Month: August 2018

The brew day went pretty well, process-wise. Put the water on about 8am, started mashing about 9.30 and finished early afternoon. No mistakes, no equipment failures, but one problem. The extract from the mash was really low. We were aiming for 1.040 and it came out (measured in the fermenter) at 1.028.

We noticed that the grits came out of the mashtun looking pretty much as when they went in. So it’s possible that the grits did need some pre-boiling to gelatinise. It’s a poor day when random posts on the Internet give you bad information.

Anyway, we calculated how much sugar was needed to bring it up to 1.040 and added it to the fermenter before the yeast went in. Didn’t take into account the extra water required to dissolve the sugar (wish we’d thought of this before topping the fermenter up with bottled water) so it came out at 1.038.

The yeast is interesting: White Labs Belgian Saison II 566. Not worked with it before (not really done much with liquid yeast) so it was a novelty.

Firstly, it was three months old when we got it (I guess that Malt Miller don’t sell that much of it) so needed a starter to hit the recommended pitch rate. Never done a starter before, so a perfect opportunity to use the 10 quid stir plate bought off eBay. The stir bar is not round so rattled out of place once during the 18 hours it was in use. Other than that it seemed to do the job well enough.

The fermentation has been underway about 48 hours now. It started almost right away and has been going at a steady pace since. It sank to the bottom immediately after pitching but suddenly rose to the top, formed a heavy krausen and bubbled gently (no big bubbly mess, just a thin but dense layer).

Came home yesterday to a kitchen smelling of Indian cooking and wondered what the neighbours were up to. However, after a bit of sniffing, we were amazed to discover that it was the beer making the aroma. Should make for an interesting final product!

In a previous post I explained about the ‘Will it brew?’ challenge set by Manchester Home Brew group. We got Grits, courtesy of Lucy. At first we had no idea what Grits actually were so had to do a bit of research. They are a form of cornmeal to which water is added and turned into a porridge-like mixture. Hominy Grits (like the ones we have) have been treated with acid and had their husks removed. Quick Hominy Grits (ours) have been pre-cooked. i.e. just add water.

Grits

From a brewing perspective Quick Hominy Grits should be pretty easy to brew, in theory. Corn, in many forms, is a fairly common adjunct in beer making. Cornmeal/Grits is added to pale beers to keep them pale and just add extra fermentable sugar without altering the taste. Cheap lagers makers are well known for using these sorts of adjuncts unfortunately.

Uncooked Grits would normally require soaking to gelatinise them before adding to the boil but pre-cooked Grits have already been modified that way so it should just be possible to add them to the mash.

However, due to the un-husked nature and their potential to gelatinise it’s advisable to add some oat husks too. The husks will, hopefully, stop the mash becoming ‘stuck’ as they act as a filter. No idea how much to add though.

The plan then is to add the Grits and husks to the rest of the mash as per normal and see how it all goes. We’re only using half the Grits, just in case something goes badly wrong and we have to try again. The Grits we have appear to be an American import so we’re unsure how to get more. Alternatives appear to be Polenta or Cornmeal but we just don’t know how close they are in process or taste to the original.

Style

Once we were happy with the process we had to decide on a style. Research (google) indicated that corn was mostly used in Lagers for the reasons stated above – light colour, lots of sugar, little taste. So the most logical style to pick for our beer would be lager. Except that wasn’t going to work for at three reasons.

1. The weather. At the moment the ambient temperatures are not really dropping below 16C even at night. During the day they’re in the twenties. Normally our cellar does a good impression of a cold store – constant 14C but that’s up at 20C now. And the tap water temperature is in the high teens too. Neither do we have temperature controlled fermentation or conditioning. So there’s no way we’d be able to make a lager at the appropriate temperatures.
2. We’ve never made a lager and know that they’re very difficult to get right.
3. Lagers normally take at least twice as long to produce as ales and there wasn’t sufficient time to make it.

So back to the drawing board. Eventually we found that corn is also a common ingredient in Saisons. Now this is a good choice of style for us because

1. Saisons commonly ferment at higher than normal temperatures (24-25C) which is ideal considering the weather.
2. Pale versions can be very pale (7EBC).
3. They’re highly carbonated which gives us a chance to play with the Corny keg we bought recently.
4. there’s an opportunity to play with a new yeast and a liquid one at that. We have an unused stir plate, Erlenmeyer flasks and a desire to experiment.

Plan

White Labs Saison II 566 yeast, prepared in advance. Malt bill from this Carlotta Saison recipe. Hops will be a mixture of Saaz and East Kent Golding. Water profile with favour maltiness. Kegged for a couple of weeks to mature. Carbonated in the Corny Keg to a pretty high level, as per the style.

Provisional name: Corny Keg

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