Skip to main content

In the Fermentor: Little Farmhouse on the Plains

A good friend and fellow blogger asked for a Dark Saison to drink while gardening. Little Farmhouse on the Plains is what I came up with. It's loosely patterned after Widmer's Dark Saison (which my friend loves), but with my own twist. The wheat will give the beer a little crispness. The specialty grains should impart a nice toasted sweetbread flavor, plus a hint of coffee. At 36 IBUs, the hopping is fairly modest, but the beer's bitterness will be more prevalent than what's in Widmer's brew. If you read my Surly Cynic blog, you'll notice that this is the second go-around for Wyeast's French Saison. I liked what it did for that beer, so I'm hopeful I'll like it here too. Plus, repitching yeast from previous beers is a huge money saver over time. The recipe below is for a 5 gallon batch:

Grains:
8 lbs Belgian Pilsner
1 lb Vienna
1 lb Torrified Wheat
8 oz Special B
8 oz Pale Chocolate

Hops:
1 oz Northern Brewer: 60 min
0.5 oz Saaz: 7 min

Yeast:
Wyeast 3711 - French Saison

Mash Schedule:
Saccharification Rest: 150F for 60min
Mashout: 168F for 10 minutes

Original Gravity:
1.049
Estimated Final Gravity:
1.010

IBU: 36
SRM Color: 16

Fermentation Schedule:
3 Weeks Primary
2 Weeks Bottle Conditioning

Cost: $14 per case
Commercial Equivalent: Widmer W' 12 Dark Saison: $29
Savings: $15

Right now, Little Farmhouse is bubbling away in the fermentor. It's been a warm few days, so the beer has been fermenting at around 75 degrees. I'll report back in five weeks with the outcome.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Out of the Bottle: Insert clever use of the word Wit here

My latest Wit was a hit at my friend's birthday party. He especially liked the beer's citrus components. Others found it to be light and refreshing. I heard no Blue Moon comparisons, which actually made me quite happy. Compared to My Wit's End , this beer is much closer to style. Unmalted Wheat is part of the reason, as there's much less grainy sweetness at work. Instead, the beer is crisp and dry. The bitter orange peel really does its thing. The peel's sharp flavor melds nicely with the sweet orange peel I also used. Coriander pushes the beer's spicy character along. If I were to change anything, it would be to dial it back a notch or two. Some light sourdough aromas round out the flavor and aroma. Despite the relatively low ABV of right around 5.0%, the beer sports a fairly hefty body. Overall, I'm quite happy with this Wit. Next time, I'll hold back on the coriander. Maybe I will even take a shot at a Turbid Mash, which sounds like a great sub...

In the Fermentor: Kitchen Sink Barleywine

The Leftovers It's time for a cleanup of leftover grains and partially used packets of hops from 2012. With the exception of the 2-Row base malt, everything in the recipe below has been sitting on the shelf, or in the fridge waiting to be used. I had several open hop packages, some leftover toasted malts and a half-full bottle of malt extract too. I also had yeast cultured from my White House Honey Porter . My decision was to use almost all of my leftovers and make a partial-mash Barleywine. The finished beer will be quite strong and quite bitter. A toasted malt backbone should nicely complement pine, spice and citrus hop flavors. Because of the beer's strength, it will not be ready for at least three months and should improve with age. The recipe has been scaled up to five gallons from the 2.5 gallons I actually brewed: Grains: 9 lbs Rahr 2-Row 8.5 oz Victory 7.5 oz Brown Hops: Bittering: 0.75 oz Chinook (11.1% a.a.): 60 min 0.5 oz Colum...

In the Fermentor: Flaming Pumpkin

I'll admit that I'm not a huge Pumpkin Beer fan. I didn't have one on my brewing calendar for this year and didn't have my sights set on one for next Fall either. Then my niece came along and threw down the gauntlet. She asked me to brew her a pumpkin beer and I accepted the challenge. I did a lot of reading to see how to best go about using pumpkin in beer. Some people mash it with the grains. Others add it to the brew kettle during the boil. Some add it to the primary or secondary fermentor. The consensus from professional brewers appears to be adding it to the mash, so I took the same approach. The pumpkin was cooked ahead of time by my girlfriend to soften it, convert some of the starch and help release some of its sugars. It then joined the grains in the mash. I really want the pumpkin pie effect here, so I've thrown in all of the requisite spices toward the end of the boil. I've also gone with just enough bitterness to balance the sweetness of the ...