Time To Parti-Gyle

Have you ever brewed a large beer, say an Imperial Stout, or Imperial IPA, or maybe even a Barley Wine, and felt a little guilty throwing out that large grain bill when you finished making your beer? Some people compost, some people feed their chickens, some people put it in bread, and while these ideas are all fine and good, I personally make more beer with it.

You may have heard the term “parti-gyle” before, but wasn't sure what it was, or it sounded like some new-fangled process to make all grain brewing more complicated. Well, in fact, it is a very old and traditional way to brew, dating back hundreds of years, and with some math and some practice it is a great way for you to walk away from your brew day with not one, but two beers in the fermenter(s).

Historically brewers would mash and lauter the same grain bill several times producing a batch of wort and subsequent beer with each individual mash. Most likely this is where the Belgians got their terminology for their Trapist ales; Trippel (highest alcohol first runnings), Dubbel (high alcohol second runnings), and Pater or Table Beer (low alcohol third runnings). And, in early American colonies beer was made for sale at taverns, but “small” beer was made from the second runnings which was consumed by workers and even children as to avoid drinking the water which was often considered unfit to drink. Since the total potential of the original grain bill was known as a “gyle”, the process of splitting or partitioning the runnings became known as “parti-gyling”

Today, the homebrewer typically just sparges the grain after the initial mash and combines the first runnings (mash) with the second runnings (sparge) producing a full gyle. So why do it differently? Well, because two beers are better than one, and if you don't think so, you are probably reading the wrong blog... And since you bought all that grain with your hard earned money, why don't you get the most out of it.

Practically speaking, there are a few different ways to use a parti-gyle brew day.

One: you can just keep sparging your grain until your runnings hit a gravity of 1.010 rather than to a specific volume size. Depending on the grain you are using you can maybe pull out double the volume of beer you would have got otherwise. But remember that if your grain bill was built for a 5 gallon batch of 1.060 beer, that will be the gravity of the first 5 gallons. If you run out another 5 gallons at say 1.020, then your combined 10 gallon gyle will yield a 1.040 beer. As you can see, there are lots of gravity readings required. This is impractical for a hydrometer. Get yourself a refractometer.

Two: Make a grain bill for your Imperial Stout/Porter/IPA etc, then continue to sparge until your runnings hit a gravity of 1.010 but make it a true pari-gyle and keep them separate. How you split it will be entirely up to you. Maybe split it in thirds for three similar beers but with varying alcohol, or maybe keep one an imperial, and the other a small session beer.

Three: After one of the partitions add some adjuncts or specialty grain to your mash for a different beer from your second (or third) runnings. Just add some roasted barley and flaked oats to your grain to turn what was an Imperial IPA first runnings into a small stout second runnings.

Pretty awesome right? Are you asking yourself, “why haven't I been doing this since I started brewing?” Well there are a couple of reasons it can be a hassle, and it isn't for everyone. Sorry extract brewers, I don't think your way is inferior, but you just can't play here. The next biggest hurdle is your ability to brew and ferment two beers (or three) at once? Two burners, two kettles, two fermenters. Otherwise you are looking at a tremendously long brew day. Fortunately for me I have my old extract equipment so I usually brew a 3 gallon Imperial on the stove top and my 5 gallons session beer on my regular equipment. The other downside is the math. It isn't rocket science, but once you figure out what you are doing it will still take some practice to get the process down to something you are comfortable with. I will provide some more detail in a subsequent post on the mathematics of a parti-gyle, but don't wait for me. Jump in with both feet and make a couple of beers during your next brew day. Don't worry, it will make beer. We are happy to help you with this in the store also.

Yeast Reference Guide

People always have their own preference of yeast. In a previous post, we went over the differences (or the lack there of) between the American Chico strain (Wyeast 1056, While Labs 001, and Safale US-05), but what happens when there is no dry equivalent and your recipe calls for 1968 London ESB Yeast, but you are not a fan of Wyeast. Or conversely, the recipe calls for 002 English Ale, but you don't like White Labs... well, good news, They are the same. You see, the same Brewer has allowed each company to package the same yeast under their own brand, and they often get named something different. So, if you have a Stout recipe and your local home brew supply store is fresh out of your 004 because St Patricks day is 2 months out, have no fear, they probably still have 1084 and since they are both from Guinness you can expect the same results with your beer. You can pour the 1084 into an old While Labs vial first if you would like (just remember to sanitize it first).


