There was a bottle of really good cherry-fruit beer at a meeting of one the homebrew clubs of which I am a member. The person who brought it had traded for it, and I think it was Wisconsin Belgian Red. In any case I was inspired to brew a brett-cherry saison. The malt bill is nearly identical to my previous brett-saison, but with a different strain of brett, slightly more late hop additions, and obviously with the planned additions of cherries. I was planning to use some Brett C but the local shop didn't have it, and the GigaYeast Tart Cherry Brett sounded perfect for this beer, for obvious reasons. The ABV on this one will be at least 7% after the addition of the cherries, nearly double the ABV of the New Glarus beer. Oops, I probably should have considered that.
Not sure what form the cherries will take - frozen, puree, fresh, etc... It depends on availability. Puree would probably make for the easiest handling and lowest amount of fermenter loss.
Also I've been trying to tweak my planned volume amounts, ideally to get 5.5 gallons of clear, non-truby wort into the fermenter. But that didn't quite happen here.
BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Brett-Cherry Saison
Style: Saison
Recipe Specifications
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Boil Size: 7.62 gal
Post Boil Volume: 6.50 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.057 SG
Estimated Color: 4.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 24.3 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 74.6 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes
Ingredients:
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Amt Name Type # %/IBU
9 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 72.0 %
2 lbs Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 2 16.0 %
1 lbs Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 3 8.0 %
8.0 oz Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (1.0 SRM) Sugar 4 4.0 %
0.75 oz Sterling [8.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 18.7 IBUs
0.50 oz Sterling [8.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 6 4.5 IBUs
1.00 oz Sterling [8.00 %] - Boil 1.0 min Hop 7 1.1 IBUs
1.0 pkg Tart Cherry Brett (Giga Yeast #GB002) Yeast 8 -
4.20 lb Cherries (Secondary 0.0 mins) Flavor 9 -
Mash Schedule: 150F, Mash Out, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 12 lbs 8.0 oz
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Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash Step Add 16.00 qt of water at 162.8 F 150.0 F 60 min
Mash Step Add 9.60 qt of water at 203.7 F 168.0 F 10 min
Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun , 2.91gal) of 168.0 F water
Notes:
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1/2 tsp gympsum, 1/2 tsp CaCl to mash water, a little less to sparge water.
Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com
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Low gravity starter made on 4/13/16, with yeast nutrient. By brew day there was no visible activity but I did get some nice bretty smells from the starter.
Brewed 4/16/16.
Hit my mash temp. Pre-boil OG was ~1.044 (pre-sugar), ~1.046 (post-sugar), on target. Post-boil OG was ~1.065, a bit high, likely due to underestimation of boil-off.
Brewing went smoothly except that I had to disassemble, clean, lube and reassemble my grain mill to get it to work properly.
Force cooled to 120F, racked to better bottle, and accidentally chilled all the way to 33F in my chest freezer.
On 4/17/16, pitched yeast at 33F and shook the carboy a bit, then allowed to warm to 68F for start of fermentation. May increase to 70F tomorrow. I don't want a heavily oxygenated wort for brett since that can produce too much acidity or other weirdness.
There was about 5.4 gallons in the fermenter, a little less than planned, and although most of the wort I racked was trub-free, I did get a bit of hot-break material in the wort.
5/7/16: Visibly active fermentation occurred from April 19 - April 30, with temperature ramping from 68F - 70F. As of 5/7/16 quite a bit of yeast and trub has settled to the bottom but the beer remains turbid with yeast. Will rack next week and at some point add the cherries.
5/15/16 - Racked to secondary. Carried some yeast into the new vessel.
6/20/16 - I was away on vacation at the time that fresh sour cherries were available, and I couldn't find any frozen ones. So I added 36oz of frozen raspberries instead to the secondary fermenter.
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