My favorite homebrew; Vindicated!

When I first had Saison-Brett from Boulevard Brewing, I LOVED it. It is still one of my favorite beers. After having this glorious concoction I was inspired to try and brew something with the little fungi we call Brettanomyces. When I first tried to put my recipe together, I had trouble finding the Wyeast/White Labs strains I was looking for around here. Most of the people I talked to about it only warned me how Brett will destroy every single beer I would ever hope to make again on the same equipment because of contamination! Apparently they have never used sanitizer!

Anyhow, I ended up with a farmhouse style ale. It is a fairly simple recipe using two-row, malted wheat, and flaked corn. Hops used are Magnums, Simcoes, and Williamettes. I came up with the name BrettanoFunky Farmhouse and loved it.

Recently I entered it into the 27th Annual KC Bier Meister's Homebrew Competition and won a GOLD medal for the Belgian and French Ale category (subcategory: Belgian Specialty Ale)! I was super excited and it made it even better that this is my favorite beer I brew!

The other medal is for a Pliny the Elder style super hoppy Imperial IPA.

Here is the recipe for the BrettanoFunky Farmhouse. Hopefully you have the patience to let it age! Also, it is hard to find the Wyeast 3726 Farmhouse and the Wyeast 5151 Brettanomyces Claussenii as they are special editions. Whoops!

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Recipe: BrettanoFunky Farmhouse
Brewer: Thomas Sanford
Asst Brewer:
Style: Belgian Specialty Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (36.0)

Recipe Specifications
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Batch Size: 5.00 gal Boil Size: 4.08 gal
Estimated OG: 1.087 SG
Estimated Color: 5.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 29.0 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
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Amount Item Type % or IBU
10 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 63.49 %
4 lbs 12.0 oz Wheat Malt, Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 30.16 %
1 lbs Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM) Grain 6.35 %
1.00 oz Magnum [13.10 %] (30 min) Hops 20.0 IBU
1.00 oz Simcoe [12.00 %] (10 min) Hops 8.6 IBU
0.50 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (2 min) Hops 0.5 IBU
0.50 oz Williamette [4.30 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
1.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
5.00 gal Kansas City, KS Water
1 Pkgs Brettanomyces Bruxellensis (Wyeast Labs #3Yeast-Ale
1 Pkgs Brettanomyces Clausenii (White Labs #5151 Yeast-Ale
1 Pkgs Farmhouse Ale (Wyeast #3726 PC) Yeast-Ale

Mash Schedule: Temperature Mash, 1 Step, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 15.75 lb
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Temperature Mash, 1 Step, Medium Body Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Saccharification Add 19.69 qt of water at 163.7 F 152.0 F
10 min Mash Out Heat to 168.0 F over 10 min 168.0 F

Notes:
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The carbonation level will be slightly higher than listed due to to attenuation capabilities of the Brettanomyces strains used. By letting the beer age for about 5 months before bottling, most of the residual sugars will have been fermented out by the Brett. Add the Brett strains after primary fermentation with the Farmhouse Ale yeast is complete.

UPDATE:
Last December 19th (2009) I brewed a batch of this using the White Labs Clausenii and the White Labs Saison yeast.  After bottling it on the 15th of December (2010), we had a blind tasting comparing this new version to the original medal winner last night (Dec. 27th).  We decided that the original was much more funky relative to the new one.  Thus, the original version will be what gets entered into the MCAB competition which is accepting entries now.  I am up against a bunch of AWESOME homebrewers, so I don't expect to win anything.  However, I will certainly update this post with the results.  Have a good new year!! 

Fixing the HERMS

Let me start this off with saying I can't stand it when stuff doesn't work. It just absolutely irritates me to no end. So... this weekend I said.... hey I should brew a pale ale. So I did. I put together a recipe for a fairly hoppy pale ale I named C4 Pale Ale. I named it that because it uses Citra, Columbus, Cascade, and Centennial hops. That's four hops that start with C if you weren't paying attention. I put the recipe below.