Here is a quick reference guide to the strains that, for the extensive research we have done, come from the same breweries packaged by the different manufacturers:
  

Wyeast	White Labs	Brewery
1007 German Ale	WLP036  Düsseldorf Alt	Düsseldorf (Zum Uerige)
1028 London Ale	WLP013 London Ale	Worthington White Shield
1056 American Ale	WLP001 California Ale	Sierra Nevada
1084 Irish Ale	WLP004 Irish Ale	Guinness
1098 British Ale	WLP007 English Dry	Whitbred – dry
1187 Ringwood Ale	WLP005 British Ale	Ringwood
1214 Belgian Ale	WLP500 Trappist ale	Chimay
1272 American Ale II	WLP051 California V Ale	Anchor Liberty
1275 Thames Valley Ale	WLP023 Burton Ale	Henley of Thames
1335 British Ale II	WLP025 Southwold Ale	Adnam's?
1338 European Ale	WLP011 European Ale	Wisenschaftliche Station
1388 Belgian Strong Ale	WLP570 Belgian Golden Ale	Duvel (Moortgart) via McEwans
1728 Scottish Ale	WLP028 Edinburgh Scottish Ale	McEwan's
1762 Belgian Abbey II	WLP540 Abbey IV Ale	Rochefort
1968 London ESB Ale	WLP002 English Ale	Fullers
2001 Urquell Lager	WLP800 Pilsner Lager	Pilsner Urquell
2007 Pilsen Lager	WLP840 American Pilsner Lager	Budweiser
2112 California Lager	WLP810 San Francisco Lager	Anchor Steam
2124 Bohemian Lager	WLP830 German Lager	Weihenstephan 34/70
2206 Bavarian Lager	WLP820 Oktoberfest Lager	Weihenstephan 206
2308 Munich Lager	WLP838 South German Lager	Wisenschaftliche
2487 Hella-Bock	WLP833 German Bock	Ayinger Brewery
2575PC Kolsch II	WLP003 German Ale II	Weihenstephan W165
3068 Weihenstephan Weizen	WLP300 Hefeweizen Ale	Weihenstephan 68
3333 GermanWheat	WLP380 Hefeweizen IV Ale	Weihenstephan 66?
3522 Belgian Ardennes	WLP550 Belgian Ale	Achouffe
3638 Bavarian Wheat	WLP351 Bavarian Weizen	Weihenstephan 175
3724 Belgian Saison	WLP565 Saison Ale	Brasserie Dupont
3787 Trappist High Gravity	WLP530 Abbey Ale	Westmalle
3944 Belgian Witbier	WLP400 BelgianWit Ale	Hoegaarden/Celis

Reusing your yeast

Have you ever thought about reusing yeast instead of purchasing more every time you brew beer?

It is a great way to save a little money and get a really good pitch rate, so here are a couple of options to get you started:

The easiest way to reuse the yeast is to just pour your new beer onto a yeast cake from a batch you just moved to secondary. This of course requires you to have a beer ready to ferment at the same time you are ready to move a previous beer to secondary. This technique also creates a HUGE pitch rate, which can actually lead to off flavors, or what can be referred to as being “too clean”, meaning there is no esters at all and makes for a strange flavored ale. Use this technique mainly when lagering, where you need a lot of yeast and are trying for a super clean flavor anyway. A popular use is going from a light lager, such as a pilsner, to a big alcohol lager like a bock or double bock.

The second easiest way is to pour or scoop a quart (or so) of your yeast cake from a finished batch into a growler, mason jar, or whatever you can easily sanitize and use for collection. This technique will allow you to put the airlocked container in a refrigerator and use it up to 10 days later without any issues. You can however go longer with this technique, but much like the liquid yeast you get at your home brew supply store, the cell count diminishes over time. You should be able to do a yeast starter within about a 6 month period of packaging, but your changes diminish over time.

Notes:

-- Always move from lighter colored (less hoppy) beers to darker, so your yeast doesn't impart any color (flavor) to the new beer.

--  Only use yeast from primary fermentation any time after fermentation has dropped your O.G in half.

--  Do not use yeast from secondary fermentation because they are fatigued and contain mutations that you don't want to start in another beer.

--  Only reusing your yeast to many times can also lead to a variant strain of yeast, that might be good, but possibly not as good as the original strain, so try and limit your reuses to 6 or less.

White Labs 001, Wyeast 1056, or Safale US-05?

This is a very common question. It seems there are two types of people; those who don't know that these are 3 brands of the same yeast strain, and the others that know, but have either some kind of brand loyalty for one or prejudice against the others. This post is mainly for those who do not know these are the exact same thing.

Yep it is true. All three yeast brands are derived from Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and are, for all purposes, the same yeast. Even John Palmer, author of How to Brew references them as the same:

“American, Californian, or Chico Ale,

A very "clean" tasting yeast, less esters than other types of ale yeast. Good for just about any type of ale. This strain usually derives from that used for Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Medium attenuation, medium flocculation. Suggested fermentation temperature is 68°F.”

