I’m hoping with this recipe to develop a simple beer to conduct experiments on, using different hops, yeasts base malts. I ended up settling on something somewhere between a Saison and a Pilsner. This way, I can brew up a double batch, and split it out to get two completely different beers.

The first will be to test out some hop flowers given to me by RBT’s Simon, that were in turn given to him by ex-RBT’s Will. I’m yet to use hop flowers, so this will be a bit of a learning curve. Just to make things a little bit harder, I will be devising myself a hopback, and recirculate the wort through some of the flowers while I chill.

The recipe

Brewer’s Friend Link

Water profile to match a “Light and Hoppy” profile in Brewer’s Friend: 50-ish ppm Cl, 150-ish ppm SO4.

Mash:

• Gladfield Pisner base (good quality simple malt)
• about 5% malted wheat (I love wheat)
• 3.5% Aurora (melanodin) (in hopes to simulate a decoction mash)
• 3.5% Sour Grapes (for mash pH)

Mash profile adapted from Continental Pilsener of the Classic Beer Style Series by David Miller. Because of the wheat inclusion, I’ve dropped the mash-in from 55 to 50 C to allow a little more protein processing.

• 15 mins @ 50 C (Peptidase/Proteinase and a little Phytase/Beta-Glucanase)
• 45 mins (or until conversion) @ 65 C (Beta-amylase Saccharification)
• 5 mins @ 75 C (Mash out)
• Fly sparge @ 76 C

Boil:

• 27 IBUs Ella First Wort (60 min boil) (dual purpose for bittering and flavour, I’m a bit worried about cohumulone though)
• ~1.5 g/L (65 g in 40L) Krakanup whirlpool
• 1 g/L (40 g in 40L) Krakanup hopback (I had 105 g, 40 g fit in the tube)
• I always add a tablet whirlfloc and a teaspoon yeast nutrient around 10-15 mins

Pitch:

• 1/2 (~20 L) with The Yeast Bay’s Saison Brettanomyces Blend AND some cultured up dregs from a Saison Dupont beer.
• 1/2 (~20 L) with Saflager - German Lager Yeast W-34/70 yeast cake I’d saved from a previous batch. It’s a few months old, but I’ve done a 2 L starter so hopefully they’re vital.

Saison portion fermented in a 20 C chamber.

Pils portion fermented using the Brulosophy quick lager method.

After two weeks, both were transferred to a keg, Pils portion at 4C, saison portion at room temp.

Brew Day

Thanks Will for the (free!) hops.

The hopback, I just used a water filter from Kegland. I’d have used one locally, but was worried about the type of plastic. I think this clear PET or HDPE plastic should be more heat tolerant.

Here you can see a bit more detail - I’ve just shoved a host down the hole at the top (it fit snugly), and attached a filter at the bottom. Then topped up with hops.

This was a mistake. I don’t have a filter at the bottom of the kettle. The hops mostly floated, and it didn’t cause too many issues until I had mostly drained the kettle. Getting the last few litres out was impossible, so I had a lot of kettle-to-fermenter loss (well about 2-3 L).

I also ended up with a lot of flowers in my plate chiller (I think because I was having some issues and bypassed the hopback at one point, so there was no filter between the kettle and plate chiller). What a nightmare to clean!

In all, it was a very educational brew day, but I’ll be glad to have a simpler one next fortnight!

Tasting

To be continued…

Although, 2 weeks in at kegging, I did sneak a taste of each. The pilsner is very pilsnery – a little surprising considering the Kracanup came accross as Cascade-like fresh, but now is very spicy. It’s also a big, bold showcase of the hops – reminiscent of (though nowhere near as good as) Garage Project’s Beer. The saison portion, however, is riddled with diacetyl and maybe acetaldehyde. Its still being kept warm, so hopefully it’ll clean itself.