Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Solo brew by the numbers..


Just finished up with a solo brew and it was just picture perfect. Targeting 1.052 O.G. and 5.5 gallons, and got 1.051 and 5.75 gallons. That's pretty close in my book. I'll take it. It's a base beer for a 100% White Labs WLP645 Brett Clausenii yeast that I got from my boy, Jody. I don't remember the occasion, but he just gave it to me and said make something with it. So, I whipped up a really simple base recipe of 9.75 lbs of two row and 0.25 lbs of crystal 45, and fermented it low at 149 for a short trip of 1/2 an hour. I mashed low to acentuate the ferntability of the wort, and went with a short mash time to, hopefully, leave a tad bit of unconverted starch in there for the wild beasts in the yeast to stress out on, giving more wonky flavor in the end result. 
 
So.. since I usually name all my beers by mistakes and disasters that occur during the brew day, and, since nothing bad happened during *this* brew day.. what should I name this thing?
I ended up going for a pale ale with this particular yeast when I was originally thinking about a stout or darker beer because of Saison tasting party I went to at Will's place the other day.. They had a beer there, Jolly Pumpkin's Bam Bier, that was a really pale, saison-ish style thing, that was just beautiful to drink. At the end of the night, I ended up going home with the dregs in the bottle from that beer, and the next day whipped up a low gravity wort to pitch those guys in to. Check the result:



It's hard to see in this poor pic, but the camera doesn't wanna focus so well inside the jug... Dig those wacky strands of goopey crazyness in there? Disgusting! This smells POWERFULLY of pineapple. From my reading in WildBrews, this is a characteristic of the beginnings of acetic acid production. It's very distinct, and just like pineapple, no kidding.

I'm beat.. get out of here, kids!

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