How to brew a farmhouse ale with these ingredients?

[tinman717]

Hey everybody,

I'm new to the forums here but am eager to become a part of this community! I just built an all-grain brewing setup but have yet to brew with it. I thought a farmhouse ale would be a great brew to start with. I've got some ingredients but I seem to have lost the recipe I was planning on going with, so I was wondering if anyone has some good ideas for what to do with these:

8lbs Belgian Pilsner Malt crushed
2lbs Rahr White Wheat Malt crushed
1lb Belgian Caramunich
1lb Flaked Oats
2oz UK Kent Goldings Leaf Hops

And I have American Farmhouse Blend yeast to use in a vial.

I've tried to find recipes that use these ingredients but everyone seems to have different stuff! Let me know what you guys think

 

[beergolf]

Farmhouse Ales and Saisons are a pretty loose category. A lot of options. The Belgian pils and the Wheat would be good. The oats would be good too. I probably would not use the Caramunich but that is up to you. Since this is your first AG brew, assuming about 72% efficiency you should get an OG of about 1.054 with those ingredients, and no sugar.

Depends on the AA of the hops but if you can get a BU:GU ratio of .5 you are good. That would be 27 IBU's. I usually give a bittering charge at 60 and then another addition at either 30 or 20. Sometimes a small bit at the end. I often add a little sugar to get it real dry, but that is optional. Mash low and long to make it very fermentable. I have not used that particular yeast, but in general if you can pitch at the lower end of the recommended range and then hold it there for a day or so, then start ramping up the temp to the high end to help it finish nice and low.

I just finished a saison about an hour ago with 6 lbs Belgian pils, 2.5 lbs wheat and a pound of sugar. Strisselspalt hops.

 

[tinman717]

I don't know all the equations behind this quite yet, but my understanding is that these grains need to be mashed in certain proportions. It looks like 70-80% of the grainbed by weight should be the Pilsner Malt. Which would mean I should use all 8 lbs of the Pilsner malt, and then add a pound of the wheat and a pound of the flaked oats (10% each) and mash that at about 150 for an hour? 150 for an hour seems to be the average number I am finding among other saison recipes.

 

[beergolf]

I don't know all the equations behind this quite yet, but my understanding is that these grains need to be mashed in certain proportions. It looks like 70-80% of the grainbed by weight should be the Pilsner Malt. Which would mean I should use all 8 lbs of the Pilsner malt, and then add a pound of the wheat and a pound of the flaked oats (10% each) and mash that at about 150 for an hour? 150 for an hour seems to be the average number I am finding among other saison recipes.

No exact proportions. You can do all the pils, all of the wheat and all of thhe oats and you will be fine. Mashing at 150 would be good.

What is the AA of the hops. If I know that then I can help you with the hop schedule.

 

[tinman717]

The hops are 6.6% alpha and 2.4% beta. So my understanding is, we would take the target OG (you're thinking 54) and divide that by the acid percentage times the minutes boiled.

 

[beergolf]

If you are going to brew a lot I would suggest you get some brew software. They all offer a 30 day free trial. It really is useful because you can just plug in the. ingredients and it does the math.

With 6.6 AA hops you can do something like .75 at 60 and .5 oz at 30 or if you want a little more hop flavor do .75 at 15 instead of the 30 min addition.

Enjoy and brew it up. Should be good.

I noticed that yeast is a blend that has some brett in it. Give it some time for the brett flavor to develop and you should have a very nice brew.

 

[tinman717]

This sounds great! I'm going to go ahead and do this on Tuesday and I'll keep the thread updated with results. There seems to be so much science behind all grain....finding efficiency, etc. Looks like the skill comes with experience and time! Thank you for the advice

 

[RonPopeil]

No exact proportions. You can do all the pils, all of the wheat and all of thhe oats and you will be fine. Mashing at 150 would be good.

