2 beers 1 day: French Saison & Irish Red Ale



Smelling the Greatness



Over the past few weeks I have been showing my buddy Gregg the ropes in the world of brewing. He has officially 'caught the bug'. So we both wanted to brew this weekend. I had a French Saison planned and he wanted to try brewing his first beer without my help.

We both made starters a few days before, I went with Wyeast 3711 and he chose WLP004. I chose 3711 for a few reasons, I wanted the beer to finish very dry and I have heard of this yeast putting a serious whooping on some sugars, taking it down past 1.010. Also I wanted all of the peppery and citrusy esters that it is known for.

My malt bill was simple for the Saison, mostly Belgian pilsner and a little Belgian wheat. I have been on a very simple malt bill kick lately to try and understand what each of them does for any given beer. I wanted to accentuate the peppery, spicy yeast notes by only using Saaz hops which can have those same characteristics.

Being Gregg's first beer he chose to do an extract batch with specialty grains, light malt extracts, roasted barely for that nice red color and some crystal 80L.

Brew day went well except for the fact that I didn't hit my efficientcy that I was hoping for but I think it is because I did a single batch sparge instead of splitting it into two batch sparges which is my normal.

Irish Red Ale

Brewed on 1/30/11 By: Gregg

5 Gal.

OG 1.067

FG 1.020 (anticipated)

IBU 20

SRM 17

6 lbs Light DME

3 lbs Light malt extract

6.5 oz Crystal 80L

3.5 oz Rosted Barely

1 oz Cluster 60 Min.

.5 oz Cluster 30 Min.

WLP004

1/31/11 - Lets just say its a good thing we put a blow off tube on that bad boy!

French Saison

Brewed on 1/30/11

5 Gal.

OG 1.046

FG 1.010 Anticipated

IBU 26

SRM 4

9 lbs Belgian Pilsner

1.25 lbs Belgian Wheat Malt

1 oz Saaz 60 Min.

1 oz Saaz 10 Min.

1.5 oz Saaz Flame Out

Yeast Nutrient & Irish Moss

Wyeast 3711 (Made 1 Liter Starter on stir plate)