Dark Rye Super Saison

I brewed this beer almost 2 monthes ago before the craziness of the new house started. I thought I posted about this beer, but apparently not. I had a lot of fun with designing the recipe and my fingers are crossed that it tastes good (I still haven't tasted the beer, it's still in Dan's Cellar).










Last year's Dark Saison had a clear focus on dark fruit - by using Special B and treacle for the fruit flavors and a higher kilned base malt to help with the richness. After many months the flavors came together and it's one of my more favorite homebrews. This year however, I wanted to try a much different flavor focus. From reviewing my last few Saisons you can see I'm experimenting with new (to me) adjunct grains. (Oats in Table Saison, Spelt in Traditional Saison). For this beer I wanted to go big on the rye. To be honest, I have a difficult time picking out this flavor in commercial styles I've tried. I read about the "spicy" notes, but it hasn't registered for me. With this beer I wanted to make sure I included plenty of rye, I ended up around 30%. To build on this "spiciness" I also included a decent amount of late hopping with Saaz.

The other big component I wanted in this beer was a distinct roastiness. (Side story: I do a lot of recipe generation in my head while I'm bike riding. A group of us ride each Wednesday night and after these rides, it is our tradition to share homebrews. At the time of this recipe, it was pretty chilly (we are talking 50s in San Diego) and I really just wanted to drink something with a rich roastiness.) What better way to get the roast in this beer than to use a new malt I have been wanting to try - Chocolate Rye from Weyermann. And try a new technique for me - Cold Steeping. Two days before brew day I boiled and cooled 1 gal of water. I added about half to a 1 gal container and then poured in my 2 lbs of Chocolate Rye malt. I topped up the water, gave it a good swirl to make sure all the grain was soaked and left it in the fridge. On brewday, I just poured the 1 gal container into the boil kettle and used a colander to catch the grain. (I took a sample taste of the cold steeped liquid and it was delicious on its own.) I dumped the soaked grain on top of the mash before sparging.

Just like last year's version, I wanted to make this a big beer. With an O.G. at 1.080 I'm hoping to get around 10% ABV. I soured a portion of last year's and the sourness really disguised the alcohol (the dryness helped also). I ended up calling that beer the "Widow Maker" since all the guys drank way too much during Halloween and the wives wanted nothing to do with us. I'll probably end up souring some more this year, but haven't decided on what bug cocktail to use.

As for yeast in this batch, I wanted to continue my split batches. I ended up making starters for ECY 08 and my harvested Dupont yeast. I also did a gal with Brett Drie to test the alcohol threshold of the strain.

Recipe: Dark Rye Super Saison

Batch Size 10.0 gal        O.G.-1.081                       F.G.-TBD
IBU-30                             SRM-24                             ABV-TBD

Grain Bill (77% Efficiency):

22 lb Pilsner Malt (69%)
6 lb Rye Malt (19%)

2 lb Flaked Rye (6%)
2 lb Chocolate Rye Malt (6%) - cold steep

Hops:
1.5 oz Super Styrian, 9.5%, pellet, 90 min 30 IBU
2 oz Saaz, 4.5%, pellet, Whirlpool

Yeast:
Re-used Cultured Dupont dregs - 5 gal batch
Re-used ECY08 - 5 gal batch
Re-used Brett Drie - 1 gal batch

Brew Day:
Brewed: 9/30/12

Water:
50/50 Blend of San Diego tap water and Distilled

Mash Details:
H2O/Grain Ratio: 1.0 qt/lb
Sacc Rest. Temp/Time: 148F @ 60min
Sparge Temp/Time: 170F

Boil Details:
Boil Time: 90min

Ferment Details:
Ferment Temp: pitched at 70 and allowed to free rise. No temperature control. In Dan's cellar.

The Dupont version was off to an explosive start and all the beers seemed to finish up pretty quickly. These beers are sitting in carboys just waiting for an empty keg. I need to start drinking some beer. I should have some tasting notes posted as soon as I have time to get these packaged.

A New Chapter

I apologize for the title, I could only think of cliches. So I decided to go with the corniest one possible.


I want to updated all the loyal readers inside our great online community, that there are some big changes currently happening in the Crane household.





My wife is pregnant and we are expecting our first child (a girl) in February. This alone is very exciting, but we also decided it was time for us to move from our downtown San Diego condo. We really enjoy living within walking distance to a lot of great places, but the thought of a crazy person on the street waking up my daughter in the middle of the night after I just got her to sleep would drive me crazy. We decided to sell the condo and are currently in escrow for a house in University City area (Central San Diego). The house is an original 1972 work of art. I have quite a bit of work to do in the upcoming months (and forever).

