En Zed - New Zealand Pils

Brewed at Maryland Homebrew during their Big Brew for National Homebrew Day. Having to clean all of the equipment, prep ingredients, and pack everything into the car the night before then drive to a location before brewing made this one of the most difficult brews I’ve done. On the other hand it was one of the smoothest brewdays since I had already prepped and measured out everything, including milling the grains, having each hop addition weighed out and separated into bags with addition times listed, and having the carboy, airlock, and transfer tube sanitized and ready to go.

The New Zealand Pilsner recipe I created is also fairly straightforward with 10 pounds of malt (90% Weyermann Pilsner and 10% Weyermann Carafoam) and 3 hop additions, each split equally between Nelson Sauvin and Southern Cross. The Nelson hops gave an interesting aroma of white wine fruitiness but also more dank and musty aroma than I'm used to while the Southern Cross gave more classic new world hop aromas of citrus and pine. I haven’t used Southern Cross before so it will be interesting to see what this blend gives in the beer. I used filtered water off of MDHB’s hose, hopefully that gives similar results to using my campden treated tap water. I did acidify both the mash and sparge, with 20 mL of 10% phosphoric acid in the mash and 5mL in the sparge.

Early in the Big Brew day at Maryland Homebrew

For the most part brewday went off without a hitch and I was able to enjoy some nice homebrews and craft beers while chatting with others at the event. I finished with 5.5 gallons of wort at ~1.046 (I forgot to take a final gravity reading but about halfway through the boil it was around 6 gallons at 1.042), just a touch under my intended gravity but it should work well enough in this style.

After the boil the beer was chilled to 175 and the last hop addition was added. After about 20 minutes the temp had fallen to 160 and I started the chiller again to bring it down the rest of the way. Once the wort reached ~75F I transferred to a 6 gallon better bottle and placed it in the car.

After finishing cleanup (and trying a few more beers) I headed home and placed the carboy in the chest freezer at 50F and attached the temperature probe to the carboy. Checking on it late that night it had reached 52F so I pitched the yeast cake of Imperial Yeast Harvest from my Malt Harvest Pilsner.

Tasting:
Smell: moderate citrus, grass, and pine from the hops mingle with moderately-low bready malt.

Appearance: pale gold, just a touch darker than straw. Moderate white head shows moderate retention as it lasts throughout and leaves great lacing.

Taste: Hoppiness leads with grapefruit, pine, white grape, and herbs, middle is lightly sweet and bready with a hard to describe harshness and slickness that then transitions to a very lightly fruity finish with moderately high bitterness that lingers with a citrus rind character.

Mouthfeel: the beer is mostly clean and crisp but seems to have some light astringency and maybe a slight diacetyl slickness in the middle, though neither are offputting or entirely out of style for a pilsner. Drier than expected/intended but well carbonated.

Overall: after a week in the Balkans drinking lots of pale lagers this beer is both similar and very different to European Pilsners. The fruitiness and bitterness are both nowhere near IPA levels but much higher than a standard pils, but the malt character and even some of the roughness in the middle are very similar to continental pale lagers, especially a few Croatian and Slovenian Pilsners I had last week. Part of me wants this to be a cleaner, less fruity beer and another part wishes I had used fruitier hops and dry hopped it. I’m not sure if the beer is to style or not as I don’t remember having a New Zealand Pilsner when I visited New Zealand but it certainly seems to fall within the right range and it’s a perfectly drinkable beer but it doesn’t quite pop as being “New Zealand”-y or “Pilsner”-y to me. Were I to brew this style again I would likely use less boil hops, more post-boil hops (including some dry hops) and replace the more American seeming Southern Cross with a more tropical or white wine like hop (e.g. Motueka, Galaxy, or just more Nelson).

5/7/23: bubbling away nicely with a large dense white krausen. Hoping to turn this one around in about two weeks so I’ll need to do a quick lager method and get this one to the point of a diacetyl rest by next weekend.

5/11/23: gravity down to 1.024. Tastes pretty good though it has a fairly high sulfur smell, likely from the lager yeast though the Nelson's mustiness might also be adding to it. Very hazy at this point but it is still fermenting. Moved out of keezer and onto basement floor with ambient temperature measuring around 64F. Will leave here for a diacetyl rest until fermentation completes.

5/15/23: gravity reading shows 1.009, a few points lower than expected FG, even after taking into account the lower OG. Less hazy though still far from clear. Flavor and taste are largely unchanged, still somewhat sulfury with a moderate fruity and bitter hop character. I'm a little worried that what I've been thinking of as sulfury is potentially light-struck/skunked character due to the carboy sitting out in the sun for a while before packing up and taking it home. There seems to be disagreement over whether wort can be light-struck but either way there's nothing to be done about it now but wait and see. Will likely move to the chest freezer for a cold crash in the next day or two and keg by this weekend. The planned dry hop addition will likely be added to the keg, if at all. I also might split some of this batch off onto vegan ice cream powder for a club competition.

5/21/23: kegged and placed in chest freezer at 30PSI and 32F. Plan to decrease CO2 and increase temperature over next few days.

Ube Ice Cream version

5/22/23: CO2 lowered to 12PSI yesterday and temperature increased to 40F. Carbonation is a little low but getting close and I don't want to overcarbonate.

Blended 4 oz. Shivery Shack vegan ice cream powder, 1 tsp. ube extract, and a quarter campden tablet with 1 pint of water in a blender, poured it into a keg, then racked two gallons of this beer into the keg. I'm calling the result a Pacific Island Purple Ice-Cream Pilsner. Flavor is interesting, with more of the base pils showing through than expected but still lots of fruit, vanilla, and sweetness from the adjuncts. Appearance is fairly absurd and mostly reminiscent of a blueberry smoothie. The beer tied for second in a club competition of beers made with vegan ice cream powder.

