Sour Blonde 2.1.1

I've been wanting to brew up a beer using one of East Coast Yeast's Wild collections since I started brewing sour beers last year.  I've heard that their microbes seem to be quite a bit more aggressive than anything Wyeast or White Labs have to offer.  The trouble is that ECY is such a small operation and they have such a strong following amongst homebrewers that their limited quantities tend to sell out very quickly.  Last week I very surprised to find that ECY01 Bug Farm was available.  I quickly snapped it up and decided to brew up another Lambic Inspired Sour Blonde Recipe.

I'll be using raw wheat again for this batch (like with Sour Blonde 1.5.1).  This time I will up the malted wheat to 40% of the grainbill and I'll be doing a proper cereal mash with it.  As before, I'll be using pilsner as the base malt.  New with this batch, I've decided to throw in a pound of Munich for a slightly darker color.  I'll also be putting in 12 oz of Maltodextrine to help out the microbes during the long fermentation.  I'm planning on an OG of 1.045.

I've decided to lightly hop the batch with 0.5 oz of Fuggle which should get me ~7 IBU.  This may inhibit any lacto in the blend but I'm assuming that it will still end up plenty sour.

I'm going to give this beer 3 months in a bucket fermenter with the yeast at ambient basement temperatures (currently around 60 F).  I will then transfer the beer into a glass carboy for long term aging.  I plan on re-using this yeast cake for multiple beers as I've done with the Wyeast cake in my 1.x.x series of beers.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 4 lb Pilsner
• 1 lb Munich
• 3 oz Acid Malt
• 12 oz Maltodextrine
• Cereal Mash:
• 4 lb Unmalted Wheat
• 1 lb pilsner Malt
• Hops:
• 0.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.1% AA) at 60 min
• Yeast:
• ECY01 Bug Farm
• Water:
• 7 gal spring water
• 10 gal tap water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• Extras:
• 1 lb Rice Hulls

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• Main Mash:
• Step 1:  155 F for 15 min
• Step 2:  160 F for 60 min (Target 160 F for 60 min)
• Step 3:  Ramped up to 175 F in 25 min
• Cereal Mash:
• Step 1:  115 F for 15 min (Target 122 F for 15 min)
• Step 2:  155 F for 20 min (Target 150 F for 15 min)
• Step 3:  Boiled for 15 min (Target boil for 15 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temps:
• Ambient Basement Temps (60 F to 70 F)
• Primary Duration:
• 3 months
• Secondary Duration:
• 36 months

Results:

• OG:
• 1.045 (Target 1.045)
• Efficiency:
• 72% (Target 72%
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.004)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 91%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 5.38%)

Brewing Notes:

• 4/10/16 - Brewday - 11:45 AM to 4:15 PM - Not including cleanup:
• Cereal Mash:
• Double milled the wheat and barley for the cereal mash into a small pot
• Added 2.5 gal of hot tap water to the pot.  Settled out at 115 F
• Let sit for 15 min
• Heated up to 150 F on the turkey fryer.  Ended up overshooting a bit at 155 F
• Let it sit at this temp for 20 min while I did some yard work
• Heated up to a boil and boiled for 15 min.  Had a couple boil overs

• Milled the remainder of the grain by hand.  Mixed in rice hulls as I went
• Brought 7 gal of spring water up to 170 F
• Transferred water to mash tun until there were 2 gal above the false bottom
• Added CaCl
• Stirred in grain
• Settled at 155 F.  Let sit for 10 min at this temp while the cereal mash completed
• Added the cereal mash in gradually to avoid any major spike in heat.  Settled out at just about 160 F.