What is the AA of the hops. If I know that then I can help you with the hop schedule.

i agree with this. just put it all together. 148-152F would be a good mash temp.

as for hops, i would just do a 60 minute addition. maybe a small 20 minute addition for a bit of spice.

 

[mikeoholic]

Feel free to dump in a pound of table sugar too. Any saison or Belgian I brew always gets a sugar addition to bump up the abv and dry out the brew. Cheers!

 

[fearwig]

The best saisons are dry, dry, dry to balance out the fruity. I'd mash 146 for 90 and kill the caramel. And don't fear some flowery flameout or dry hops, it's not traditional, but it's great.

Definitely agree on the sugar, it's just not belgian without that heat.

Best luck!

 

[tagz]

If your yeast is wlp 670 (American Farmhouse Blend), just be aware that it contains Brett. Brett is not your typical yeast, and there are some things you might want to consider... While Brett is technically a yeast and regular sanatizing practices should be fine, some people keep a separate set of hoses and plastic equipment for those batches because a small amount of residual Brett can have a flavor impact of your next batch. Also, Brett can change quite a bit over time (depending on when/how you pitch it), so you might store a few bottles from this batch to assess how it develops with aging. That said, it's nothing to worry to much about, a lot of people use Brett like regular yeast with no problems.

 

[tinman717]

I didn't know the yeast had anything different about it. I'll have to do some more research on Brett. I'll make sure I clean everything extra thoroughly so that it won't affect future brews.

Going to go ahead and mash right now! I'll let everyone know how things turn out.

 

[tinman717]

Well everything went great you guys! I mashed @150 for 90 mins. The temp was 148 when I opened the cooler.

I did a 1 oz hop addition @ 60 mins and .25oz @ 20 min. I also took the advice on adding the sugar so I added two cups.

OG came out to 60, spot on!! Pitched the yeast and she's sittin at about 68 degrees.

I took a few cool pics. I live 30 miles north of Milwaukee, WI right on Lake Michigan. We had a full moon last night and the snow was comin down! Normally I wouldn't brew on the deck but we got about 4 inches of snow throughout the evening.

Not sure why some of the pics are rotated. They show up fine on my machine.

 

[tinman717]

So I've come up with a question here. I did some research into Brett (I was unaware the yeast I had was anything special), and there seems to be some mixed feedback on whether or not separate equipment is required when using Brett.

I'm using a bucket as my primary fermenter. With proper sanitization, I can continue to ferment regular beers in it, right? I'm not totally buying this "separate equipment" issue.

 

[mikeoholic]

Make sure it's good and clean! Brett can be a hard one to get rid of. If you have a glass carboy that would work better. Also plan on letting this go for at least 6 months. That about the time Brett starts tasting good. Brett is a slow fermenter but will consume more than other yeast strains. Fg could get as low as 1.0001

 

[tinman717]

Yes, I see that the Brett is what will dry out the beer to give the classic saison profile! I was thinking I could leave this in the primary for 3 weeks, in the secondary for 3 weeks, and then bottle and let it sit in the basement until summertime.

 

[fearwig]

I'm using a bucket as my primary fermenter. With proper sanitization, I can continue to ferment regular beers in it, right? I'm not totally buying this "separate equipment" issue.

There is no "separate equipment" issue, ever. Sanitize... correctly. And use.

I absolutely think some people think infections (and brett) are magical creatures, insusceptible to sanitizer. For real, use some bleach if you have to. It will be so dead. Now, when the same person turns around and uses some other, forgotten, unsanitized thermometer probe or something after taking all these precautions for his other equipment, well, that's how antiscientific rumors start. ("But I got an infection anyway! I should have thrown everything away!")

 

[tinman717]

There is no "separate equipment" issue, ever. Sanitize... correctly. And use.

I absolutely think some people think infections (and brett) are magical creatures, insusceptible to sanitizer. For real, use some bleach if you have to. It will be so dead. Now, when the same person turns around and uses some other, forgotten, unsanitized thermometer probe or something after taking all these precautions for his other equipment, well, that's how antiscientific rumors start. ("But I got an infection anyway! I should have thrown everything away!")