5/23/23: Base beer appears to be just about carbonated now. Aroma and flavor are fruity with some grapefruit, grass, pine, and white grape, but the character has started to fade. There is also some sulfur character still lingering and the bitterness is a touch harsher than I would like but both seem to have rounded out some with the carbonation.

6/6/23: tasting notes of the base beer above.

6/10/23: decided to finally add the dry hop addition to the keg

6/15/23: hops seem to have caused some hop creep and diacetyl so I’ve pulled this from the chest freezer to hopefully clean it up.

6/19/23: moved back to chest freezer. Still light diacetyl but back into a similar range it was previously in.

6/24/23: this one kicked as I filled a growler for a homebrew club meeting. Pretty well received, I saw a few people go back for seconds.

Maisonette ‘23 - Mosaic Grisette

Appearance: Fairly hazy light gold color with a nice fluffy white head of small bubbles with good retention. Pretty much exactly what I’d expect in a saison.

Smell: Earth, spice, pine, citrus. Slightly more herbal (oregano/sage) and earthy/grassy than the floral and fruity chamomile and juicy-fruit gum I would ideally get. There are light elements of those fruit/flower components and enough white pepper to clearly be a saison though.

Taste: Leads with a moderately grainy malt flavor that then segues into some light juicy-fruit and pear like fruitiness with some grassy and herbal hop bitterness and moderate peppery phenols at the finish.

Mouthfeel: Moderate body and carbonation, surprising how full it feels given the low finishing gravity, though the yeast may have produced some glycerol that gives that effect. The carbonation being less than very high also doesn’t help the body and may be the biggest fault this beer has as far as a saison.

Overall: I’m not surprised this beer didn’t do well in one competition - while it’s a beer I like a lot, the mosaic hops always seem to cause confusion when this is entered as a saison. That said, I’m happy with the beer and find it to be similar to a lot of previous batches I’ve made, though not the best examples. There was a short period when the hop aromas had just started to fade where this beer seemed to be at the edge of what I’m aiming for but I now have to search hard for the floral and fruity characters I’d like to see pop here.

Notes for the future: I’ll likely go back to a Pilsner or Pale Ale Malt base for future batches and won’t necessarily go back for spelt over malted or unmalted wheat, I also think dialing back the wheat/spelt percentage would probably be a good idea. The Napolean and Rustic yeasts seemed to work really well here and I wouldn’t hesitate to use them again, although I might aim for a slightly higher fermentation temperature to increase the fruity esters. I also don’t think the higher hop load was a bad change, though doing a longer hop steep at moderate temperatures might be better than the flameout hop addition and I’m not sure the extra ounce+ of hops made much of an impact so I’ll likely go back to the 4 oz version in the future.

2/20/23: Brewday

Grain Bill: 5 pounds 6 row (Rahr), 1 pound Pilsner (Sugar Creek), 2 pounds spelt malt (Best Malz)

Hops: 5.35 oz Mosaic

Mashed at 152 for 30 minutes, which fell to 145 over that time before adding additional water to bring to 158 for another 30 minutes. Batch sparged at 170F.

.35 oz mosaic added at first wort and boiled for 60 minutes, 1 oz flameout hops added when cutting flame and immediately rapidly chilled. After reaching 170 the chiller was stopped and 2 oz mosaic added and let sit for 10 minutes. Temperature fell to near 150 during this time and chiller was started briefly to bring to 140. 2 more oz of hops were added and let sit for 10 more minutes before slowly chilling to 80F. Ran off wort into carboy, collected 5 gallons at 1.042 and pitched a pack of Imperial Rustic. Because the wort was under intended volume and over intended gravity, I boiled, chilled, and added another half gallon to reach 5.5 gallons at 1.038.

2/21/23: yeast is fermenting strong less than 24 hours after pitching with a decent sized krausen and plenty of airlock activity.

2/23/23: Krausen has fallen and the beer is no longer showing any signs of active fermentation. Sample shows 1.008. Smells terrific with juicy fruit gum and a touch of pine aroma but weirdly the sample is thin, not very flavorful, and roughly bitter, hopefully it just needs some time. Added Napolean yeast harvested from Hoppy Black Saison to attempt to dry it out further and do what it does.

2/24/23: No signs of activity, moved to a warmer area in the basement near a vent.

2/26/23: Gravity sample shows the beer has dropped slightly to 1.006 and is also tasting much better and fuller at this point, may have just needed more time but the Napolean may also be adding some slight character that improves the overall impression.

3/1/23: Kegged.

3/17/23: Tasting (notes were somehow lost, will need to redo, but photos below)

4/2/2023: This beer did not place in it's category at the DC Homebrewers’ Cherry Blossom competition receiving a 27 (which seems harsh in my opinion). One judge commented that everything in the beer seemed too subtle (I wouldn't agree with that) while the other knocked it for being too fruity and tropical (that's probably accurate). This beer isn't brewed "to style" for a saison so while other variations of Maisonette have been received well in competitions that use audience favorite style judging or when entered in specialty categories, I don't think it's worth entering in any more BJCP style competitions as a saison (other than the one that I've already sent it too).

4/4/23: Tasting, notes above.

5/1/23: This beer surprisingly placed second out of twelve entries in the Belgian Ale & German Wheat category at the BURP Spirit of Free Beer competition. The beer scored a 34 and was only beat out in the category by another saison that went on to win Best of Show for the entire competition.