So is there a benefit to one over the other? Well it depends who you ask. If you ask a home brewer that has been brewing for 20+ years, they will probably tell you to stay away from dry yeast at all costs. If you ask a home brewer that has been brewing for 10+ years they will tell you that White Labs or Wyeast is the only way to go, depending on what they started out on, but if you talk to a new brewer, they will tell you that you should use whatever you would like. But who is right? Well, in my experience, nobody is really wrong.

The truth is if you home brewed 20 years ago, you probably struggled to get a good yeast, and or cultivated it yourself for something that was high quality and had predictable results. Dry yeast didn't have the quality or diversity that it has today.

According to their websites Wyeast started selling yeast almost 10 years before White Labs, but it is my impression, that for whatever reason many home brew supply stores carried White Labs almost exclusively during the late 90s, and I think this led to some brand loyalty from the home brewing community that finally had both a good supply and good variety of quality yeast.

These days most home brew supply stores carry both brands of liquid yeast, plus dry yeast strains, which have come a long way since the early 80s, both in quality and in variety, so how do you know what to pick.

Well, if the same strain is available in all three, let me give you the benefits of all the brands, so you can choose for yourself.

#1. Pitch Rate (how many yeast cells are available in a pack)

- Wyeast 100 billion (at time of packaging)
- White Labs 100 billion (at time of packaging)
- Safale US-05 200 billion (does not degrade over time)

Why you should care. Pitching the correct amount of yeast cells into your beer will help you with a few things. It will give you a good quick and healthy start to your fermentation which helps protect it from infection, helps to provide a thorough fermentation, and limits the amount of fruity esters created in your beer. The recommended pitch rate for a 1.048 starting gravity is 180 billion cells. So, since the cell count of liquid diminishes over time, by the time you get a packet or vial, you are probably around 80-90% of the viability, meaning it is a really good idea to buy two packs, or do a yeast starter. The cell count of dry yeast does not diminish noticeably over time, so you are good to go with one pack.

#2. Price (The amount of money you spend on the same strain of yeast)

- Wyeast $6-8
- White Labs $6-8
- Safale $3-5

Why you should care. Well, money doesn't grow on trees, and dry yeast is roughly half the price for twice the product.

#3. Viability (Is there live and active yeast available to start fermenting beer?)

- Wyeast smack pack (Yeast nutrient in inflatable pack will start live yeast producing CO2, which lets you know there is still viable yeast for pitching, or making a starter)
- White Labs vial (Clear vial lets you see yeast, but exposes yeast to light also. No way to tell if what you see is viable)
- Safale US-05 vacuum sealed package (Light and oxygen barrier pack keeps freeze dried yeast stable and doesn't need to be refrigerated, and will last a long time) 

Why you should care. While there are dates printed on each brand, you don't know exactly what kind of conditions the yeast has been exposed to before you got it. Knowing that you have viable yeast can save you a lot of time and heart ache. There are few things worse than pitching your yeast, even in a starter, and having nothing happen.

 

#4. Flavor (This is, after all, why we brew beer in the first place)

I have personally tasted two identical beers brewed at the same time with the same kind of equipment with a similar pitch rate, fermented at the same temperature for the same amount of time, and I have tasted no difference between US-05 and 1056. I have also read countless threads of doubting brewers experiencing the same thing between all three brands. However, don't take my word for it, do a small batch of light beer yourself and see if you can notice a difference. Remember to do a blind taste test, if you are currently prejudice against other brands of yeast. 

Why you should care. Because you want to have predictable and consistent results, so you can make your favorite beer again and again.

 

 

So, for my time and money, paying $7 or so for two packs of US-05 for an Imperial IPA vs, doing a two step starter, or paying roughly $35 for 5 packs of liquid, just can't be beat.

Want to save even more money and have the correct pitch rate? Just start saving some of your yeast from the trub of your last batch of beer. Use it over and over again... more on that to come.

Wine Stabilizing

Why and what is Stabilizing?
Different yeast strains have different alcohol tolerances, meaning that at some point there is too much alcohol in their environment that the cells start to die due to alcohol toxicity. Once this point is reached it is unlikely that fermentation will start up again (unless a more alcohol tolerant yeast or bacteria is introduced) however, it is possible for some fermentation to continue unless you stabilize your wine. If you want to assure that no corks start popping out of bottles down the road, or you would like to “back sweeten” your wine, stabilizing is an important step to finishing your wine.



What is happening?
Stabilizing consists of two steps; stopping the current fermentation, then preventing further fermentation. This is done with wine additives, starting with a sulfite, usually either sodium or potassium metabisulfite (Campden). This produces sulfur dioxide gas that will kill yeast and bacteria (although a small amount of yeast will go dormant to survive the hostile environment). Use Potassium Sorbate in conjunction with Campden. Sorbate will work better with sulfites present, and the combination works better than sulfites alone. Sorbate will stop the reproductive cycle of yeast, so any cells that may have survived both the alcohol and the sulfur dioxide have no real chance of fermenting anything.


