Saison-a-thon This Summer!

Thanks a bunch to Al Buck from the Burgundian Babble Belt website for, once again, coming through with a sweet blend of yeast that he put together for us homebrewers to play with. This one that he sent me is a blend of five different Saison strains. Showed up just in time for my Saison-a-thon of a summer. Due to my ambient temp in my house being just above where I like it to be to brew a lot of the beer styles that I like I am going to take advantage of the heat and brew Saisons all summer since they tend to thrive in warmer temps during fermentation. The Saison I did about a month ago was fermented at 80F+ and it turned out great. I plan on playing around with the style being that it is very versatile and hopefully I get a few recipes dialed in over this summer so i have one that i can do every year for the warmer seasons.

Saison & Archaic Beer

Wow, I forgot what it's like to brew a beer and actually be able to bottle it within a few weeks. I've been doing so many beers with bugs that I haven't bottled or kegged anything in forever it seems. My Belgian Dark Stong Ale is all bottled up and the Saison and Archaic beer are tasting like they are going in the right direction. Both of them should be down to final gravity within a day or two here. I am going to let the Archaic beer sit on the yeast for a few days after it is fully attenuated to let that yeast absorb some of the off flavors that are created during the fermentation process. I'm not sure if I will do that with the Saison because that yeast is probably going to break down (Autolysis) because I have been fermenting it at 85F for the last week or so. Yeah that's right, I said 85F. On purpose none the less. I thought at those temps that the yeast would eat through this beer in a few days but it is still going at about 10 bubbles per minute over a week later. I should coin Bubbles per minute "BPM". I'm claiming that. I am getting ready to bottle a Berliner Weiss and an All Brett Beer within the next two weeks or so too so I will most definately be buying returnables from my local beer store.

Bottled 5/Brewed 10

I Finally got to brewing the recipe that I posted about last week. I got up at 5:30 AM Sunday morning and bottled a Belgian Dark Strong Ale (I had to because I ran out of carboys, it was ready anyway). Then I brewed the DeStruise/Paxton Archaic Collaboration Ale. I also doughed in with a Saison at the same time. I staggered my Mashes just a little bit so I could deal with one at a time. It all went pretty smooth for pulling double duty. I've down plenty of 10 gallon days in the past, just not seperate mashes and at the same time. I might do that more often actually. If running partigyles off of those you could end up with 20 gallons of beer in about 7-9 hours of work...not bad. The krausen on the DeStruise/Paxton beer looks amazing. There was a deep brown layer on top and it is now giving way to this white creamy marshmallow like krausen that is working it's way through from underneath. It looks like a huge Mt. Kilimanjaro Chocolate Fudge cookie from Sweet Basil in Marquette, MI. Stop in and get one if you are ever in town.