The Ordeal: A Saison-Like Ale

[mccain]

I've been meaning to post about my latest brewing experience for a while, but the story got longer and longer in the procrastinating. I think it's safe to tell now, though.

Be warned: it's a long one, and full of classic mistakes.

A couple weeks ago I visited Dave at Everwood for the first time. I used to brew partial mash and all-grain with this crazy three-way split boil on my stove and just wait and hope to cool the beer. Needless to say, upgrading to propane and a full boil as well as a counterflow chiller was very exciting.

My fiancé likes Belgian stuff lately, and the prospect of getting some help lifting things was tempting, so the plan was to fit it all together and brew up a nice saison on a Sunday. You will note that this is too many things to do in one day.

The brew pot, at least, was a snap to fit together. I need a third port to get both thermometer and sight glass in, but that's fine. A simple issue. The pot also meant I could have a large receptacle of hot, soapy water to lube up and soften my outer house for the chiller. I felt smart, at this point.

One issue: the bottom port leaked. A pinhole void in the weld was letting water through.

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Ok, fine. Dave would kindly replace this for me (thanks, Dave!), so no big deal. Let's make a chiller and call it a day!

Getting 20' of 1/2" OD tubing into 3/4" ID vinyl was fairly straightforward. It didn't kink in the recoiling, either. Murphy needed to creep in somewhere, though. Turns out my helpful staffer at Kent sold me copper line an eighth of an inch too big. There's a flange inside the reducer in Everwood's counterflow kit that makes their clearly-written recommendation of 3/8" tubing important. See below:

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Over two evenings, I did force a fit. I sanded down the ends of the copper and Dremeled out the fittings until the chiller fit snugly together. The chiller works great, actually. Mild leaks from the garden hose fittings but whatever. Triumph!

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I finally resolved to get this recipe on the go last Thursday, after delays. My cheap Corona mill still worked OK, my cooler tun gets the job done and my new refractometer was neat.

New problem: my burner wouldn't boil wort. After two hours of waiting with the thing at full blast, I shut off the gas and went inside to sleep. Similar problems the next day: three hours to get my wort to 96 degrees Celsius and no further. As a result, I eventually shrugged: I had to leave in an hour or so to visit my sister and newborn niece in NB, so I just started the hop schedule, figuring a hard-pasteurised wort would still be fermentable, and that some alpha acids would isomerise.

After a rapid cleanup and success with the chiller (mostly), I pitched my White Labs Saison Mix in my warmish beer, stuck everything in my bathtub in case of blowoff and wrapped a towel around the carboy to keep light out and some heat (and therefore saison funk) in.

This was Friday evening, and I was prepared for a failed fermentation on my return. I had a surprise in store when I got back at 8pm this Monday.

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Blowoff? Heck yeah: yeastsplosion more like. The air lock clogged and shot off into my ceiling hard enough to crack the hard plastic, spraying yeast and bacteria everywhere (towel not pictured - vile, though). I like the funky smell of a saison, buy this room was rank.

To shorten this story (too little, too late - I know), after an hour of mopping my walls and finishing the cleaning from the brew day that was left, I got my fermenter situated back in my brewing cave in our basement, where it promptly sank down to about 16C to crawl through its final fermentation stages this week.

If it stalls, I'll just warm it back up. Carefully.

Turns out, on top of everything, I missed my gravity by a reasonable margin. Was shooting for around 6% abv in the end, and it'll end up a little below 4%, likely. It had better be good, because I'll be able to drink lots.

I've learned a lot of lessons in this go around!

The beer, if it can be called that when it's done, will be called The Ordeal. And it had damn well better be good.

(Edited to clean up in-line images.)

[Celiacbrew]

That is one serious yeastsplosion. I have an oatmeal stout in the fermenter that overflowed on me last night. It's in a bucket so nothing so dramatic. Your mishaps make me feel a lot better about my mishaps. Thank you and I hope Ordeal is a winner.

BTW what yeast did you use?

[mccain]

The White Labs Saison Mix. It is ferocious, though calm in my frigid basement. And I'm glad my trials can bring a smile to someone!

[Keith]

That sucks dude, all those things going wrong would be enough for someone to pack it in lol. Glad you are staying with it and working through it. Personally I still use the plastic buckets. No issues to date. Will want a couple stainless steel fermenters eventually.

[mccain]

Yeah, glass is a hassle, I'll admit. I just feel like I can get it theoretically cleaner. It's not a logical decision, I should really switch.

[Celiacbrew]

The White Labs Saison Mix. It is ferocious, though calm in my frigid basement. And I'm glad my trials can bring a smile to someone!

Is that WLP566? I have some in my fridge waiting for my next brew day. I may need to take some extra precautions. Can't wait to hear your beer turns out.

[mccain]

WLP568 - it's a combination of the others, and I think was designed to overcome the sometimes incomplete fermentation one of the others (565, I think?) Is sometimes prone to.

I wouldn't worry terribly - I probably pitched at like 30 Celsius, which was a function of rushing.