How to do it:
Crush 1 Campden tablet along with ½ teaspoon of Sorbate, per gallon of wine, and stir up into roughly a cup of warm water or your wine. Make sure any clumps are dissolved and then add cup to your batch of wine. Stir in well. You can now sweeten to taste and bottle, or wait a week or two to allow any of the dead and dying yeast to fall out of suspension. This will make for a clearer wine in your bottle.


Back Sweetening:
Sweetening your wine to taste, or “back sweetening / back blending” is the process of adding juice or sugar back into your wine to give it more pronounced flavor, body, sweetness, or all three. Since many wine yeasts will eat enough sugar to “dry” out your beverage, you may want to add back to it. You can only do this if you stabilize first. Table sugar is common, but it is recommended to use whatever you fermented (strawberry juice for strawberry wine, grape juice for grape wine, apple juice for apple wine or cider, honey for mead, etc.) This will be to taste, so it is hard to give an amount. It is whatever YOU think tastes good. Just add a little bit to your stabilized batch of wine, taste, and repeat till you get it right. White grape juice or apple juice can be used as an all purpose sweetener and is recommended in most cases over table sugar.


Carbonating stabilized wine:
Because active, live yeast is necessary to bottle condition (carbonate naturally), once you have stabilized your wine, cider, or mead you can no longer carbonate unless you keg and force carbonate with CO2.


Next, how dry/sweet do you want it? 
The commonly accepted final gravities for each level of dry/sweetness are:
Dry:   0.990 – 1.006
Medium: 1.006 – 1.015



Sweet:  1.012 – 1.020

Homebrew Jargon

Just as there is with any hobby, there are a lot of words and terms that are thrown around in the homebrewing world that cause some confusion to people just starting out or are looking to progress in the hobby. Some of these are old words intended specifically for brewing, but I'm fairly certain some are just used so people in the know can feel smarter than the people just starting out. Well, here is a list of words and phrases that will familiarize you with the hobby so you can go into a conversation with a seasoned home brewing veteran and hold your own. Because of the length, I will be splitting this into two posts. Here is part 1:

Crush/Mill - to get at the sugary goodness inside the barley kernel it is necessary to crush it first using a mill to crack open the barley making sure not to crush it into fine powder.

Malt - the sugary goodness inside the grain is only starch when it is harvested, so the grain must be malted by soaking in warm water and tricked into sprouting. This process starts the natural enzymes in the grain to start converting starches to sugars. By drying them quickly the enzymes are halted and you get malted grain, also just called malt.

Steep - just like tea, in order to get the flavor and color from your grain in an extract/grain batch of beer, soaking the grain in warm water will get you much of the character of your beer.

Mash - when you ad your hot water to your grain it is called your mash. If you have ever made Oat Meal, Grits, or Cream of Wheat, you have made a mash before, you probably just never used too much water and collected it to drink later.

Single Infusion Mash - the strike water is added at the beginning of the mash time and the temperature is held during the entire mashing process.

Step Mash - a more complex mashing program where the strike temperature is low and gradually increases over time during the mashing process. For instance you may start at 113°F for the first 15 min, then increase the mash temp to 150°F for the next 50 min and finish the last 10 minutes at 168°F. When viewed on a temp over time chart this looks like steps.

Protein Rest - part of a step mash program. There are different proteins in your beer that will breakdown at certain temperatures during the mash and reduce haziness. Although most brewing grain these days are modified well enough (meaning the starches have already been turned to sugar and proteins have already been broken down), there are circumstances where a protein rest may still be needed.

Sparge - this is just a fancy word to describe the process of rinsing you grain in order to pull out more sugar, color and flavor. If you pour warm water over your bag of grain in a partial mash or grain/extract recipe it called sparging. Draining (Lautering) your mash while you add water at the same rate you are draining is called fly sparging. Draining your mash, then adding a bunch more water, then draining again is called batch sparging.

Strike water - this is the preheated water you add to your grain in the mash.

Hot liquor tank (HLT) - this is a bit misleading since there is no alcohol involved. It really should be called a hot water tank. It is any vessel that holds your preheated water to be used for you mash or your sparge.

Boil Kettle - a big stock pot for boiling your wort and adding hops and other adjuncts such as coriander, orange peel, pumpkin, etc.

Lautering - draining the liquid from your mash.

