Sandbox Brewing

This was a one gallon pilot batch to test out my ability to make an English barleywine that suits my tastes. Minimal bitterness and big toffee notes which would hopefully give way to more fruitiness over time.

It was both a success and a failure. It tasted great at bottling, and 4 weeks later when I opened one in haste it was simply awesome – had lots of toffee, gentle carbonation, just wonderful. Harshness kicked in as it warmed but hey, it’s a month old. Then when I opened a second one a few weeks later, disaster. Gusher. The remaining bottles are all gushers. I’m not sure what happened – i have triple checked my sugar addition and it’s right. Bottling day must have breathed new life into the yeast causing them to knock the SG down a couple more points.

Brew Date: May 24, 2015

Bottling Date: July 11, 2015

Details:

85% Maris Otter, 10% Rye, 5% Brown sugar

Hopped to 35 IBU with Fuggles @ 60 min

Mash at 158F for 65 mins, boil 150 min

Remove 2 qts and reduce until thickened, add back to boil

Fermented with WLP002 at 67F

OG: 1.100    FG: 1.027   IBU: 35

Tasting Notes: 

Nov 9, 2015: Tastes a lot more like a Belgian quad than a barleywine due to the carbonation issues (and perhaps other things). Slow gusher. Lots of red and dark fruits that are slightly cloying. Some caramel / molasses.  Has good qualities but not a great beer as is.  Interestingly, I poured it into the cylinder and shook the carbonation out, and it reads a SG of 1.018!  Almost 10 points lower than at bottling. No wonder I had to keep venting carbonation off.

When my coworker and I bought our ingredients for our first stab at home brew, we bought 2 yeast packs: WYeast’s 3711 and White Lab’s 568. We used the 3711 in the first batch, and having the extra vial of yeast encouraged us to get to brewing our second batch as soon as possible. Four weeks later, we brewed the ‘Belgian version’ of Pappy.

Brew Date: April 26, 2015

Bottling Date: May 20, 2015

Particulars:

10.5 lbs   Pilsner malt

2 lbs   Wheat malt

1 lb   Wildflower honey

1.5 oz   Azacca @ 20 min

2.5 oz   Azacca @ 5 min

Mash @ 155F for 60 min, boil 90 min

WLP568 (Belgian Saison) – fermented at 67F

OG: 1.052  FG: 1.010  IBU: 30-ish

This brew day had a major hiccup. We noticed after the wort chiller had been running for a while that the liquid level seemed to have risen during cooling. With concern, we lifted the chiller up to find it was leaking quite profusely. We repaired the chiller and continued on but we had over a gallon of water from the backyard hose in our beer, plus it sat at around 140F for 15 minutes while we feverishly fixed the chiller. Whether this is entirely to blame for the DMS issue in this batch or not I can’t tell you, but it did have DMS. Also we mashed awfully high for the style which resulted in a pretty high FG for a saison.

Tasting Notes

[Mar 8, 2016]  Down to my last two bottles. Other than the DMS which never went away, this has otherwise developed nicely, with a puffy white head which dissipates to lacing after a few minutes, crisp body and nice yeast profile. The DMS wouldn’t be totally out of place in some lagers, but here it just doesn’t fit in. Drinkable but flawed. It took quite a few months to get to the point I was willing to drink the whole bottle though.

Here it is, the first batch of homebrew I made. Started all-grain with a simple saison recipe as per below. The name Pappy Saison came from the fact my very elderly cat passed away the day before brew day.

I brewed this with a friend/coworker who had a bunch of equipment from his brother’s wine making project. Turns out the pot which we thought was 7.5 gallon was only 5 gallon. So we ended up having to make a smaller volume of higher gravity wort and then diluting it with boiled and cooled water.

Particulars:

10 lbs    Pilsner malt

2 lbs    Wheat malt

0.5 lbs   Honey (cheap stuff)

1.25 oz Azacca @ 15 min

1.25 oz Azacca @ 5 min

2 oz Azacca dry hop

WYeast 3711 – French Saison

Mash @ 154F for 60 minutes, boil for 90 minutes

OG: 1.055 (after dilution)   IBU: 30

Fermented at 67F for 2 weeks

Brewed:  March 29, 2015

Bottled: April 12, 2015

I learned many things from this brew, as one usually does during their inaugural brew day. I learned that leaf hops loose in the boil is a major pain in the ass to deal with. I learned that expecting 70% efficiency as a noob using BIAB was not a good idea. But, to my great joy, the beer tasted like beer. It was actually getting better and better but because I was overly excited to share my first homebrew with friends, and because our lower efficiency led to a lot less beer, I drank my last bottle at 3 months in bottle. It was the best one of the bunch, too.