The good news (for brewing) is that I will be moving my brewing from a 30 sq ft balcony and 25 sq ft closest to a 2 car garage. I will now have much more room for fermentation space. Get ready for barrel projects, more experiments and finally my home lab setup for isolating yeast and bacteria.


The brewing and blog writing might be slow over the next few months, but I already have a few new posts in the works.

GABF 2012 Photo Re-cap + Tips: Sour / Wild / Farmhouse Beers

Sorry for the delay in writing my re-cap. I know the importance of being timely on the internet, but life is getting busy (and this post is super long). My first trip to GABF was a well planned and paced beer adventure. I'm proud of myself for controlling my consumption when presented with 2500 + opportunities to get intoxicated. Below are a few suggestions and comments for future trips, followed by my photo essay and all my tasting notes.

1. Prioritize your experience: Know before you go what places or beers you really want to go to or taste and do those first. You may think you have time on Day 3, but by the time you get there that beer is gone or you would rather take a nap (or watch football) then drive an hour to a brewery. My number 1 priority was to visit Crooked Stave, I have been exchanging emails and following along with Chad for years, so I made sure this was our first stop. Right off the plane Thursday night to Crooked Stave. The tasting room was winding down and luckily for us that meant a private tour and tasting session with Eli, 1 of the 5 Crooked Stave employees. It never worked out to meet Chad, but that leaves something for next time (and hopefully not around GABF because they are busy).
2. Prepare for Palate Fatigue - 1 oz tastings really add up and if you are at GABF to find some new beers or discover new flavors it gets tough as the night goes on. I was able to get in about 50 beers (that's barely over 4 - 12oz) before my palate was gone. Yes, I was tasting mostly sour beers and Saisons, so it might be different if you are drinking brown ales or maybe worse if you are drinking IPA.

1. It really helps to drink your rinse water before each taste - it cleanses your palate and prolongs your night. And more importantly makes sure you wake up the next morning not hating yourself and the elevation.
2. The pretzel necklace is pretty clutch. I had probably 30 -40 pretzels on mine and was done with it around 3 hrs in. And many people bring more than pretzels, so be creative
3. Its OK to pour out beer - You should know this as a homebrewer. There will be some bad beers - we hit a streak of terrible "sour" beers and sweet Saisons while in the Midwest Region. (There were also some great beers from that region). Just pour it out.
4. Enjoy Denver - Stay Balanced. As a beer geek it is easy to go overboard while at GABF with all the beers you can try. There are a bunch of special beers only poured at GABF, rare beers brought by breweries and then beers from places you will never visit. But life is about being balanced and Denver and the surrounding area is amazing. Explore the city (on foot or they have awesome rental bikes) or go for a hike in the foothills (the fresh mountain air does great things for a groggy head).

5. Ask questions and be friendly - the beer community keeps impressing me with the quality of people involved. Brewers love for you to ask questions about their brewing process or recipe design - just think about you as a homebrewer and how much you love discussing your beer. For the most part, the other drinkers were super polite, friendly and offered great tips.
6. Don't feel too geeky to take notes - I feel self conscious of taking notes (mostly because my wife clowns me), but at GABF I almost feel like it is encouraged. It's really the only way to remember what you had and what you thought of it. The added plus I liked was that it slowed me down enough that I was better able to pace myself through the 4.5 hr session.
7. Pick your GABF session depending on the environment you want

1. Thursday Evening - Best Selection of beer, Mostly beer geeks (who else would take time off work), and a lot of brewers
2. Friday Evening - A real mix of people ( geeks and partiers)- Almost all the beers are still available - a few brewers from the smaller places
3. Saturday Afternoon - They release some extra beers during this session, beer geeks because you need an AHA memberships, and a lot of brewers - mostly wearing their new medals
4. Saturday Evening - A real Shit Show - Not much special beer left - Brewers are all gone and the drunks roll in - people literally just go up to a booth and stick out a glass, take the shot of beer and repeat.

Below is a photo timeline of our 2012 GABF

  My tasting notes from 2012 GABF
Crooked Stave

 Mid Atlantic

 Ranger Creek Brewing

 Mountain Region

 Marble Brewing and Freetail Brewing

 Commons Brewing

 Cambridge Brewing and Trinity Brewing

 Jester King Brewing

 Funkwerks

 Jolly Pumpkin Brewing

 Catawaba Valley Brewing

 Elevation Brewing

Rivertown Brewing

 Avery Brewing

 Epic Brewing

I had an absolute great time. I am now determined to return, probably every couple years. And hopefully even for a Pro-Am at some point.