Mash/Lauter tun - a mash tun is any vessel (commonly a kettle or a cooler) that holds your mash. A lauter tun is any vessel used to drain the liquid from your mash, which in homebrewing is the same vessel as the mash tun. These names can be used interchangeably or combined. It is often referred to as an MLT. Most MLTs use either a false bottom (shown below) or manifold to separate the wort from the grain.

Wort - often pronounced wert, it is the sugary liquid that will eventually turn to beer after yeast is added and it is fermented.

Racking - transferring your beverage by siphoning.

Pitching - referring to yeast it just means adding.

Pitch Rate - the ratio between the amount of yeast you are adding to the density and volume of your wort.

Flocculation - how much yeast will stay in suspension.

Attenuation - how much sugar the yeast will eat before falling out of suspension.

Specific Gravity - a measurement of density of liquid. Hydrometers are an inexpensive and reliable way to read your Gravity.

Original gravity - the density of liquid before fermentation. Abbreviated O.G.

Final gravity - the density of liquid after fermentation. Abbreviated F.G. This number will be lower than the O.G. since alcohol is less dense than water.

Plato - another measurement of density similar to Specific Gravity. Often used to yeast pitch rate calculations.

Wine Additives

In many ways wine is easier to make than beer, but all of the additives can get confusing.  In a culture pushing towards preservative free foods and beverages, it is easy to be turned off by the word additives, but almost all of these items, with the exception of many of the clarifying agents, are naturally produced in wine to some degree. The home winemaker just needs to use them in a way to help them control the outcome of their wine and to keep it fresh and palatable over a long period of time... something that humans have been doing since ancient Greece. Here is a list of items to help you make your next batch of wine.

Preservatives

Kills unwanted bacteria and helps to protect your wine from oxidation. Used by the home wine maker to inhibit bacterial growth, stop fermentation at a desired point and even for sanitation, these are important chemicals, and while sulfides are also naturally occurring in wine, some people do have sulfite allergies.

Campden (potassium metabisulfite): Forms sulfur dioxide gas prevents microorganism growth and acts as an antioxidant.

Sodium Metabisulfite: Acts in the same way as Potassium metabisulfite, but adds sodium, which some people try to avoid in their diet. Tannin: This naturally occurring preservative is found in many plant materials including parts of the grape itself. Tannins lend a sharp bitterness that helps balance the sweetness from the grape juice and enriches the body.

Stabilizers

Sorbate: Although not a sulfite, it goes hand in hand. Sorbate is used to inhibit future cell growth and multiplication, but when Sorbate is used a sulfite needs to be added also, not only to kill current yeast/bacteria cells, but to prevent a compound called geraniol from forming which can give you off flavors and aromas.

Dimethyl Dicarbonate: The application of DMDC is particularly useful when wine needs to be sterilized but cannot be sterile filtered, pasteurized, or sulfured

Yeast Nutrient and Energizer

Diammonium Phosphate: A major element in most yeast nutrient mixtures:

Energizer: Vitamin mixture, almost pure vitamin B, Which is also found in yeast nutrients.

Enzymes

Used to break down fruit cell walls to increase juice production and clarify.

Pectic Enzymes: Used mainly in home wine making to clarify by removing pectin haze.

lysozyme: Slight flavor modification by changing malic acid into lactic acid

Oak

This is an additive in the sense that flavors can be leached out of oak barrels or cubes to add a level of complexity to the wine that it might not have otherwise. Oak Tannins are similar to grape tannin, but can react with people differently.

Oak Essence: To impart oakiness at any stage of production

Fining and Clarifying

These are additives, but they are “added” in an effort to attract unwanted particles from your wine and eventually fall out of suspension, leaving virtually all of the additive behind and out of the bottle. You could call the take-outatives. + indicates positively charged (attracts negative particles). - indicates negatively charged (attracts positive particles)

+ Albumin:  This is one of the proteins found in egg whites, and yes many wineries in Europe still use egg whites to fine wine today, although it is required that the bottle is labeled as such.

+ Casein (potassium caseinate):  Milk byproduct usually used as a substitute for gelatin it can reduce tannins from reds and brown color from whites.

+ Isinglass: - Made from the swim bladders of fish this fining agent is not very aggressive and best used as a final touch to wine that is already fairly clear.

+ Gelatine:  Like Bentonite this animal protein can be used before and after fermentation, This fining agent is popular in clearing out unwanted tannin (negatively charged) from red wines. Gelatine has the potential to create haze in relatively tannin free white wine.

- Bentonite:  Popular in North America this volcanic clay is super absorbent and fall out of suspention well. It can also be used before or after fermentation.

+ Sparkolloid:  Fossilized remains of algae this is a brand of clarifying agent that is a mix of polysaccharides and diatomaceous earth.

- Kieselsol:  Silicon Dioxide works well with positively charged agents and has the benefit of removing bitterness from white wines.