• Let sit for 15 min
• Started the cycle through the RIMS at 2 qt per min at 163 F.  There was quite a bit of gunk in the system.  I actually had to blow into the swan neck to get the flow going.  After a short bit of cycling it began to flow relatively clear.
• Mashed for 45 more min
• Raised the RIMS to 185 F at the end of the mash to raise to 175 F.  System had reached this temp after 25 min
• Heated 8 gal of sparge water to 200 F
• Fly sparged
• Collected 8 gal
• Measured the gravity at the grant as 3 brix at the end of the sparge
• Started heating the kettle after collecting 3 gal.  Had it at a boil shortly after the end of the sparge
• Added hops after the hot break cleared
• Added Maltodextrine half way through the boil
• Added the wort chiller just before flameout
• Chilled down to 75 F
• Transferred to fermenter

• Pitched yeast
• Moved to basement at ambient temperatures to ferment
• 4/11/16 - Off to a bit of a slow start but it had started bubbling by this afternoon
• 4/12/16 - Still bubbling but very slowly
• 10/20/17 - Status Report:
• Earthy and leathery funk.  Kind of reminds me of tobacco.  Also get a bit of fruit - tough to pin down.  Peach maybe.
• Golden and quite cloudy
• Big diacetyl butter popcorn flavor.  Has a bit of fruit mingled in.  A little acidity.  Brett funk is fairly firm and also get some bandaid flavor.  Finishes with a bit of bready malt
• Work in progress.  I think this has the potential for bold flavors but needs time
• 11/4/17 - Transferred this beer off the yeast cake into a glass carboy with a vented silicone bung for further aging.  Will give this until next year before I sample again.  I moved Sour Blonde 2.2.1 onto the cake.
• 5/25/18 - Status Report:
• Very cider like aroma.  Smells slightly musty
• Light gold and very clear
• Has a funky bandaid like flavor.  Also get some wine/cider like fruit notes.  Slight tartness in the finish.  I also note a faint bit of malty flavor in the finish
• Light bodied and very dry.
• This is a pretty interesting beer.  Flavors aren't exactly bold but they are different from the others.  Not terribly complex on its own but I think it could be useful for blending.
• 6/3/18 - Used 1 gal of this beer in my Sour Blond Blend
• 7/15/18 - Added 1 gal of Pilsner based 1.06 wort to this beer (had made this as a yeast starter for a new beer and had a bit left over)
• 8/24/19 - Status Report:
• Aroma:  Fruity and wine-like with a bit of funk.  Also get some malt coming through  Pretty bold aroma
• Appearance:  Light gold and very clear
• Flavor:  Quite sour.  Malty with a bit of fruit flavor and some earthy/leathery funk.  Some bandaid like brett character comes through in the finish
• Mouthfeel:  Light bodied and dry.  Slight prickling in the back of the throat
• Overall:  Bold flavors with a fair amount of complexity.  A bit too sour on it's own but could be a very nice part of a blend with a milder beer

Lessons Learned:

1. I really like the proper cereal mash.  Hopefully this produces a starchy enough wort to keep the microbes busy.

Flanders Red 4.1.1

I have accumulated dregs from two bottles of Jolly Pumpkin's La Roja, one bottle of Lost Abbey's Red Poppy, and one bottle of Russian River Consecration.  I collected the dregs in about 1 L of DME and Maltodextrine based wort over the last couple months.  It formed a pellicle after some time and is smelling very nice.  I've decided to brew up a new Flanders Red using these microbes.

This will be a 6 gal batch rather than the 12 gal I did for the last couple Flanders Reds.  I am going to try a few different things for this batch:

