Getting ready for an early morning brew. 4:30 comes early.
Prep
Tag: beer
Retro IPA
Oh the changes IPAs have gone thru in such a short time. The difference between one today and one from 20 years ago is very different. There used to be a malt component to them. Hops, yes, but there was malt to give it a little balance.
This is not the case any more. There was an arms race in on the hop side that changed IPA, and left everything one sided. But I want those forgotten IPAs. So lets get one going that have the roots of the past versions, but with maybe a bit of newer.
As you can see this is really just a old recipe I had that I swapped a few things to make it feel a bit modern but keep the original body and malt tones.
The bittering hop was Chinook and I changed to the Summit. So the IBU did go up a bit. And the Midnight Wheat used to be Black malt, so we won’t be getting and of the roast bleeding through.
And I will note that I did forget to adjust this recipe from my use of a mash tun to the Mash and Boil that I am using today,, so I am going to expect a bit less efficiency.
Normally I would be expecting around 1.060 for the OG using my tun. But pretty sure the MB will give me 1.054. I could easily add a bit more 2 row, but I probably won’t.
Next up going to be a saison. The snow shoveling months are coming so I will be needing an easy going beer, since all I seem to have right now are bigger ones.
Learn to Brew Day Saison
When the Saisons started showing up on shelves I wasn’t a fan of them. Those yeast profiles just were not my thing. But the rest of the dryness, sometimes spiciness really stuck out for me. And I eventually found that I kinda liked them.
So I have brewed a few here and there, and changed some things to get back to where I like this style, since its very hard to find a plain ol’ Saison nowadays. No fruits, no spices, no nothing.
I use a regular old US two row malt. I think it lets the other things like the wheat and Saaz hops poke through a little more. Rye malt is great here as well, just don’t get crazy with it. It would cover up a lot in this bare bones version.
Get your bittering somewhere in the 25-30 range. Been using Tettnang hops for my smaller batches or Target hops for bigger batches just because of the bigger bang for the buck Alpha. These give a decent amount of that earthy Saison thing without standing out. Saaz hops for the late editions is almost mandatory for me. They seem to work best if kept around the 10-15 minute range.
And probably the most important ingredient in a Saison…the yeast. I’m not one for the big blasts of banana, so I stick with the Belle Saison dry yeast. It only has a bit of background banana, but it gets almost a black pepper and lemon/orange thing going when purposely underpitched. Ferments fairly dry, but not nutz. But it doesnt like to clear all that well. But hey,, thats fine in this beer!
I wouldn’t usually even consider adding fruit, but for some reason raspberry just feels like it would work here. Small amounts though. Raspberry is pretty powerful and this is a very light profiled recipe.
Any way,,, this is what I’ll be brewing this Saturday for the 2020 “Learn to Brew Day” Check out my gallon version.
3 gallon Saison OG 1.054, 30 IBU
-5 lbs US 2 row
-½ lb crystal 10L
-½ lb wheat malt red or white (malt,, not flaked wheat)
-1oz tettnang hops @60
-1oz Saaz at 10 min
-¼ packet Belle Saison yeast. (we are trying to stress it a bit for character. Don’t worry, that’s more than enough yeast)
Mash at 150. Ferment a bit higher than normal.. 70F
May not be “traditional” in a strict sense, but it’s what I want in a Saison.
9stripe Brewing 