Flowerfield (Stickman Collaboration): Recipe

Over Memorial Day weekend, I brewed a collaboration with my friend Matt at Stickman Brewing while he was in town for the holiday.  We naturally decided to go with a saison, and each ended up using our own yeast blends.  I opted for a second use of the Yeast Bay Saison Blend, which I had previously tried out in a batch of Namur (Batch 03).  I also ended up adding some East Coast Yeast 03 Farmhouse Brett (Saison Blend) and some Citrine (the "dreg blend" portion of Batch 5&6), as for whatever reason, I had a hard time getting the Yeast Bay Saison Blend to start fermenting, even though it was a relatively fresh cake and I had done a starter. Matt went with his house blend, which contains saison yeast along with Brett C and Brett Trois.  We mashed quite a bit higher than I normally do, which should hopefully bring out a bit more Brett character.

I also took 1 gallon of my portion and fermented separately in a gallon jug with the grown up dregs from bottles of Ale Apothecary Sahati and Sahalien, both courtesy of the ever generous William.

We ended up naming the beer Flowerfield, not because of our use of flowers, but related to a running joke about a town near me that no longer exists, but still has signs welcoming you to it.  Although, in the interest of keeping with the name, we blew in a few dandelion seeds during chilling, potentially adding a bit of Lombard wild yeast.

Here are the full details on the batch:

Batch Number: 86

Brew Date: May 25, 2014.

Bottle Date:

Batch Size: 10 Gallon

OG: 1.048 (est.); 1.045 (actual)

FG: 1.002 (est.)

Fermentation Temperature: 68-76* F

IBU: 30.2

ABV: 6.0%

SRM: 3.4

Mash: Single infusion for 60 minutes at 155* F

Boil: 60 minute

Fermentables

12.5 lb Pilsner

3.5 lb Flaked Wheat

2.0 lb Flaked Rice

1.0 lb Acid Malt

Salts & Water

4.0g Calcium Chloride (all into the kettle)

3.0g Sodium Chloride (all into the kettle)

3.0g Gypsum (all into the kettle)

Resulting water profile is as follows:

Mash pH (est.): 5.38

Calcium: 67

Magnesium: 12

Sodium: 29

Chloride: 84

Sulfate: 58

5mL lactic acid added to the sparge water to get it to a pH around 5.5.

Hops

1.0 oz. Columbus (17.5 AAU) at 60 minutes

4.0 oz. Nelson Sauvin (12.0 AAU) at flameout

Other

2.0 tsp. Wyeast Yeast Nutrient at 10 minutes

Yeast

3.5-4 gallon portion:

Yeast Bay Saison Blend (2nd Generation)

East Coast Yeast Farmhouse Brett (Saison Blend) (2nd Generation)

Citrine dregs

1 gallon portion:

Ale Apothecary Dregs

Notes

05.25.2014: Brewday.  OG a bit low at 1.045.  Missed the initial volume on the mash, going way thick, as I used the wrong measuring stick.  Keeping with the name of the beer, blew in the seeds from two dandelion stems.  Won't add much other than perhaps a bit of Lombard wild yeast.  3.5 gallons went into a bucket that got 30 seconds of O2, and a starter of the Yeast Bay Saison/Brettanomyces cake from Batch 082 of Namur.  I had a relatively thick cake (approximately 125mL) and put that into a 1.25L starter for 1.5 days before pitching.  Pitched the whole starter.  The remaining gallon received 10 seconds of pure oxygen, and I pitched the dregs from bottles of Ale Apothecary Sahalien and Sahati that I had grown up on the stir plate.

05.26.2014: Room temperature to start.  Bumped to 68*F at 16 hours.  Bumped to 70*F at 24 hours.  

05.27.2014: Bumped to 72*F at 30 hours.  All readings so far are actual temperatures, with the controller set 2*F higher with a 2*F differential.

05.28.2014: This morning, still nothing happening.  Gravity is down to 1.042.  Added a jar a slurry (~250mL) of ECY03 cake, and also a wine thief full of the December 2013 batch of Ctrine.  Bumped temperature to 74*F.  Finally fermenting in the evening.

05.29.2014: Good krausen this morning.  Bumped the temperature to 76*F this evening.

05.31.2014: Late tonight, turned the temperature down to 75*F on the controller, which should allow the actual temperature of the water bath to fall down to 73* F.

06.01.2014: Sitting at 73*F, so this morning I turned the controller down to 72*F, which should allow it to naturally drift down to 70*F, which should be right where I want it to start fermenting Batch 087 later today.  After adding in Batch 087, removed this bucket to room temperature to finish out as necessary.

06.19.2014: Kegged the 4-gallon portion.  Again the Yeast Bay Saison/Brett blend is giving me a little bit of acidity, and it's not something I particularly care for.  Will need to see how that develops, as I might need to use a bit of fruit to complement it, or perhaps use this portion for blending in the future.

07.20.2014: Small auto siphon broke while trying to transfer Ale Apothecary dreg version.  Was not able to bottle, but saved cake to use for future batch.

07.27.2014: Update on kegged version.  Measured pH is 3.9.