Saison brew day featuring Cargill Malts

So it has been a while, but Saturday,  John and I gathered at his place to make 10 gallons of our flower power saison.   Flower flavored saisons  are a tradition for us in summer time.  (In the fall you may recall we make a heavily spiced saison inspired by Saison d'Pipaix.)   This years Flower power has a change from previous versions.  This year's Flower Power would be all Chamomile.   This change was inspired by John's recent trip to St. Louis, where he tried Saison de Lis... a wonderful, wonderful beer.

Can you say "Saison?"

So Saturday at 11:00 We started our brew day.   Now,  there was another special thing about this brew day.   We had the privilege of brewing with Moterij Dingeman's Pilsner Malt.   That is the real deal folks.  Dingeman's is a Cargill Partner.   As you have heard me say countless times.  If you haven't tried Cargill malts, do it.  Do it now.  The flavor is outstanding and the extraction is consistently as predicted.   Our adjunct grains were also from Cargill.    I should say now that we are so thankful to the wonderful people at Cargill for their continued support and advice.  We are rich with pilsner right now, and that is in no small part because of their support.   So in the coming weeks you can expect loads of pilsner based brews... "Children can you say lager season? I knew you could"

Our recipe was pretty straight forward.  And while John was setting up the brewery I started crushing the 20+ lbs of grain.  Now there is one change from the recipe you see below.   That being,   in the recipe below you will see German Spelt.   We actually used Meussdoerffer Spitz malt.  Spitz malt is an under modified grain which improves head retention.

We have been playing with Spitz malt as a replacement for Carapilsner in our traditional beers.  So far we are very happy with the results.

We have also had another realization that may prove beneficial to the group.  STEP MASHING IS FASTER THAN SINGLE STEP WHEN YOU ARE DOING A NO SPARGE MASH.   That's right.  I said it.  And I own it.  

We have a beast of a burner.  So no lack of heat
in our brewery.  12" / 231 K Btu.

Listen, we are blessed to have a 12" banjo burner, that puts out incredible amounts of heat.   And heating 14.5 gallons of water from ground temperature to strike temperature... just flat out sucks.   It takes forever... We can recirculate, we can stir, we can make sacrifices to the heat gods... doesn't matter.  The laws of thermodynamics are still, laws.  They dictate that water can only heat up so fast. They also dictate that the total amount of time for heating, per kCal / Btu is linear.   So why not put that energy to work earlier, especially if it makes better beer.  

You know what doesn't take forever?  Heating 5 gallons of water.  And we can have 3 separate burners that can heat  5-7 gallons to a rocking and ready state as brew day begins.    And the first addition doesn't even have to be boiling.   The first addition only has to be hot enough to start a protein rest.   Here's an example below.

For this recipe we have 22 lbs of grain.   We absorb about .08 gallons per pound after a gentle squeeze.   We loose 1.5 gallons to the boil.   We loose .5 a gallon in general.   This is a recipe for 11 gallons.   So we need 14.76 gallons of water treated, heated, and ready to roll.   To start off the day we will heat 6.76 gallons of water to 134.5 F.  We will dough in there and rest for 20 minutes.   During that time we bring 2.55 gallons to a boil, then infusion mash in bringing our mash rest temperature up to 146 F where we rest for 35 minutes,   then 1.85 gallons of boiling water to bring the mash up to 156 F for 15 minutes.  Then 3.6 Gallons boiling water to reach mash out.  And that's it.   That is our total volume of water.  The mash is so well converted after our basic step mash that we just drain and boil.   And yes I am telling  you this is faster than heating 14.76 gallons of water to the temperature necessary for a single step mash.   And unless you have a high powered electric brewing system,  It is faster for you as well. Don't argue this point, try it.  it is physics.   The laws of physics are not up for argument on a home brew blog site.

The thick Beta Glucan rest.

So we stepped in and came to rest at 125 for a protein rest.  We rested there for 20 minutes.   The protein rest was thick and milky... that is good.  That means the gummy substance betaglucan is being broken down.   Breaking down betaglucan will result in more effective starch conversion, more complete attenuation, and more clear beer.   We have written about this comprehensively in our step mashing series.  The links are to your right.

The mash after the final infusion. 

The brewery / garage filled with a wonderful bready aroma.  The aroma of a world class pislner malt.   Listen, all pilsner smells great when you mash in (for that matter all grain smells pretty darn good when you mash in).  But great pilsner is especially potent.  And this Moterij Dingeman's Pilsner Malt,  well let's just say Cargill has a winner on their hands.

After 20 minutes we added 2.55 gallons of boiling water to the mash tun.  And we rose to 146 F. This is our main saccrification rest.  We held at this step for 40 minutes.

As you can see the mash goes from extremely thick to very thin.  But that is ok.  Using our process we save a tremendous amount of time and actually produce better beer.   Our final infusion brought us to 156 F where we rested for 15 minutes.

Draining the wort, with Bella
the brew dog. 

Now we are no sparge brewers.   We started doing no sparge a year ago and we have never looked back.  We are seeing efficiency at 72.5% every batch.  We have our process locked in.  But, today we overshot.   Our initial gravity was supposed to be 1.045 and it was 1.055.   That's 85% efficiency.   All I can figure is that the Moterij Dingeman's Pilsner Malt extracts like crazy in a step mash. Remember in a step mash that includes a beta glucan rest, you are removing the gummy beta glucans and the amylase is more effective.... It also tasted amazing. 

So we drained our mash and started the boil.  The power of our burner makes boiling a breeze.  In fact, we have to watch to boil to make sure we don't boil off too much.   But we light the flame and put the spurs to it as soon as the first of our wort is in the kettle.

The boil was uneventful until the addition of the organic chamomile tea pods. When those went in the entire garage brewery filled with the magical floral smell of chamomile.   Listen to me round eye.  Do not spend big money on chamomile.  Organic chamomile tea is 100% chamomile flowers.  That is all it is.  There is no reason to go to a spice store or a specialty merchant.  just go get 1 ounce of organic chamomile tea at Walmart.  Simply make sure it is just 100% chamomile.

Normally we chill with our Jaded Hydra chiller.  But this time we decided to do a no chill.   We just thought it would be cool to leave the chamomile steeping for an extended period of time.

John and Boomer
brew buddies.

The next day we pitched 1.5 packs of Belle Saison.  (.75 packs per batch)  We are big believers in making saison yeast suffer a bit.   We know from our experience that our batches that are "under pitched" and our batches that ferment warm, with temperature swings up and down produce the best saisons.

As of today the batches are bubbling away.  I am looking forward to having these on hand for the summer.   These along with my recent IPAs and my "cascadian summer" saison will be the basis of my summer beer menu.

Big thanks to Cargill for their on going support.  If you have never tried their malts, I can't encourage you enough.