I'm expecting to create a beer-wine hybrid, but I want the beer to dominate in it. (Hell, I'm not a winemaker, am I?) The first crucial step is to decide the beer style. My situation is considered easy and difficult at the same time: I brew on the 7th floor of a block of flats, and the temperature inside the apartment is never below 22 °C. Even in winter, without heating. During summer the temperature can reach even 30 °C. So I must skip all the usual beer styles, I have to find a yeast that can ferment above 22 °C without any side effect. So far I found only two types: yeasts for weizen and for saison. I don't think that grapes would go well with weizen, but the saison sounds all right. The spicy, peppery notes of the saison yeast could well compliment the wine-like flavor from the must. At least in my mind. Well, we will see.
The base malt is Bohemian pilsner. Because it's a saison, it's advised to add some unmalted grains, in my case I added roasted flaked oats. I like the biscuit-like flavour of the roasted oats, so I simply roasted usual flaked oats in a pan. Because I grew fond of the earthy flavor of the rye malt, and since my roggenbier I can't shake it off, I added a little amount of rye malt, too. In my mind the raisin-like flavor of the Special B malt could suit the beer, so (surprise) it also became the part of the grain bill. In all my homebrews I have light head retention problems (still under inspection), I added Melanoidin malt, maybe it can help with it.
The bittering hop is Marynka (from Poland). It has 10.5% alpha acid content, and really cheap, so I use it to almost all of my beers as a bittering hop with great success. This way I can spend more money on the aroma hops ;) As aroma hop, I used Nelson Sauvin (from New Zeland). If you know this hop, you might think it's an easy choice, but I think it's easy and risky at the same time. Nelson Sauvin is famous for its Sauvignon Blanc-like aromas, so yes, reminds people of wine. So it could fit into my beer, right? No, not necessarily. Maybe there will to much different wine-like aromas that could confuse the drinker. But I wanted to try that. I hope the best.
The yeast is the previously proven Mangrove Jack's M27 Belgian Ale yeast.
So the ingredients (for the base beer - without must):
- 2,06 kg Bohemian pilsner malt
- 0,13 kg Melanoidin malt
- 0,13 kg Roasted flaked oats
- 0,13 kg Rye malt
- 0,13 kg Special B malt
- 10 g Marynka (60 min)
- 10 g Nelson Sauvin (15 min)
- 1 pkg Mangrove Jack's M27
With my equipment it produces 12 liters of base wort. Est. OG: 1.048, 36.5 IBU, 23.6 EBC (data source: BeerSmith 2)
The planned mashing temperatures:
- 40 °C - 30 min
- 66 °C - 60 min
- 74 °C - 15 min
40 °C for beta-glucan rest, to avoid the gumminess coming from the oats, making sparging easier, and also increasing mashing efficiency. 66 °C for saccharification rest for medium-light body, and 74 °C for mashout. I was to add a protein rest at 50 °C for another 30 min, but decided to skip it. If you have unlimited time, you can keep it.
Some photos from the brewing day:
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| The roasted flaked oats on the top of the other grains |
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| Beer butterfly during saccharification rest |
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| Whirlpool... |
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| ...and the clear wort after it |
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| Color after gravity measurement |
So the young wort started its fermentation, taking little steps to once become a responsible adult beer. Ha, actually it started its vigorous fermentation 4 hours after pitching the yeast, and after 2 and a half days it stopped. And I started panicking. Because I still didn't have the must. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to acquire a pasteurized must even in the season of harvest? Well, now I do. I wanted it pasteurized bacause I didn't want to care about sanitizing the must, since I have no experience with it. I just wanted to add it to the fermenting beer, without worrying about the outcome.
Wait a moment... You may wonder why I want to add it to the fermenting beer, and not during boiling. Or at least before pitching the yeast. Well, smast question indeed. I wanted the yeast cells to adapt to the maltose before adding the must. Maltose is a disaccharide formed from two units of glucose. This is the (main) sugar content of the wort, coming from the malt ;) Meanwhile, the sugar content of the must is mostly glucose and fructose, so simple sugars. If the maltose and simple sugars are both present when the yeast is pitched, there is a possibility that yeast adapts to the easier-to-ferment simple sugars, and a portion of the maltose will not be fermented.
To avoid that I pitched the yeast to the wort (without the must), and let it ferment. According to my plans, I wanted to add the must on the third day of the fermentation, when most of the maltose content was already fermented. And it was on the third day when I finally managed to acquire 1 liters of must. (1 liter was the planned quantity, too).
And what a must it was! It was must from Irsai Oliver grapes, a Muscat-like Hungarian cross-breed, with beautiful, rich tropical fruit fragrances. Oh, even the must had so great aroma! An awesome ingredient to a light summer wine.
Of course I tasted the 3-day-old saison before adding the must. The flavors from the special grains only appeared at the middle of the sip, but the appearance was sudden, like a tornado. And it had a bready, really dry finish, but with a seem-to-bigger body that the gravity would suggest. The Nelson Sauvin aroma was too noticable to my taste, but I'm sure that these will all balance out with age.
Oh, and the temperatures. The wort started to ferment at 27 °C, and during the vigorous process it kept its temperature. But when it stopped (and at the same time the weather became cold ouside), the temperature started to drop. In order to slow down the drop, I covered the fermentation bucket with a blanket. But after a week, the temperature was between 24-25 °C. Not perfect, but I think the beer will be all right. (If I had the equipment, I would raise the beer's temperature to 30 °C.)
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| The covered fermentation bucket |
Results:
Houston, we have a problem. The fermenation was too successful. It means that despite the fact that the malt bill had 20% non-base malts, the final gravity became 0.998. So the beer is dry as hell, but because of the ester production of the yeast it doesn't feel like that. What the bigger problem is that the yeast devoured everything from the must. Everything.
I really love the color and the look of this beer, it's exactly what I wanted. The white head disappears quite quickly, leaving only the almost-clear liquid in the glass. The aroma and the flavor reveals only the used yeast type, almost yelling to your face that it's a saison. But unfortunately that's all. There is no hint of the must.
It's an acceptable saison, but not that was the point of this brew. I wanted the must notes to be part of the beer, and I failed to do this. Apart from blaming myself, I blame the yeast. It was a bad idea to brew this beer with a saison yeast. If I had the opportunity I would brew this with US-05 instead. But I learned a lot during brewing this beer, so I regret nothing. Time to move forward and concentrating on the newer brews. Stay tuned! ;)