+ Chitosan:  This fining agent is gentle on the character of your wine, but should be used in addition to a negatively charged agent. Chitosan is the structural element of the exoskeleton of crustaceans.

+/- Super Kleer:  Promotes flocculation of suspended proteins & other matter, producing a clearer wine. Kiesosol & Chitosan formulation

Bocksin: Fixes Hydrogen Sulfide problems (rotten egg smell)

Acid Control

Acid helps determines the very nature of the wine itself. Color, flavor, intensity, aroma, and brightness, so controlling acid is critical in wine making, or at least wine recreation. An acid test kit may be used to determine the acidity and usage

+ Increases Acidity (lowers pH)

Tartaric Acid: Sour/Bitter flavor found in many plants, particularly grapes and bananas. High in antioxidants

Malic Acid: Contributes to the sourness of green apples and grapes. Part of an acid blend.

Citric Acid: A natural preservative used to add an acidic taste to foods and soft drinks.

Acid Blend: Combination of citric, malic and tartaric acids used to increase acidity of wine.

Ascorbic (Acid Vitamin C): Has anti-oxidant properties, acting as preservative and helps preserve color in white wines.

Lactic Acid (bacteria): Responsible for the sour flavor of sour milk products and sourdough breads.

-Decreases Acidity (raises pH)

Calcium Carbonate (chalk): Used for acid reduction in wine (raise pH). First reduces tartaric acid, so care in dosage should be taken to prevent complete deduction of tartaric acid. 1/2 ounce in gallon reduces acid by .1 pH unit.

Potassium Bicarbonate: Used for acid reduction in wine. Use at a rate of 2gm/liter for acid reduction. Dissolve in small quantity of wine then add to batch ¾gm/gallon reduces acid by .1pH unit.

Now that it is warming up, it is a good time for homebrewers to try their hand at an old Belgian style beer that gets “better with a little extra heat. Saisons can be a light bodied flavorful ale that is perfect for summertime, but in direct contrast to lagering a beer to smooth it out, Saisons embrace a warm fermentation.

Some History:
Saison is an old world style of beer that has recently received a revival amongst craft brewers and home brewers throughout the world.  A group of beers more than a exact style, Saisons originated in Wallonia, the southern and predominantly French speaking region of Belgium, as a refreshing and nourishing drink for farmhands and seasonal harvest workers (les saisonneirs). Much like an unwanted house guest, farm workers would consume upwards of five liters of this beer per day since the other available water sources were of questionable quality.  Given the volume of consumption, alcohol was only 2-2.5% or less making the beer refreshing which prevented the hired help from getting plastered.  The mechanical revolution took all of the farm jobs and put them into factories, and as a result most all of the rustic farmhouse breweries disappeared, taking with them hundreds of years of brewing tradition. 

What most Saisons have in common is a light golden/orange color, very dry finish, and either a crisp sourness or bitterness (or sometimes both).  The farmhouse breweries would use their own grains, and due to the higher tax rates on malted barley versus other grains, would have certainly used a mixture of barley, oats, rye, wheat, and spelt.  Each brewery had their own unique strain of yeast that was a blend of common brewing yeasts, wild yeast, and other bacteria.  These wild yeasts and bacteria, combined with limited knowledge of sanitation, gave the Saison a distinct dryness and sour flavor reminiscent of other farmhouse style such as Bier de Garde and Gueze. The Saison was fairly generously hopped with local noble hop varieties, which helped preserve the beer during aging. Typically, only generous bittering and aroma additions were made, and it wasn't uncommon to dry hop the finished product. Other spices such as ginger, coriander, peppercorns, and orange peel were commonly used as well. The beer was then aged in oak barrels for four months or as long as several years to give the sourness from the yeast time to blend and balance with the bitterness from the hops. While the versions given to the farmhands were lower in alcohol, export and specialty versions could have alcohol levels from 4-9%

If you want to step out of your comfort zone a bit from the classic ales or lagers you have been brewing at home, give this recipe a try:

Caramunich III 8 oz
Acid Malt          4 oz
Wheat DME     1 lb
Pilsen Light LME 4 lbs
Corn Sugar      1 lb
Kent Golding    1.5 oz (60 min)
Strisslespalt     .5 oz  (20 min)
Strisslespalt     1 oz  (0 min)

Yeast:
Wyeast 3711 French Saison
(Ferment 70-80°F)
Get even hotter:
Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison
(Ferment 75-95°F)

5 Tricks For Your Next Extract Batch

Just a few things to help out hopefully.

Boil some water while you are steeping:

With stovetop home brewing, much of your time is spent heating up water. A simple trick to cut down some of this time is to use two kettles at the same time. Try doing your 30 minute steep in a smaller pot, since you only need a gallon or so (enough to cover your grain). During the steep (or maybe even before) start bringing your big kettle of water to a boil, making sure to leave some room for the water from your steep. Now you will have water near a boil the instant you are done with your steep saving you some time.