I totally agree with this! I'm a chemistry student at the University of Wisconsin (hence my fascination with fermentation), and I fully agree that there shouldn't be any anti-scientific "mystery" to any of this. It's just basic chemistry and biology that we have a relatively good understanding of.

 

[mikeoholic]

I've only used Brett once and didn't change my equipment. Everything is still fine. As long as you clean and sanitize really well it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[tinman717]

Hey guys, I just racked the brew to the secondary. A bit of a small yield (a lot of trub in the primary). The color is rather thin relative to previous brews.

OG was 1.060 and now it's down to 1.004! Took a taste test and it's definitely got some heat to it. Flavor also seemed a bit thin but I suppose it's way too early to get any sort of accurate idea of what it will evolve into.

 

[fearwig]

Good bit of headspace you have there, and foamy from the transfer. I think if you're going to do a secondary you should probably use sanitized marbles or some similar spacer to bring that line up closer to the neck to prevent oxidation. Not to beat any dead horses, but I don't see why you'd bulk age a farmhouse ale, you can bottle age it to get some brett funk but otherwise it's best young. If it needs to attenuate more it will do that better on yeast, of course.

 

[tinman717]

Hmm, I wasn't aware that the aging procedure was any different for a brew like this. I have a habit of aging in the secondary for at least two weeks for any brew.

So it would be beneficial to bottle this right now and just let her sit?

The foam on top was foam from StarSan leftover from sanitization, by the way.

 

[fearwig]

Ahh, I thought that was foam from some crazy-aggressive racking! I mean you can secondary anything, but if you're going to pick something to not secondary, this is probably it.

 

[mikeoholic]

Ahh, I thought that was foam from some crazy-aggressive racking! I mean you can secondary anything, but if you're going to pick something to not secondary, this is probably it.

I respectfully disagree. Bulk aging a Brett farmhouse will allow a lot of those yeast flavors to develop. Probably didn't really need a secondary with the Brett in there cleaning things up but I would have done the same thing. Might drop a few more points for you too. Might think about a little oak in there with the Brett. Looks good! Making me thirsty.


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[tinman717]

The oak is a great idea! I'll have to try that in the future.

What I've done with this brew is put it in front of one of the heat registers in my home to bring the temperature up. It's up in the mid 80s and has sat there for about a week now. I'm hoping this will give it a little bit of sparkle on the tongue!


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[mikeoholic]

Sounds a little warm. 75 would be a little better. I'm sure it will be great either way. Brett makes everything awesome as long as you're willing to wait for it.


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[fearwig]

I respectfully disagree. Bulk aging a Brett farmhouse will allow a lot of those yeast flavors to develop.

Didn't think about the brett, that's true. But I've read you can do that just as well in bottle. I usually like my saison with a side of brett (like Boulevard), not the other way around, so I'd even drink this one young to maximize that, but that's a matter of taste.

 

[tinman717]

I agree, the mid- 80's seemed a little warm but that's what it got up to from sitting in front of the register for a while without me checking on it! I moved it away from the register a bit and now she's at a nice 75 degrees.

I'll hopefully have the time to bottle it this weekend and I'll post some pics. Cheers!

 

[mikeoholic]

Any updates on this brew?


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[tinman717]

It's been in the bottle a week, so I'll have some news soon! I have a really good feeling about this one. It's quite hazy but the color is pure gold.


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[mikeoholic]

Bump. What happened with this brew?


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[tinman717]

Thanks for reminding me mike! This came out pretty good. Really mild flavor actually which is not what I was expecting. It initially had a lot of heat to it but it has simmered down substantially. It's rather "watered down" in flavor. From those who have tried it, women who like wine have enjoyed it the most. Would I brew it the same way again? No, but with some recipe modifications, maybe.


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[mikeoholic]

Glad the beer worked out for you. Cheers!


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