I haven't been able to brew for about 3 weeks now and I am getting the brewing itch! I have a recipe from another blog that I follow called Bertus Brewery. He brews mostly hoppy beers and does a lot of commercial clones. A particular beer that he cloned caught my attention, he cloned Stones Enjoy by IPA which is an amazing beer. My original plan was to brew 5gl just as he did but I had a change of heart. I'm going to brew a 10gl using the same hops, the same quantity and times but reduce the OG to 1.060 and change the base malts around. I'm also going to split the batch, half with WY1056 and the other half with ECY05.
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| Brett is on the Left. 1056 is on the right. |
OG 1.060
IBU 58
11g batch
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22lb 2-row
2lb Munich
2lb Wheat
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2oz magnum 60min
1oz Amarillo 15min
1oz Belma 15min
1oz northern Brewer 15min
1oz Simcoe 15min
1.25oz cascade Flameout
1.25 Centennial Flameout
1.25 Citra Flameout
4oz Galaxy dryhop
4oz Nelson Sauvin dryhop
I have some ECY05 brett Bruxellensis that I need to use. I have had the yeast on a 1600ml stir plate for a week and it looks health and smells a little funky.
I've been having trouble with my hoppy/high IBU beers having a harsh bittering to them. I believe that my hard water is to blame so I am going to delude my water 50% with distilled water in hopes to get rid of this off flavor.
1/30/14
The brew day went pretty good, with no major disasters. I over shot my gravity. I had 75% efficiency in my brewing program but I got 90% due to fly sparging. So my new gravity reading is 1.072 not my planned 1.06. Its not a big deal but I need to remember to change my efficiency when I fly sparge.
I did a 30min hop stand after flame out for about 30 min. I did a 45 sec of pure O2 in both the brett and ale version. Both versions are in there own temp controlled fridges, I have the brett set at 68F and the ale at 66F. I will raise the temp closer to 70F as the fermentation starts to slow down. I can expect that the 1056 will be hitting FG in about 7-9days, but the brett could take as long as 30 days to hit FG. This will be my second 100% brett beer and am really excited to see how it turns out. My first brett beer turned out really good and I hope this one will be a nice drinker as well.
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2/5/2014
Both beers are pretty much done with primary fermentation(from a visual stand point). I expected this from the 1056, but I did not from the Brett version. The 100% Brett version's fermentation looked just like the 1056 fermentation. It had a very strong fermentation and a big krausen. I have not taken a gravity sample yet but my guess is that it has hit terminal gravity.
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2/11/14 Today I took gravity reading of both beers. the 1056 half finished right where I knew it would at 1.010-1.012. the sample tasted very clean with a hop presence. I can pick up some tropical fruit/citrus. I have not dry hopped this beer yet. I find that once it is dry hoped, cold and carbed it will be a totally different beer than the gravity sample led me to believe.
The brett version is at 1.018. I was hoping to see that number a bit lower. I Think that it will still come down a couple of points. I will take another reading in a week and see if it is still falling. The smell is just like mild saison would smell with a touch of funky/brett. the taste follows the smell. It tastes like a mild saision. there is a slight pineapple but not much. I would also say that the bitterness level is lower on this version compared to the ale version. It doesn't have that slight hop bite that I would expect from a 60IBU beer. I can also pick up on the funky Brett notes but if i didn't know that this was a 100% brett beer I would say that it is a saison that was fermented cool. I can already tell that these are going to be totally different beers.
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2/13/14 I dry hopped the ale version with 2oz of galaxy and 2 oz of nelson sauvin. I typically like to do a double dry hop, half for 3 days then add the other half for a total of about 6 days, but this time i just added the total 4 oz at once. I kegged this on 2/16/14 and set the PSI to 20 to try to force carb it for my home brew club meeting that is coming up in a couple of days. I have not taken another sample of the Brett version to see if the gravity has come down, but I will very soon.
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2/18/14 I turned down the PSI on the ale version and took a little sample. The carbonation seems about right. Its very cloudy and still a little young to give a real taste review, but it is tasting really nice. I think that deluding my water with distilled water is helping with the "harsh bittering" that I have been struggling with. I'll give a full review of this beer along side the Brett version. I did take another gravity reading of the Brett version and it is still at 1.018. It did not attenuate as much as I would have liked but it does seem to have hit FG, so I will transfer this to secondary and dry hop it. I will wash the Brett and save it for a future batch.
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2/22/14 I racked the Brett verson to secondary and dry hoped 2 oz of Nelson Sauvin, I'll add the 2 oz of galaxy in a couple of days. The Ale half is drinking really nice. Everyone at my home brew club meeting seemed to really enjoy it.
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3/5/14
kegged the brett version today. I got busy and left the beer on the dry hop longer than I would have liked. I am interested to see how it is cold and carbed up.
The ale version was absolutely amazing for about 2 weeks. The hop aroma of the galaxy/nelson was super amazing. I almost enjoyed smelling this beer more than drinking it. The hop aroma faded quite a bit after a month of being on tap. All in all the ale version was a good beer and is almost all gone.
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4/3/14
The Brett version was the one that I was a little worried about. It turned out the be a pretty good beer. The taste follows the nose, if a saison and a Belgium yeast made a baby it would taste like this beer. It has a little tropical fruit in the background. The hop aroma was never there despite dry hopping with 4oz of hops. I believe that Brett is similar to british yeast and doesn't really allow the hops to shine through.
This beer is ageing really well. It seems to be mellowing out and maybe become a bit more of a "clean " flavor. Its been 2 months after I brewed this beer and I find that I'm enjoying this beer more with some age on it. I'm going to try to keep this in the kegorator as long as I can to see how it progresses.
I really like to do split batches of the same beer and try out different yeasts and compare the differances. The Brett totally changed this beer from the 1056 version, It brought a whole new complexity that I enjoy.
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