Use one muslin sock for your hops

Many times people will almost instinctually assume that all of their different hop additions will need to be separated in the boil, leaving them to buy a separate small straining (muslin) bag for each hop addition. Muslin bags are pretty inexpensive, but if you are doing a big IPA the cost can start to add up, not to mention the hassle of tying up a bunch of hops in a bunch of different little bags. Next time try just one large muslin bag, and keep the open end out of the pot (wrapped around the handle so it doesn’t slip into the pot). Each time you have to add some hops to the boil, just Keep adding them into the same sock.

Wort Cool Down:

Cooling down your hot wort can take some time and while putting it in an icebath in your sink is a great way to cool it down quickly there is another technique for a quick cool down in the event you are out of ice. If you have ever just put your pot in some cold water in your sink you have undoubtedly found out that all you get is a sink full of hot water in a matter of minutes. Ice helps this, but you can also put a rag or paper towel at the bottom of your sink rather than stopping up the drain completely. A partially stopped up drain  will allow the water to slowly drain, and lets you to simultaneously run cold water from your tap into the sink. Now you have a cold water bath that will continue to transfer heat away from the pot and down the drain.  

Chill Your Top-Off Water:

If you find yourself needing to top off with some water in your fermenter to get to the five gallon mark there are actually some benefits to doing so. In a five gallon pot (20 qt) you usually start your boil at about four gallons and boil down to 3-3.5 gallons leaving you with about two gallons needed to add to your fermenter. Put this water in the fridge (or even the freezer) to get nice and cold. Now you don’t have to wait so long cooling your wort in an ice bath. If you can get two gallons of really cold water into your fermenter it is likely you only need to get your wort down to about 100 degrees. The top off water will bring it down the rest of the way to room temp and you can pitch your yeast. There is an added benefit to this. Pouring in the cold water aggressively will churn up your wort and plenty of oxygen which is essential to a healthy start to fermentation.

Use the sani rinse on your dishwasher:

Lot’s of people complain about the bottling process because you must clean and sanitize dozens of bottles. Washing, rinsing, sanitizing can be a pain, but if you treat them like any other dish you would use at dinner time, you can take out a bunch of the hassle. First, treat them like a dish; when you are done with a beer, rinse out the bottle and make sure you get all the yeast sediment at the bottom, then put it in the dishwasher with the rest of you dishes. Then just put your clean bottle away in your bottle box to use again some day. When bottling day arrives, put all your cleaned bottles in your dishwasher and set it to sanitize (most newer washers have this setting). Use a little bit of Oxy based cleanser, like PBW or OneStep and you will have a couple of racks full of sanitized bottles ready to use for bottling.

Top 12 Mistakes New Home Brewers Make

Here are a dozen things that can help the new home brewer when starting out. These are common issues that can easily be avoided and help make a better beer.

12. Using 5 ounces priming sugar

Your Local Home Brew Store (LHBS) will often sell pre packaged priming sugar for bottling, which is just what you want for a five gallon batch for most beers (1oz/gallon). However, many batches of beer may start as five gallons, but after transferring the beer off the yeast cake, evaporation, samples you take, and any spills that may happen, the final bottling volume of beer may be considerably less than this. If the full 5oz of priming sugar is used, this can create an overly carbonated bottle of beer that could potentially just spew out foam when opened or poured.

11. Relying on Airlock / Not waiting long enough Getting excited about your first few batches of beer is common, but moving them along too quickly in the process can be a mistake. Getting anxious to bottle your beer before it has fully fermented can result in blown bottles down the road. Relying on just the airlock as an indicator that your beer is done and ready to be bottled is a common mistake. Even after your airlock has stopped is it a good idea to let you beer age for a while. The extra time won’t hurt it. The only way to truly tell that your beer has stopped fermenting is by taking a hydrometer reading a couple days apart to make sure the specific gravity is not changing.

10. Squeezing the bag after steeping Steeping grain is something you can do to greatly improve an extract only beer. Most ingredient kits are built with a healthy amount of steeping grain and a muslin bag (sock) to hold it all (1-3 pounds). After steeping the bag of grain in some warm water you should pull it out and discard it. However, it is a natural tendency to want to squeeze this bag of grainy goodness to get all the sweet liquid from it, but this is not a good idea. There is a bitterness (and not the good kind you get from hops) that reside in the barley husk, that can be very noticeable in your final beer.

