Yard City Brewing

I bottled the 8% Saison on Tuesday, May 27th. Since it had been in secondary a good while I decided to help it along with some 1007 German Ale. It was very bright! The flavor was great and had plenty of grassy hop nose from both Saaz and Spalt. There was some late heat in the back of the throat, but the whole beer seemed fairly delicate and not one of substance. So, it's OG was 1.063 and the TG was 1.003. I know. It is hard to believe, but look at the record! Anyway, that's 95% apparent attenuation and a solid 8% abv. I noticed when I took the MarsBiere down to the lagering freezer yesterday, that the other half of the 8% had been down there since May 7th? It's already been 3+ weeks? I remember when I used to keep better records. Now I have to decide whether I should put a potentially lethal 8% Saison on draft? I dunno. I guess I'll think on it. Whaddaya think?

Biere de Mars (Biere de Yard? OG 1.056) terminaled at 1.006... with 5% crystal malt! and no sugar in the kettle! That's still 89% AA and 6.6% abv. Maybe this is the yeast for the 100% Crystal Malt beer we've talked about. CaraFoam anyone? =)

I drank some Belgian Pale today. We finished the keg with the 1214 strain. It was good. Estery and more earthy than the one we have now. Currently on draft is the Belgian Pale fermented with the 3944 Belgian Wit strain. It's very different. The emphasis seems to be more so on the malt and hops. At least in this case. I can get the Styrians in the aroma. It has phenols, but I think those have become more background to malt and hops. It's balanced, dryish, slightly malt emphisized. Biscuity from Castle Biscuit and grainy from the GW 2-row. The aftertaste is fully grainy 2-row. I thought that I liked the 1214 half more, but now I'm not sure. They were both good. I should have them next time side by side.

My next task is to buy a bag of Gambinus Pale malt and compare it with GW 2-row.

We created a biere yesterday. Bier #6 on the year. (Boo yah, in yer face, etc.) I'll be calling it a Biere de Mars even though it's just a Saison with more color and a bit more maltiness than most others I've made. Ingredients include:

19# Castle Pils (the last available from Olybrew at present time... economic downturn, etc.)
1# Wagner Wheat
1# Castle Aromatic 20L
1# Weyermann CaraHell 9-12L
2oz Weyermann Carafa Spcl 425L
2oz US Northern Brewer 8.1% aa (75 min)
1oz Kent Golding 6% aa (KO)
1oz Bavarian Spalt 2.9% aa (KO)
Wyeast 3711 French Saison





I got permission to split my nearly 1 quart of Slurry from the previous two batches into 2 seperate biers. One portion of pitch 3 was on a 1.090 Super Saison made at Big Brew on May 3rd. That bier has finished, or nearly so, at 1.008 for a whopping 11% abv. But enough about that. The Current Biere de Mars is humming along at a comfortable 74-76F. I plan to lager one half for 3-5 weeks and bottle the other half with bugs from the Yard City Sour w/ Lambic Blend in the style of New Belgium's old Bier de Mars.

On brew day I ran out of Propane -both tanks! And ran down the street to steal some from an unsuspecting neighbor. I also ran out of oxygen! Fortunately I made it to Kitsap Lumber 15 minutes before closing time. It was a lengthy late day but at least I got to see The Posies live in BREMERTON!

Holy double rewards, Batman!

Today I racked the Saison II to secondary and retrieved a boat load of slurry from the carboys. It is tasting nice and pineappley. It finished at 1.003. That's 95% AA from the 1.063 where it started and 8% alcohol by volume. This yeast is crazy. I'm beginning to think that the next beer with it needs 5% or less of sugar. I was going to use 20%! Doh! The next beer will be a super saison with a high gravity of 1.095. So, I think I'll have to tone dow the sugar to 5% or under. Maybe no sugar. Maybe all Pils.

I also racked the Tannum to a keg and carbonated it at the appropriate PSI (25) at the dispense temperature (52F) to equal my desired volumes of dissolved CO2 (3.0ish). This might work. It seemed good on first pour, but maybe most things do. We'll see. I've always had trouble dispensing Belgian's because of how much carbonation I want from them.

The first pint of Tannum tastes good. It has a light and bright character. The bitterness hit differently. Some bright grapefruit. Lemony, maybe?

I took a sample of the Saison made on April 1st (now being called 'Tanum') and I decided not too bottle it tomorrow. It's still a bit green and more stuff can drop out before I bottle. But, thank goodness for Anytime Lock! With speed and quality work Mike had me in and out with a new latch re-keyed to fit my current key set quicker than you can say, "Tanum Saison, 5.8% abv, 90% Apparent Attenuation!"

Thanks, Anytime!

Draft biere is coming. 1214 Belgian Pale by Monday the 21st & Ahtanum Saison by the end of that week.

...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.

Single day, double shot.

On the tuesday of Spring Break I opted to make a batch of beer. April Fool's! I decided I'd make 2 batches of beer back to back in one day! I know. You say Sam Calagione used to brew 2 or 3 batches a day 5 days a week when he first opened Dogfish Head. Well, it was a first for me and my body ached for days afterwards.

My friend Wade opened up his garage for use. I usually make beer in the great outdoors, so it was nice to be semi indoors and have the heat dish available. I started assembling gear at 8 am. I brewed for about 9 hours and was there for a total of about 12. When the kettle came up to a boil for the first beer I began heating the hot liquor for the second while I was cleaning out the mash tun. It worked fine, but I think I could've shaved a few minutes off at this point. The biers:

Ahtanum 'ApriFoo' Saison

14# 5oz Castle Pils
3# 12oz Wagner hard white wheat
5 oz Ahtanum pellets 5.5% AA (2.5@90min 2.5@ KO)
Wyeast 3711 French Saison

9.75 gallons @ 1.049 OG


Cracklin' Belgian Pale

17.5# Great Western 2-row Brewers Malt
1.25# Briess C-40
3/4# Castle Biscuit 25L
5 oz Slovenian Goldings 4.7% AA (3.5@90 1.5@ KO)
Wyeast 1214 Belgian Ale & 3944 Witbier

10+ gallons @ 1.051 OG


That's 20 gallons in under 12 hours. Both are in primary. The Saison has fermented between 76 & 80F with the Pale at 66-68F.














Rosie Russnet: Brewing Assistant and Brown Dog

Look at these kids. Two vigorous Lambic ferments. Jib sticker has the GueuzeFest mix. Both were at 65F for most of the time. Then the kitchen heated up a bit. Ferment without the extended mix of bugs is calming down a bit sooner than its neighbor. And now they are residing nearby their other wild neighbors under the stairs in the basement... for a very long time.