Brewed: August 29th, 2015

Transferred: September 7th, 2015:  One on plain American oak cubes, one without.

Bottled: Non-oaked version: Oct 31, 2015

OG: 1.094       FG: 1.018       IBU: 36

Fermentables: Thomas Fawcett Maris Otter, Thomas Fawcett Brown malt, buckwheat honey

Hops: East Kent Goldings

Yeast: WLP005, British Ale yeast

Tasting Notes:

Oct 12, 2015: Malty, moderate buckwheat presence.

Oct 26, 2015: Added more oak cubes to oaked version, these ones soaked in Bulleit bourbon.  No tasting.

Oct 31, 2015: Bottling the un-oaked portion. On the savoury side for sure with a soy sauce note.

Nov 27, 2015: Bottled the oaked / bourbon version, dubbed Bourbon Buckstock. Tasting quite nice – big hit of bourbon flavour, nice moderate oak character. That unique maltiness from the buckwheat … the jury is still out on that one. I am optimistic that it will meld over time into something quite nice. Bottled without sugar.

Style: Spiced winter warmer

Brewed: September 16, 2015

Transferred: October 20, 2015

Bottled: December 1, 2015

Fermentables: Maris Otter, Rye, Pale Chocolate, Dark Crystal, flaked oats, brown sugar

Hops: East Kent Goldings (bittering only)

Yeast: White Labs 002 (2 packs)

Additions:  Cinnamon (boil 10m), Vanilla beans + Hawaiian dark rum oak cubes (secondary)

Tasting Notes:

October 20, 2015:   During transfer. Cinnamon is present but not too strong. Pretty nice chocolate flavour. Not much alcohol presence.  SG is 1.023, about right.

November 11, 2015:  Sample taken while brewing another beer. Has dried way out!  1.011. Definitely an indication that maybe using an ex-brett carboy was a bad idea. However, it doesn’t taste terribly dry.

December 1, 2015:  Bottled. Tasting decent, surprisingly low alcohol burn considering it’s now at 10% ABV. Added only 1/2 oz of sugar for 2.5 gallons as it was bottled at 42F from a week-long cold crash. Cinnamon, vanilla, rum and oak are all quite subtle.

February 3, 2016:  I had already surmised that this batch got infected and have dumped most, but kept a few bottles just to see what happens. It certainly is infected, with a bit of a tannic acidity coming through now, but surprisingly it’s kind of turning into a palatable dark sour. The lack of roast malts definitely helps. It will be interesting to see where this one goes with my couple remaining bottles. Hope I don’t end up regretting the drain pours!

Style: Farmhouse ale with brettanomyces

OG: 1.059     FG: 1.004    IBU: 15

Brewed: August 23, 2015

Transferred: September 9, 2015

Bottled: October 14, 2015

Fermentables: Pilsner malt, wheat malt, flaked wheat, acidulated malt

Hops: Willamette (bittering and finishing)

Yeast: WYeast 3711 + WLP648, co-pitched

Tasting Notes: 

Nov 14, 2015 – Had a bottle of the peach. Funky and fruity in equal measure on the nose. Taste is also quite funky, a little bit cheesy, and a mix of peach and apple fruit flavours. The fruit is present but not as strong as I’d have expected. I think the lack of CO2 purge on transfer may have something to do with it. This is definitely in its cider-like phase that I encountered with the first batch too (the brett vrai produces a prominent apple skin like quality at 6 – 10 weeks). Pleasant enough but nothing to write home about. Hoping that another month in bottle will see some improvement.

May 27, 2016 – Peach variant. This beer really came around after a few months of being quite odd. Fruit has somewhat declined but still present. Brett has orchard flavours, mildly funky and generally very enjoyable. Beer has fantastic head retention and body. Nicely dry. Turned out wonderful, though it would have been preferable to allow the brett to develop a lot further before adding fruit.