Friday, September 18, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Willimantic Brew Day
David was waiting for us on an overcast Wednesday morning at 8:15AM with sacks of milled grain to brew his Summer S.A.S.E., a session ale brewed exclusively with Sybilla hops from Poland. David is a real stand up guy with an easy-zen-humor that puts you immediately at ease and the 7 barrel brewhouse is second nature to him. Within minutes we were up on the platform taking turns dumping sacks of grain in the mash/lauter tun and canoe paddling the thickening mash. We hit our mash temperature dead-on.
While we waited on the kettle to fill with wort and then come to a boil, we ran the numbers on the Sybilla hops, which David had never used before, to determine our hopping schedule.
Next up was the boil and hop additions...
at the end of the boil, we whirlpooled and ran sanitizer through the fermenter.
When we had transferred all the boiled wort from the kettle it was boots on ...
for hopping in and scouring the inside of the kettle, it’s a sweaty but vital job. Lastly we harvested fresh yeast from the bottom of one of the fermentors and pitched it into the cooled wort.
Everything we sampled throughout the brew day demonstrated David’s assured experience and hop sensitivity: including a super dry, spicy saison fresh from the tank, a crisp Imperial Pilsner ale, and 2IPA, a lush, fruity hop bomb. What really floored us was his huge funky blend of intentionally soured Imperial Porter, vintage Willi Whammer barleywine and some of his solera funk that made for this really ponderous chocolate, oaky, lactic masterpiece.
Among other brewing memorabilia David has on prominent display in the brewhouse is a big picture of the 3 Stooges, stooging out with bottles of beer. The Stooge spirit seemed to increasingly pervade the brew day with everyone naturally adopting their respective personae (Nathan>Larry, Mike>Curly, David>Moe).
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Dann Paquette's Guidelines for a Proper Bitter
8% Torrified Wheat
OG 1.040 FG 1.008 ABV 4.2% 25 IBUs
Challenger for bittering (.75 oz of 8% AA pellets @ 60 min for 5 galllon batch)
Finish with Challenger, First Gold or "whatever you really like 'cause you're not going to use a lot of it."