Belgian Golden Strong and Smoked Helles Parti-gyle

Just over 2 years ago I brewed a series of Belgians, including an interesting take on a Belgian Golden Strong. Belgian Golden Strong Ales (BGSAs) have been one of my favorite styles since the first time I tried Duvel Green on my 21st birthday and was opened to a whole new world of Belgian beer. With only one beer currently in my kegerator I decided I should throw together something that could be both interesting and refreshing now that spring is here. I also didn't want to solely commit to a BGSA and decided it would be a good time to perform a pseudo parti-gyle in order to get 2 different beers.

I decided that the smaller beer could be a good base for my third attempt at lagering since the kegerator/ferment chamber had space available. Playing around with the numbers I realized that by adding just a little pale malt, and some specialty malts I would be able to make a smoked Helles. While I haven't had a smoked Helles before, it seemed like another fitting beer for spring with a balance of both intriguing components and moderate drinkability.

I brewed the beers on the last day of winter in a cold mix of rain, sleet, and snow. While the weather added some difficulty and I didn't do everything quite as efficiently as I could have, the day went well overall and hopefully I'll come out of it with 2 tasty beers for only a couple hours more work than I would have had to do for 1. The addition of grains required a second mash and made this not a true parti-gyle but allowed me to give more variability to the beers produced and I plan to perform similar split batch procedures in the future. One goal moving forward will be to better line up the timing for the two batches to minimize how much additional time is required.

Designing the two recipes was a somewhat iterative process as I came up with a general idea for each recipe separately, then used a parti-gyle calculator to identify that I would need a 1.045 OG at 6 gallons, then came up with the overall malt bill, then went back and refined the individual recipes. the recipes shown below are my best attempt to show how to recreate the beers if not done together and have been adjusted slightly due to hitting higher efficiency than expected. The base malts used aren't traditional but I was making due with what I had including the last of my bags of Pilsner and 2-row and just enough Maris Otter to hit my required amounts.

Future Laws:
Belgian Golden Strong Ale

OG	1.083
FG	1.017
IBU	29
SRM	3
ABV	9%

Fermentables
Amount	Fermentable	Maltster	Use	PPG	Color
4.0 lb	2-Row (US)	Briess	Mash	37	1 °L
2.0 lb	Pilsner (DE)	Weyermann	Mash	37	1 °L
1.5 lb	Sucrose	N/A	Boil	46	0 °L
0.67 lb	Maris Otter Pale	Thomas Fawcett & Sons	Mash	38	3 °L

Hops
Amount	Hop	Time	Use	Form	AA
1.5 oz	Strisselspalt (FR)	45 min	Boil	Pellet	2.80%
1.5 oz	Strisselspalt (FR)	15 min	Boil	Pellet	2.80%

Yeast
Name	Lab/Product	Attenuation
Golden Pear Belgian	Gigayeast	80.00%

Mash steps
Step	Heat Source	Target Temp	Time
Saccharification Rest	Infusion	146.0 °F	30 min
Saccharification Rest	Infusion	154.0 °F	30 min

Of Greater Things:

Smoked Munich Helles

OG	1.054
FG	1.013
IBU	15
SRM	4
ABV	5.40%

Fermentables
Amount	Fermentable	Maltster	Use	PPG	Color
2.0 lb	Maris Otter Pale (UK)	Thomas Fawcett & Sons	Mash	38	3 °L
1.5 lb	Pilsner (DE)	Weyermann	Mash	37	1 °L
1.5 lb	2-Row (US)	Briess	Mash	37	1 °L
0.5 lb	CaraHell (DE)	Weyermann	Mash	34	11 °L
0.5 lb	Smoked Malt (US)	Briess	Mash	37	5 °L

Hops
Amount	Hop	Time	Use	Form	AA
1.0 oz	Strisselspalt (FR)	45 min	Boil	Pellet	2.80%

Yeast
Name	Lab/Product	Attenuation
German Lager Yeast	White Labs WLP830	76.50%
German Lager Yeast	White Labs WLP830	76.50%

#41 - Hoppy Black Saison v2.0

With how successful my first black saison came out, its amazing that it took me this long to brew another.  This recipe takes most of what I liked about the first recipe with a focus on moderation and complexity. The recipe this time, just as the first, calls for moderate amounts of a complex mix of dark roasted grains, moderate crystal malt use, moderate bitterness, moderate late and dry hops, and moderate spicing (orange peel).  The recipe also calls for French Saison and Candi Syrup as it did the first time, which should again give wonderful, complex elements that can't be found in the hops and malt alone.  This is a recipe that worked out surprisingly well the last time and it seemed as though doing lots of things, but doing so in moderation, allowed each component to come through without any dominating.