ANYWAYS... I was brewing/watching the KSU - OSU game and wasn't watching closely. One of my PID controllers had been giving me an error message so I thought one of my temperature controllers had gone bad. I worked around that and brewed anyway. While I was watching the game I let the water level get past the electric water heating element in the HLT. I didn't realize this did anything until I was fixing the sensor... which I did successfully. Then I realized that one of my 4500W heating elements exploded because there was no water to offer resistance. It took me 2 hours and $100 worth of tools to remove the old element because it had slightly welded itself into the threads. Here are some pictures of why it took so dang long.

Point is... I got the element out. It looks like it needed it. I replaced it with a bigger element, so now I have 10,000W to heat my water. It should help cut a little time off. I was pretty excited to get it loose since I had to stand on top of the keggle, with a new 18" pipe wrench hanging off the old element, slamming it with a sledge hammer. Sometimes a little brute force is needed. Everything is fixed and this weekend we will be using it to brew a Belgian Golden Strong Ale for a friends wedding after we started the tradition with Kyle's wedding.

C4 Pale Ale

Brew Type: All Grain	Date: 1/21/2010
Style: American IPA	Brewer: Thomas Sanford
Batch Size: 10.00 gal	Assistant Brewer:
Boil Volume: 11.45 gal	Boil Time: 60 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 80.00 %

Brewing Steps

Check			Time	Step
			1/21/2010	Clean and prepare equipment.
			--	Measure ingredients, crush grains.
			--	Prepare Water (14.45 gal total) Amount Item Type 10.00 gal Kansas City, KS Water
			--	Prepare Ingredients for Mash Amount Item Type 20 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 2 lbs Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) Grain 1 lbs 8.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain
			--	WARNING: Preheat Mash Tun - No equipment adjustments made!
			2 min	Mash Ingredients Mash In: Add 37.50 qt of water at 157.2 F
			50 min	- Hold mash at 148.0 F for 50 min
			2 min	Mash Out: Heat to 170.0 F over 2 min
			10 min	- Hold mash at 170.0 F for 10 min
			--	Sparge with 5.08 gal of 168.0 F water.
			--	Add water to achieve boil volume of 11.45 gal
			--	Estimated Pre-boil Gravity is: 1.065 SG with all grains/extracts added
			Boil for 60 min	Boil Ingredients Boil Amount Item Type 60 min 0.66 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (60 min) Hops 60 min 0.66 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (60 min) Hops 60 min 0.66 oz Citra [11.10 %] (60 min) Hops 60 min 0.66 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] (60 min) Hops 15 min 0.66 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (15 min) Hops 15 min 0.66 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (15 min) Hops 15 min 0.66 oz Citra [11.10 %] (15 min) Hops 15 min 0.66 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] (15 min) Hops 1 min 0.66 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (1 min) Hops 1 min 0.66 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (1 min) Hops 1 min 0.66 oz Citra [11.10 %] (1 min) Hops 1 min 0.66 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] (1 min) Hops
			--	Cool wort to fermentation temperature
			--	Add water (as needed) to achieve volume of 10.00 gal
			--	Siphon wort to primary fermenter and aerate wort.
			--	Add Ingredients to Fermenter Amount Item Type 2 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale
			1/21/2010	Measure Original Gravity: ________ (Estimate: 1.074 SG)
			1/21/2010	Measure Batch Volume: ________ (Estimate: 10.00 gal)
			5 days	Ferment in primary for 5 days at 68.0 F
			1/26/2010	Transfer to Secondary Fermenter
			7 days	Ferment in secondary for 7 days at 68.0 F
			--	Add Ingredients to Fermenter Amount Item Type 1.00 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops 1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops 1.00 oz Citra [11.10 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops 1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops
			2/2/2010	Measure Final Gravity: ________ (Estimate: 1.018 SG)
			--	Bottle beer at 68.0 F with 4.7 oz of corn sugar.
			4.0 Weeks	Age for 4.0 Weeks at 52.0 F
			3/2/2010	Sample and enjoy!