There is a great article on homebrewtalk about how to polish your kegs.  Really quite amazing how good they look when they are all cleaned up.

There is a great discussion on the northern brewer forums about the best way to use coffee when brewing stouts. The biggest thing I take from this discussion is that cold extraction (as discussed in Radical Brewing) is the best way to extract coffee flavor without the harsh bitterness that comes from boiling coffee. Once I come up with my recipe for the stout I will post it.

Last year I brewed a pumpkin Saison that turned out pretty well. I just wanted to record some notes for the brewing of pumpkin beers.

A couple notes on it:
1. This is not a pumpkin pie beer. The spices come from the yeast. You could probably do cinnamon and nutmeg if you desired but I would advise tasting it first post fermentation and using a spice tea to add spices after the fact if you so desire.
2. It is a big beer.
3. The hops are not “typical” but they seemed to work fine. Substitute as necessary.
4. Mashing the pumpkin can take a long ass time. A mashout helps but, running this bad boy off took a very long time. Rice hulls are recommended. If you are mashing any pumpkin (that is not in a chunk state) you will probably face this.
5. Ferment as hot as you dare. Mine fermented at 85+.

Recipe: Saison de Potiron
Brewer: Brian
Asst Brewer:
Style: Saison
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
————————–
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 7.04 gal
Estimated OG: 1.089 SG
Estimated Color: 11.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 30.1 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
————
Amount Item Type % or IBU
3.63 lb Canned Pumpkin (3.0 SRM) Extract 18.7 %
10.00 lb Pilsen (Best Malz) (1.8 SRM) Grain 51.6 %
2.00 lb Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 10.3 %
2.00 lb Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 10.3 %
0.75 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 3.9 %
0.50 oz Chinook [13.00%] (60 min) Hops 24.1 IBU
0.25 oz Simcoe [13.00%] (20 min) Hops 4.1 IBU
0.25 oz Simcoe [13.00%] (2 min) Hops 2.0 IBU
1.00 lb Palm Sugar (4.0 SRM) Sugar 5.2 %
1 Pkgs Belgian Saison I Ale (White Labs #WLP565) Yeast-Ale

Notes:
——
Pumpkin caramelized in the oven at 350 for over 1 hour

This looks like a great source for lactose for brewing.  At the time of writing the price per pound was $3.33 which is much lower than the five dollars it normally costs at brew shops.  They have $4 flat shipping rates.  Seems like a good deal to me.

I have been doing some research on adding a pump to my brewing system.  I would like to implement a new chiller also and the pump will facilitate that.  More on this later, I really just want to document what I have found so far.

The best price on the pump, chiller, and clear tubing is from MoreBeer.com.

Here is a good site for the food safe plastic quick disconnects for brewing, it looks like the best prices on them are here.

Up next for me is going to be Santa’s Helper which is one of Denny Conn’s recipes.  He describes it as a Uber Alt.  I hope to have it ready for Fall consumption.  Im guessing it will probably be a 10 gallon batch, it needs to be fermented at around 60 so I will probably resort to an ice bath to keep it cool, unless I can get a fermentation chamber built by then.  Targeted brew date will probably be July 18th.

I know no greater joy in brewing than brewing for other people.  This past weekend we had a pre-St. Patrick’s Day party on Friday night.  I served only my beers.  It was a great time.  It seems that my St. Reds Steam – Or as my friend Mitch calls it “St. Reads Steamer” -  was the big hit of the night.  Out of three gallons I would venture to guess that two of the gallons were consumed.  Another big hit was my imperial IPA which some friends enjoyed a bit more than others.  I warned them.  I now can officially say that Imperial IPA’s and Rock Band do not mix.

On Saturday we attended our annual St. Patrick’s day party on the south side.  I brewed an Irish Red Ale for the party.  Its really just a malty, mildly hoppy, red beer.  This party normally serves green bud lite, so it was a great departure from what they normally drink.  I can honestly say that it was a huge hit.  I brought five gallons of it and it was all gone in about an hour.  Most people referred to it as a Killians type beer, which all things being equal, I cant complain about.  The host of the party thanked me whole heartedly.  I will definitely brew more for the party next year.

When discussing beer, I typically use the following words to describe beer:  “Big”, “Hoppy” and “Malty”.  Stan over at Appellation, has a great article discussing the language of beer.

So this past weekend my entire family gathered at my parents house for a weekend of outdoor winter activity.  We had a great time playing in the snow, running up and down the hills, and generally just playing. It was just what winter should be.  There was a good foot of snow on the ground.  It was a bright sunny day and the temperature was sitting at a very comfortable 30 degrees.  Bottom line was it was perfect.  Everything came together to makes things just right.

That night Matt and I found a bottle of Saison de Truite that I evidently had bottled off the keg last spring and left at my parents place.  This bottle came from the batch that I had blended with a batch of 100% Brett C.  It had been sitting in a bottle in my parents back room at about 70 degrees for about nine months.  To be totally honest I had totally forgotten about the bottle.  I believe I had brought it up there for Matt and I to sample in a lead up to our fishing trip.

But to be honest with you.

I cant be sure.

What I am sure of was it was the best beer to ever come out of my brewery.  It was clear, crisp, very drinkable, and had a very nice sour character.  We split the 22oz bottle and I believe we had it gone in less than 3 minutes.  It poured a golden yellow with a billowing white head that just hung on the bottle.  Matt made the comment that the sour character tasted like it could have come from Jolly Pumpkin, which I consider to be a very high compliment.  I think it had that wonderful sour character, not unlike a bottle of Fantome, but I am just a touch biased and not nearly arrogant enough to think that my beers are anything like theirs.

Bottom line is I need to brew another one of these.  Bottle it.  And Forget about it.

I have three gallons of the original Saison wort, that I fermented totally with Brettanomyces Claussenii from White Labs.  I was thinking that I would somehow use that to produce an all brett beer, but I think now what I may do is bottle up the Brett batch and use it to spike batches in the future.  It seems like I should be able to just add a bottle of the stuff to a fully fermented (or earlier) batch and get the souring process started.

The first batch on deck is going to be Saison Noel for Winter/Christmas next year.  Hopefully 9 months will be enough to get it close to where I would like it.  Brewed possibly as soon as this weekend.  Recipe is under development, but I am thinking, 80% pils, 10% wheat, 10% Munich or something along those lines, perhaps spiced with  nutmeg and black pepper.

I’ve been busy brewing even though I have been less than busy with blogging about it.  This past fall/winter I brewed up a big Pumpkin Saison, a rye peat smoked stout, my first lager, another batch of Bourbon Vanilla Porter, an Imperial IPA, a Russian Imperial, Stout, an Irish red ale, another Rye IPA recipe and finally an attempt at a St Rogue Red like ale.

Hard to believe that I have brewed that much since my last post but like I said I have been pretty busy.  I am going to try and write a post about most of these brew sessions at some point in the near future.

I am probably most proud of the Pumpkin Saison which I brewed for a fall hunting/fishing trip.  The keg has been stranded at a remote kegerator for the past four months, I hope to have it back in my hands very soon.

I fermented one with wlp 565  at 90 degrees.  I added a small amount of a spice tea at kegging but the predominate spice flavor comes directly from the yeast.  It really turned out to be something special.  The recipe included 8lbs of canned pumpkin.   I cant say that the pumpkin flavor really was very pronounced but it defiantly had some impact on the flavor.  The color was a brown orange.  A real treat.  I will report back on it as soon as I have my hands on the keg again (hopefully this weekend).  Leave me a comment if you are interested in the recipe.