Farmhouse Mild: Recipe

Last fall, I made a Petit Saison with White Labs' Saison I strain. It was a 4% ABV beer with about 25 IBUs and an ounce of Sorachi Ace at flameout. That beer quickly took the place of my Kolsch as my favorite low-alcohol beer, not including, of course, my series of "American Bitters." For round two, I wanted to test out the Wyeast Farmhouse Ale strain. To match the peppery and earthy characteristics, I wanted a bit of fruit, so I went with small hop additions of Citra and Amarillo. My thought on this was that I might be able to capture something akin to very fresh Fantôme Saison, which has beautiful notes of peach and tropical fruits.

Batch Number: 33
Brew Date: March 24, 2012
Keg Date: TBD
Batch Size: 5 Gallon
OG: 1.037
FG: TBD
IBU: 25
ABV: TBD
SRM: 3.0

Mash: Single infusion for 90 minutes at 149 F.
Boil: 90 minute

Fermentables

7.0 lb French Pilsner
0.50 lb Flaked Rye

Hops

0.5 oz Citra (12.4 AAU) at 20 minutes
0.5 oz Amarillo (6.9 AAU) at 20 minutes
0.5 oz Citra (12.4 AAU) at flameout
0.5 oz Amarillo (6.9 AAU) at flameout

Other

1/4 tsp Yeast Nutrient at 10 minutes
Whirlfloc tablet at 10 minutes

Yeast

Farmhouse Ale (Wyeast 3726)

Notes

03.20.2012 Made a starter with Wyeast 3726 Farmhouse Ale. I forgot to write down the date, but I think the package was 8-10 weeks old. I wasn't terribly concerned with the age, as I'm using this to make the second beer in my line of petit saisons. The volume is approximately 1.6 liters.

03.24.2012 Brewday. This is the first brew at our new house. The starter has fully fermented and the yeast is dropped. Very clear beer remains.

I mashed at 149 F for 90 minutes, infusing with 12 quarts of 163 F water. Initial mash temperature was 149 F after adding a pint or two of filtered water. The final temperature in the mash tun was 147 F. After draining, I batch sparged with 6.5 gallons of 180 F water. The final yield was 8 gallons of 1.029 runnings.

After chilling to 70 F, I transferred the wort to a 6-gallon Better Bottle with a funnel, sending over the trub and all. It got some aeration during this time, and also as I sloshed it carrying the carboy down the basement stairs. Give this, and the fact that the OG only came in at 1.037, I didn't feel the need to blast with pure oxygen.

While I normally decant the starter wort, this time I did not, as I hadn't really introduced much oxygen over its course, and also because there was still some yeast left on top, so I thought I'd give it ago. After all, it probably won't affect the flavor much (if at all) and it means an extra 1.5 liters of beer for me.