Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Day-Night Doubleheader

I did a double brew day back during Memorial Day weekend. I brewed a Saison and an American Wheat. I actually mashed the Saison for 6 hours. I was planning on a long mash, but not quite that long. I had to leave for a while and go across town, so I just let it keep mashing. At the end of the day, I ended up hitting my expected gravity on the nose (1.062), however I ended up with an extra ½ gallon of wort in the fermenter. I thought the increased efficiency was due to the long mash, but it happened to be the theme of the day. I cooled it down to about 65F and pitched my Saison yeast starter and the thing took off quickly and blew through the airlock causing a big mess on my garage floor (yes I fermented in my garage so that I’d get some nice, spicy Saison character from the elevated temperatures).
In the evening, I brewed up a batch of my American Wheat, but I muted the flavor and aroma hops charges because I planned to put half of the batch onto a few pounds of fresh blackberries. My mash went very smoothly and I ended up overshooting my gravity on this one too: 1.064 vs 1.051. No idea where the increase in efficiency came from, but I think I’m going to end up with a wheat wine!

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