The major changes between this recipe and the original version are the change from extract to all-grain, using commercial candi syrup instead of homemade, and significant changes to the hop schedule.  The hop schedule was designed to still emphasize both citrusy American hops and spicy European hops while using what I have on hand, and the change to candi syrup is mainly for convenience but also due to how happy I was with the flavors it developed in my dubbel and quad (despite the other issues those beers experienced).

In order to minimize the harshness of the roasted grains the chocolate malt, black patent and roast barley were all added right before mash out.  Because the dark malts were added so late I used a similar water chemistry profile to my last brew (a much paler saison) with 5 grams of gypsum, 1 gram CaCl, and 8 tsp 10% phosphoric acid.

Brew day hit a few snags as the initial mash in only brought the mash to 145F instead of the intended 150F. I decided to turn this into an opportunity for a step infusion mash and after 20 minutes at 145 the temperature was adjusted with boiling water to 152F for 20 minutes, followed by 20 minutes at 160F and a final 10 minute mashout at 170F.

I also forgot to add the Candi Syrup late in the boil and will now wait to add in the next few weeks. The measured OG came in at 1.042, but I realized my hydrometer was off, reading water at only .995 (and was reading my Brett'd Saison at sub 1.000).  Assuming this .005 difference is consistent, that puts my OG closer to 1.047, which is only slightly less than I would expect given the lack of Candi Syrup at this point.

Wort tasted very sweet without much other flavors from the malts, orange peel, or hops showing through at this point.  The plan is to let this ferment to completion (likely around 2 weeks) before 2 short dry hop sessions.  Half the batch may end up receiving brettanomyces or a different twist depending on where the flavors stand, while at least half will likely be bottled as is.

Fermentables 

Efficiency: 67.0% Batch size: 5.0 gal

Fermentable Amount Use PPG Color

 2-Row (US) 9.0 lb 80% Mash 37 1  °L

 Candi Syrup D-90 1.0 lb 8% Late Boil 32 90  °L

 Caramel/Crystal 60(US) 0.5 lb 4% Mash 34 60 °L

 Chocolate (US) 4.0 oz 2 % Mash 34 412  °L

 Roasted Barley (US) 4.0 oz 2 % Mash 33 300  °L

 Black Malt 4.0 oz 2 % Mash 32 500  °L

Hop Amount Time Use Form AA

Palisades (US) 0.5   oz 60  min Boil Pellet 13.0%

Cascade (US) 0.5   oz 15  min Boil Pellet 7.0%

Opal (DE) 1.0   oz 5  min Boil Pellet 6.5%

Strisselspalt (FR) 1.0   oz 4  days Dry Hop Pellet 3.4%

Cascade (US) 0.5   oz 4  days Dry Hop Pellet 7.0%

Palisades (US) 0.5   oz 1  min Whirlpool Pellet 13.0%

Yeasts

Name Lab/Product Average Attenuation

French Saison Wyeast 3711 82.5%

Extras

Name Amount Time Use

Phosphoric Acid 8.0 tsp 60.0 min Mash

Calcium Chloride 1.0 g 60.0 min Mash

Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 5.0 g 60.0 min Mash

Bitter Orange Peel 0.25 oz 5.0 min Boil

Sweet Orange Peel 0.5 oz 5.0 min Boil

Updates:
7-28-2014
Mixed the 1 lb. of D-90 Candi Syrup with about a quart of water, boiled, cooled and added to the fermentor.  Activity (which had completely died down) picked up again within an hour.

8-5-2014

Bottled with 2.95 oz of sugar. 25 of the 12 oz. bottles were bottled straight, while another 24 were bottled after adding the white pepper and a little bit of the ginger and clove tinctures.