...picking up the pieces of a broken lock.

The one to my front door!

Anyway, this is what I made on Friday, April 11th.

Saison II for '08

22# Great Western 2-row
l.5# Dextrose
1 oz Newport pellets 11.6% AA
2 oz US Saaz pellets 4.4% AA
1 oz German Spalt pellets 2.6% AA
1 oz Styrian Golding flowers 4.7% AA
Wyeast 3711 French Saison - pitch no. 2
Irish Moss & yeast nutrient

Infused @ 148.5 for over an hour. I was aiming for a 1.33 q/# ratio. Mashed out to 168F.

Hopping: 35 IBUs
.5 oz Saaz: First Wort
1 oz Newport: 90 min.
.5 oz Saaz: 90 min.
1 oz each Saaz, Spalt, Styrians: Knock Out

10 gallons of 1.063 OG.

It's been fermenting between 76-80F. And boy did it take off. That's what I like about the 2nd or 3rd pitch of a yeast. It takes off and there's no starter, just slurry.

I mashed in at 8:20 am on this beer. I usually can't do so until about 10 am. I thought I'd see how it was setting up the day before so I could get an earlier start. Well it would've been faster... but... I checked for conversion after 1 hour and it looked like it hadn't converted. And there also wasn't as much liquor in there as I wanted. So I put the two together and thought I needed more liquor to convert. I added about 3 gallons from the hot liquor tank and was able to remain the same mash temp. Well whether it was truly converted or not the first time, I let it go nearly another hour before I checked and it was (of course!) fully converted. Doh. So, if you're going to save yourself time, make sure you don't waste it.

This beer is the fourth I've made this year. And it's the second pitch of the 3711. I recovered the slurry on Thursday night from primary, for pitching on this beer friday afternoon. That's the goal with multiple pitchings this time. Keeping the time between recovery and repitch to a minimum. This time was ideal. Unfortunately there will be a week between this recovery and the next pitch on Big Brew. =(

I also wanted to point out that the first beer was 1.049 with no sugar. This beer was 1.063 with 9% sugar. And sensing a theme... I'd say the next one will be big grav with up to 20% sugar. I'm still futzing with the numbers on number 3.