice, shiny, and leak free. Leaving to carb under serving pressure (12psi) at 40F. Not agitating keg in any way to determine how long it takes to carb if I just leave things alone. Smells and tastes like melon and citrus. Very juice like. I think this is just because it's fairly young and this *should* go away and taste more like beer with time if I remember correctly.