9.Starting with a complicated beer

It is true, that for many beers the brewing process is very similar, but as a beginner it is easy to get excited and want to go for a complex and high alcohol beer such as an Imperial Stout, Belgian Tripel or Double IPA. These beers can have extra steps or ingredients, or just a bunch of hop additions to keep track of, but the biggest reason not to start with one is time. Big beers need time to age properly and you don’t want to wait 3-6 months to find out you did something wrong. Worse, if you only have one equipment kit, you will be taking up space in your secondary fermenter for three months and not brewing more beer. Start with some beers that will be done in a month or so, if for no other reason than to fill the fridge before you start aging your 10% monster brew.

8. Not following the recipe/Just following the recipe/worrying too much

Some people get stuck doing exactly what the instructions say which leads to some anxiety when the inevitable problem/situation happens that forces them off that course. Others throw caution to the wind and start adding a bunch of extras like 50% more extract or hops than the recipe calls for. Both of these extremes will produce beer, but brewing should both be fun and produce good beer. Getting too worked up about getting everything just right can reduce the amount of fun you have while you are getting into a new hobby, and throwing your beer out of any recognizable style can possibly make the beer something you don’t want to drink. So don’t worry while you are brewing your first beer, just have fun while trying to brew a recipe that is tried and true so you can enjoy the fruits of your labor.

7. Not removing brew pot from heat

You will probably have a boil-over eventually, but there is a really easy way to help keep this from happening. If you remove your kettle from the heat source before you add your extract the slower thermal change will help keep this from happening (at least less violently). There is also the added benefit of not scorching your Liquid Extact as you add it, since there won’t be a direct heat source on it as sits on the bottom of the pot before you get it stirred up and in solution.

6. Not aerating the wort adequately

To make it simple, your yeast needs only a couple of things to sustain a healthy start to fermentation; sugar and oxygen. The only time you should intentionally add Oxygen to your beer is when you are adding (pitching) your yeast. Feel free to shake, aggressively pour, or slosh your wort (unfermented beer) at this point in time, as this will introduce the Oxygen that your yeast needs to reproduce at a healthy rate.

5. Wrong temps

Temperature control is what making beer is all about. It is a little less critical in an extract/grain kit, but controlling the temperature at every stage of brewing is what leads to consistent results and minimal off flavors. Just as a rule of thumb for ales; 155°F (Steeping), Aggressive boil, 70°F (pitching yeast), then 60-70°F (fermentation).

4. Not keeping records

This might not seem as important as some of the other things, but if you don’t keep notes of - what you used in your recipe, how much yeast you added, and what temperature you fermented at and for how long, you could find yourself wishing that you had down the road. These are just some of the notes you need to record per batch so you can dial in your recipe for the best beer the world has ever seen, make the same beer over again... or heaven forbid, help you sort out what went wrong.

3. Chlorine

Many municipal water supplies have a good water profile for making beer. Hard water can be good for some beers, soft can be good for others, but chlorine (or the more stubborn form, chloramine) is not good for any beer. Depending on the amount you get in your finished beer it can lead to a plastic or even band-aid taste, which can be very unpleasant. Using fresh spring water is ideal, but you can also treat your water with campden (metabisulfite) to help the chlorine “gas-out”. Just one campden tablet can treat up to 20 gallons of water.

2. Incorrect pitch rate

Adding yeast to your cooled down wort (pitching) is pretty straightforward, but adding the correct amount is a really easy way to reduce “off flavors”, and unfortunately this is commonly overlooked by the home brewer. There are benefits to having a quick start to your fermentation, and adding correct amount of yeast cells to your batch can make that happen. Your LHBS can give you the long explanation on how to calculate the correct pitch rate, but for a 5 gallon batch of beer over 5% alcohol, you will benefit from either one packet of dry yeast, or two packs (or vials) of liquid yeast. You will need even more than this for even higher alcohol beers, or any lagers.

1. Cleanser vs Sanitizer

Back in the old days of the 1990s and earlier, home brewers would use soap to clean and either iodine or bleach to sanitize, but this combination was hard to deal with and replaced worrying about bacteria to worrying about off flavors from soaps and chemicals. These days home brewers have access to products made specifically for their hobby, but starting out you may get these items confused.  First use a cleanser to clean any organic matter from your equipment such as One Step, or PBW (both brands are cleansers designed for brewing). These products contain what is essentially dry hydrogen peroxide and while some people even use them as sanitizers, they tend to leave a film so rinsing is recommended, and once you rinse something, you are assuming the water you used for rinsing is free of microorganisms. This is where sanitizer comes in. Products like StarSan and iodophor are no rinse sanitizers that will not harm your beer. However, you can’t sanitize something if it isn’t first cleaned, so clean  with a cleanser then sanitize with a sanitizer, and you will greatly minimize the potential for a ruined beer. Some may call this over kill, but it is a small price to pay to avoid dumping 5 gallons of precious beer down the drain.