Author: The Rabid Brewer
This is Part 1 in my series covering homebrewing a saison. Use the following links to read other parts in the series. An inactive link means that part has yet to be published.
- Part 1 – Introduction
- Part 2a – Recipe Formulation: Overview
- Part 2b – Recipe Formulation: Grain
- Part 2c – Recipe Formulation: Hops
- Part 2d – Recipe Formulation: Yeast
- Part 3 – Water Treatment
- Part 4 – Process and Equipment
- Part 5 – Results
Introduction
When Peter first asked that I write for the BetterBeerBlog, I had brewed 45 batches of homebrew in the past 33 weeks. Although that’s not much more than 1 batch per week, the extra maintenance of racking, kegging, bottling, cleaning, etc. really adds up to a lot of work. At times, it almost felt like a full time job. Then there’s the club meetings, competitions, judging, research (i.e. beer tasting ), craft beer events, record keeping and everything else that goes along with a full-fledged addiction. To put it mildly, I felt a bit rabid at times. Thus was born my moniker for this blog: The Rabid Brewer.
Given this rabidity, I suspect Peter may have had a slight expectation that I provide some practical brewing information for his readers. Unfortunately, life conspired against me and the last time I brewed happened to be less than a week before my first post to the BetterBeerBlog.
My Once Rabid Fermentation Freezer
Well, I’m happy to say that I’ve broken an almost 3 month hiatus and recently brewed a saison. This is a style I’ve been wanting to brew since the beginning of the summer. I can’t seem to get enough Saison Dupont and it’s turned into one of my favorite warm weather styles.
Saison in Progress on the Rabid Franken-Brew System
Perhaps it’s out of a sense of guilt, or perhaps I feel the need to make up a bit for lost time, or just maybe there’s a trace of rabidity still left in my system. Whatever the reason, there’s quite a few things I’ve been wanting to write about and this gives me the opportunity to get started.
So, I’ve decided to write a series describing my thought process leading up to this brew, a bit about the process and equipment I used, and ultimately the end-result. Some things (such as special equipment or water treatment) may warrant future elaboration, but we’ll play that by ear.
With any luck, someone out there might get something out of what I expect to be a lot of blathering on my part. If not, well, this will simply be a keen way to document the day in the life of a Rabid Brewer.
Brian
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That first picture is wild. At most I may have a blow off tube leading to a bucket of water but that’s about it. Then again, I’m more laissez faire with my process. Ask 10 different homebrewers how to make beer and you’ll get 20 different answers…
LOL. So true.
That picture is the (current) endpoint of an evolution that started with fermentation in the closet. It includes heater wraps and temp probes on Ranco controllers for each carboy. Overkill? Perhaps.
I ended up with this setup because I was brewing so many different styles back to back. I needed a way to control temperature for say a Cal Common that was fermenting at 62 and an ale that was at 68.
This may not seem like a big difference, but WLP810 will throw a lot of esters if fermented too high and if sitting at high krausen would require setting the ambient temp at least 5 degrees cooler. For the ale in secondary that would spell disaster.
I may elaborate more on all this in a future post.