Maris Otter Farmhouse Ale

[lowtones84]

The base malt I have on hand is Maris Otter, but I'm going to be brewing a couple of farmhouse ales/saisons this summer. I am fully aware that pilsener malt is the malt of choice, but my "farm/brewery" uses MO, so too bad In this recipe, it will be cut significantly with unmalted spelt and 6-row barley anyhow, so I'm not so sure the base malt will matter all that much. The following recipe is for a four gallon batch because of my stovetop BIAB system.

Est OG: 1.048
Est IBU: 22-25

3 lbs. Crisp Maris Otter
1 lb. 10 oz. 6-row barley
2 lb. 6 oz. Unmalted Spelt

Bitter to 22-25 IBU with EKG, finish with EKG+Saaz
Bottle cultured Dupont yeast

It's a lot of unmalted spelt, but I'm trying to get as much of that character as I can. It should have more than enough diastatic power to convert: Maris Otter (3x120)=360 Lintner + 6 row Barley (1.6x160)=256 + Unmalted Spelt (0)= 616 Lintner/ 7 lbs. total grain weight= 88 Lintner, where a minimum of 30 is needed to convert.

The plan is for a 3 step mash with a long saccharification rest somewhere in the 144-148 range.

Has anybody used MO in a farmhouse ale? Any other ideas or recommendations? It will probably be a couple of weeks before I get to brewing it. Thanks in advance!

 

[drunkEnough4U]

No but I fully support any and all use of MO

 

[joshesmusica]

this sounds really cool. i wanted to make a very norwegian beer soon that's basically a farmhouse style. white labs even has a yeast they manufactured from a farm here in norway. you gave me the idea to go with MO as the base, and maybe that will really give a little balance to the phenols that i believe will come out from the yeast and the adjuncts i plan on using.
would like to here what the others have to say though.

 

[drunkEnough4U]

this sounds really cool. i wanted to make a very norwegian beer soon that's basically a farmhouse style. white labs even has a yeast they manufactured from a farm here in norway. you gave me the idea to go with MO as the base, and maybe that will really give a little balance to the phenols that i believe will come out from the yeast and the adjuncts i plan on using.
would like to here what the others have to say though.

Sorta like a viking themed beer? Been thinking of something similar, you could def use some honey and wheat as well.

 

[joshesmusica]

Sorta like a viking themed beer? Been thinking of something similar, you could def use some honey and wheat as well.

planned on some wheat. i've been looking into the way the farmhouses have done it, there's surprisingly still some that have had the tradition passed down for centuries, same yeast and everything. they have this incredibly genius/unique way of preserving the yeast. they have most commonly used juniper for bittering, which also adds that piney/citrousy flavor. other than that it's been malted barley or wheat. not much honey usage going on.

my thoughts to make it a bit more safe, though, were to use the juniper as a tea (there was one guy who was able to go and brew with one of these farmers, and that was their method), then i can control how bitter it gets. then i will use a high alpha hop to secure my bitterness level. then there is a wild strawberry that grows in the eastern part of the country that is smaller than a typical strawberry by about 1/3, but has much more intense flavor than a typical strawberry. then in the southeast where my in-laws live, my step-father-in-law has found some wild hops that are leftover from the time when it was mandatory for all farmers to grow hops.

 

[drunkEnough4U]

lol the aquiring of ingredients sound laborious

 

[JKaranka]

Sounds cool. I was thinking about making next year something similar with peas or lentils instead of spelt.

 

[juan_bernado]

this sounds really cool. i wanted to make a very norwegian beer soon that's basically a farmhouse style. white labs even has a yeast they manufactured from a farm here in norway. you gave me the idea to go with MO as the base, and maybe that will really give a little balance to the phenols that i believe will come out from the yeast and the adjuncts i plan on using.
would like to here what the others have to say though.

Go for it, the wlp6788 is amazing with a darker malt bill! Maybe try it with rye and smoked malts too!

Definitely brewing our farmhouse ale again.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

I'm just thinking about adding some MO to my saison recipe i'm trying to perfect over time. Right now it's 82% pils, 15% wheat, 5% oats, 3% melanoidin. I was thinking of subbing 20% of the pils portion of the grain with marris to get a little more breadyness in the finished beer. How did your experiences with this turn out?

 

[lowtones84]

Oh, it was great. Not the exact profile we've come to expect from saison, but certainly not totally out of line either. Definitely worth giving it a shot!