#5 Saison 08Jan09

I'm finally caught up to quasi real time blogging. Last Thur the usual brew crew (Pres B Slim, Jolly, Tim) came over to keep me in line while brewing yet another Saison. Another new yeast this time: Wyeast VSS 3726 Farmhouse Ale. My LHBS had one activator pack left from the end of the summer. If this is a really good one, I'll have to try my hand at "yeast washing" so I can brew with it some more before Wyeast (hopefully) starts selling it again in June.

The grain bill is on par with #4 Saison except for substituting 1lb of Vienna for 1lb of the Pilsner. The Vienna is slightly maltier in flavor. I'm going to ferment in a 6 gal better bottle this time instead of a plastic bucket- I want to see what's going on. And finally (drum roll please) I'm implementing an active heating system! I taped a 10" x 24" heating wrap to the BB and used it in conjunction with a temperature probe (insterted through the rubber stopper and into the beer) and a temperature controller. My house is 66F at night, and the Wyeast tech service recommended fermenting @ 75F.

Recipe:
3lb Belgian Pilsner (Dingemans)
1lb Weyermann wheat
1 lb Vienna
1lb Muntons Carapils
8 oz Flaked Oats
3lb Briess light pilsen dry malt extract
1 oz E Kent Golding @ 45 min (5.0%, plug)
0.5 oz E Kent Golding @ 5 min (5.0%, plug)
0.5 oz Saaz @ 5 min (3.0%, plug)
Wyeast VSS 3726, fermented @ 75F (internal beer temp)
5 gallons total

Notes: Preheated mash tun with hot water. Strike water: 170F. Initial mash temp: ~155 F; final temp 147 F. Original gravity was only 1.050 for a mash efficiency of 50%. Horrible!! I had the grains crushed about 10 days before I brewed and had them up in the (very cold) attic until the day before brewing. Maybe that affected it?

Props to Wyeast technical support, as they recommended fermenting @ 75F or the yeast will produce phenolics. This is despite the temp range for this yeast being described as 70-95F. Interestingly, the initial fermentation is so exothermic that the temp of the beer was 76F and didn't require any heating or a blanket for the first night. After the third night when I checked the beer in the morning, it was 72F, and the bubbler had ground to a halt. I put the blanket back on and turned on the heater, set to 75F, and it was bubbling at a good clip again within hours. I'm glad I have the heater! Today (day 5) the bubbler stopped.

Something else to note is it will be difficult to compare fermentation temperatures of previous batches with future batches fermented using this internal temp probe, since obviously the beer gets significantly warmer inside the fermenter compared to the room temperature (previous method of temperature notation) in the inital stages of the fermentation.

25Jan09
I bottled this yesterday (6 oz corn sugar, final gravity 1.014) and I thought it tasted pretty good. Couldn't detect any phenolics. I tried my hand at "yeast washing" http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/yeast-washing-illustrated-41768/ to recover some yeast for future fermentations. I need to do this if I want to make a beer with this yeast again before summer, since this is a seasonal strain.