A note from the brewmaster
A lot of words get thrown around in brewing, and “consistency” is one that comes up a lot. It’s the metric by which many people still manage to call Bud Lite a good beer (don’t count me amongst those people), and advancing homebrewers strive for that sacred repeatability of a good recipe. As we’ve begun filling our tanks with batch #2 of all of our beers, it’s something that’s been on my mind.
I’ve decided against consistency this time. Not that the beers will be strikingly different, but I’m much more interested in getting them to be the beer I envisioned, than in exactly repeating the way they came out the first time. I’m going to share maybe a few more details than I should, and let you know my thoughts on batch 1, plus what we’re trying to do differently for batch 2.
Transmigration of Souls:
Batch 1: Though it was the last of round 1 ready to package, it was the first beer we brewed. A problem with the mash thermometer meant that we mashed the first 20 BBL hotter than I wanted (we have a 20 BBL system, but did a double batch for closer to 40 BBL). That means a less fermentable, bigger bodied beer. We mashed the 2nd 20 BBL quite low to try and make up for it, and spent the fermentation doing a variety of things to keep the yeast active and dry out the beer. It worked to a large extent, but never got quite as dry as I wanted.
This beer was also quite stunning before dry hopping, from the initial low temperature fermentation that gave a very nice peach flavor, and the exorbitant amount of whirlpool and hopback hops. I wasn’t initially planning on dry hopping with Apollo, but liked its character in the whirlpool and hopback so much that I added it to the dry hop mix (along with Azacca, Lemon Drop, and Wakatu). I wish I hadn’t; it’s wild, dank character was subdued under the hotter conditions of the whirlpool and hopback, but came to the front in dry hopping and covered up some of the other flavors I wanted to come out. It’s a hop profile I still really enjoy, but not the precise flavor I wanted.
Batch 2: Look for a drier beer, with a hop aroma more focused on the fruit.
Saison Calliope:
Batch 1: We had an equipment problem when trying to make Serpent Bite that led to dumping the first 20 BBL before it got to the fermenter, which meant we had twice as much yeast as we needed. I wasn’t going to waste that extra yeast, so decided to brew a 4th beer with it, anticipating that we would release it a couple weeks after the launch. A funny thing happened, and as it got to be time to keg, we thought this beer was delicious, but Transmigration of Souls wasn’t quite ready (it takes a little while for 152# of dry hops to settle to the bottom of a fermenter). Calliope used a new hop that I had never used or even sampled before, Huell Melon. Though we decided to call it a saison, initially I thought of it as a hop experiment. I thought that the musky melon character played very well with the saison yeast, but wish it had just a little more presence. I made this the maltiest of the 3 saisons with some honey malt for a little change of pace, and wish that was dialed back just a little.
Batch 2: I still want a rounded, drinkable beer, but this one will be a little less malty and have a touch of Huell Melon dry hops to brighten it up a bit.
Serpent Bite:
Batch 1: Mainly, this beer is cursed. Besides that, it’s probably my favorite of the 4 right now. It had a long lauter though, and a lot of it was hot in the kettle for a long time, which even if you can’t taste it, you can see a little.
Batch 2: This beer is still cursed, but looks cleaner.
Atalanta:
Batch 1: Have you ever tried to get 100 gallons of fresh plum juice into a dry hopping port 14’ off the ground? You don’t want to. Fortunately that didn’t affect the flavor at all. I like to ferment saisons hot. I let this one get to 88 degrees and it tasted awesome. I let it stay hot, hoping to let it just cool down on its own schedule. It tastes to me like it stayed warm for too long.
Batch 2: This yeast really likes that heat, but beer doesn’t, so this time we’ll only keep it hot long enough for the yeast to do its job, then immediately cool it. The change will be pretty subtle, but will make for a cleaner profile.
I’m thrilled so far with the response to batch 1 of the beers, but look forward to continually making beers that come closer and closer to the beers I’ve been envisioning for years. It’s a journey.
-Jason Pellett