but with exceptional weather and a day that Alli wasn't all that busy we decided to enjoy the weather and get some basketball playing done instead! So, the brew day was pushed back to yesterday. I worked in the morning so I didn't get to the place until around 4 and didn't get things set up and running until about quarter after. Then, after going through giant checklists of what all I needed to have to get the beer made, came to the realization that propane burners need fire to start. Duh. So in a pinch was able to go to the Ivar's (a specialty salmon restaurant that smells of smoked salmon 24/7 which makes that space that much more awesome) and steal a very large handful of match books. Finally then got the sparge water heating up at around 4:45. Everything seemed to be going fine until we realized that the 100 foot hose we have to run from the inside of the studio was backing up and spraying water all over the floor and leaking into one of the studios! We discovered it was from the nozzle we had on the end of the hose, so to solve that I now just have to run back and forth into the studio to turn the water on and off as I need it. After that things seemed to go great! I made the Saison from the Big Brew recipes (http://www.beertown.org/events/bigbrew/recipes.html) since I couldn't get out of work for the day of big brew. I did get most of the morning off though, so I'll still be at Larry's to check out everybody else :) So the mash went great. I got the strike water up to around 160 and got the mash going at about 151, which was about where I wanted it as I'm hoping for a very dry beer and lose about 3 degrees during my mash, but I was just happy that the brew day was outside in the sun! 
AND I was finally making a Saison. While the mash was going I started heating up my sparge water. I usually use about 28 quarts or so at around 180F. So, I filled my boil kettle with 28 quarts of water and when I put it on the burner with the thermometer in it it was at 35 degrees!! Fortunately, I realized later that since the hose is actually hooked up to a sink faucet it has a hot and cold setting and the hot is decently warm, next time hopefully this will shave some time off of heating water up. I didn't however realize this until after heating up the sparge water for this batch.... Which meant that when the mash was over the sparge water was at about 120F. At first this stressed me out, then I reached for the new issues of Zymurgy and thought "Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew" and just waited for the water to heat up while enjoying some fine reading in the sun. Unfortunately, at 165F I gave in and sparged with that. I also have a thing about not drinking until the chiller goes in, so I didn't have a homebrew. By this time it was getting somewhat late so usually when I drain my tun while fly-sparging I take it slow to try and extract as much as I can but with the sun going down I went a little bit faster. Once I got it in the boil pot I decided on a 60 minute boil instead of a 90 minutes boil as well. I was getting really nervous of cleaning all this stuff up in the dark in a place I had only been to twice before. When the boil finished I had actually cleaned up most everything and I tossed the chiller in. 
As I mentioned earlier the water there was near freezing so chilling the beer only took 25 minutes! I was verrry pleased with that. So I racked the beer into the carboy and carried it (I need one of those carboy handle things!) the very long distance into the space and pitched 2 packs of wyeast belgain saison yeast :) And now that I knew there are two different temperature settings I was able to clean everything in the near dead of night with warm (awesome) hose water. It made things a little quicker and easier.All in all things went really well! As far as the ability to brew there I think it'll work out fine. My only real issue now is the fermentation temperatures staying in check and the effect using hose water will have on my beers. When I put the water into the HLT it just stunk like hose :/ I'm hoping that doesn't make too much of a difference.
It's funny how the only time I ever plan on following a recipe word for word with out saying "I don't like that addition" or "I think this would be better in it" is Big Brew and this year through a little stress and hustle I still didn't follow it very closely. I didn't use any orange peel because I ran out of time, cut the boil time, cut back on the coriander, mashed at a lower temp, hahaha. So I'll be dubbing this "Le Sasion De Le Space" and have it only in a keg in the space for anyone who wants a taste :) Speaking of the space, here it is in it's beginning stages:
*Notice the unopened bottle of Saison Dupont that it got too late to drink last night, and Le Saison De Le Space all cuddled up in it's blanket*Future "The Space" will have a giant white board for note taking, a shelf of cellering beers, a chest freezer for lagering and future kegeratering, and much much more!
1 comment:
Don't worry about the low sparge temp. We're taught here to sparge at 168F-172F. However, I would worry about keeping that ferment warm. I've known that yeast to quit at 1.032 if it gets cold. But you can get it hot with little problems. I heated mine up last summer to 95F for two weeks and it fermented to dryness. Better save a bottle for me when I get back.
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