1. The first batches I made that used a mix of Pilsner, Vienna, and Munich malts have a really lovely red color.  I lost that somehow when I started using Maris Otter for these beers.  I'd like to get back to that color without switching back to the old grainbill (which was rather expensive).  The color in the last couple batches has been more golden brown than red (see Flanders Red 3.1.1).  I'm going to try to fix that by swapping CaraMunich III for CaraMunich II to see if that does the trick.
2. I have been using corn grits for the last several batches of beer.  I had been taking the approach of boiling them (without any conversion step with base malt) and then adding the starchy liquid into the main mash at the very end.  This was done under the theory that this starch would give the microbes a lot of extra food during the long secondary.  Even with this practice I've seen these beers ferment all the way down to the low 1.00s (see Flanders Red 1.5.1).  With the Belgian Wit I made a couple months back I did a proper cereal mash which included a conversion rest step.  This avoided a lot of the sticking that I had been experiencing with my previous approach with the corn.  I've decided to try this for this Flanders Red.  Additionally, I'm going to put these in at the start of the mash rather than at the end to allow conversion to occur.  Hopefully this will still leave some starches but also leave a bit clearer product.  It will be interesting to see if this has much impact on the activity of the microbes
3. I decided to use hops on this batch.  Half an ounce of Fuggle at 4.1% AA which should get me about 7 IBU.  I have been reusing Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II for primary in the last several batches of sour beer without the use of hops.  I plan on a Fifth pitch for this batch.  I've started to detect some development of sourness after primary in these like maybe some lacto has crept in.  I feel like the sourness level in the beers has started to get a bit out of hand (see Flanders Red 1.6.1).  Hopefully these hops will kill any of the lacto in the primary yeast.
4. I am going to skip the step of setting aside part of the beer to sour with lacto for this batch.  I would expect that these commercial microbes are going to get me plenty of sourness on their own.  I've read that the Jolly Pumpkin microbes, in particular, are very aggressive.
5. Will target a slightly higher gravity of 1.055 for this batch so upping the base malt a bit.  This will be nice for blending purposes

I plan on giving this beer 2-4 weeks in primary and then transferring it to a bucket fermenter with a silicon bung with the commercial microbes for long term secondary.  I will throw in an ounce of oak cubes for this secondary period.

Will be interesting to see how a beer made entirely from commercial microbes turns out compared with the strains from the yeast labs.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 5 lb Maris Otter
• 3 lb Munich
• 12 oz CaraMunich III
• 12 oz Aromatic Malt
• 12 oz Special B
• 12 oz Maltodextrine
• Cereal Mash:
• 1 lb 8 oz Corn Grits
• 8 oz Maris Otter
• Hops:
• 0.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.1% AA) at 60 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II (Fifth Pitch)
• Commercial Microbes from:
• 2 bottles Jolly Pumpkin's La Roja
• 1 bottle Lost Abbey's Red Poppy
• 1 bottle Russian River's Consecration
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 7.5 gal tap water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• Extras:
• 1 lb rice hulls
• 1 oz medium toast Hungarian oak cubes

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• Main Mash:
• Step 1:  152 F for 5 min (Prior to adding cereal mash)
• Step 2:  160 F for 60 min (Target 160 F for 60 min)
• Step 3:  Ramped up to 170 F in 25 min (Target ramp up to 175 in 25 min)
• Cereal Mash:
• Step 1:  115 F for 15 min (Target 122 F for 15 min)
• Step 2:  150 F for 15 min (Target 115 F for 15 min)
• Step 3:  Boil for 15 min (Target boil for 15 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temps:
• 70 to 75 F
• Primary Duration:
• 2 to 4 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• TBD - 18 to 36 months

Results:

• OG:
• 1.052 (Target 1.055)
• Efficiency:
• 64% (Target 68%)
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.004)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 92%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 6.69%)

Brewing Notes:

• 4/8/16 - Brewday - 1:30 PM to 6:15 PM including setup and cleanup
• Cereal mash
• Filled a 5 gal pot halfway with hot tap water - was about 120 F
• Added corn grits and milled barley into it by hand
• This lowered the temp down to about 115 F
• Let sit for 15 min.  This should allow the corn to start to rehydrate and maybe serve as a protein rest

• Heated up to 150 F on the turkey fryer
• Let sit at 150 F for 15 min
• Brought to a boil and boiled for 15 min.  The mash foamed up a lot but settled down after a bit without any intervention.  I actually didn't need to any stirring during the boil - the corn grits seemed to stay in suspension very well
• Milled the grain by hand which wasn't too bad.  I mixed in the rice hulls with the grain during this process
• Heated 10 gal of strike water to 160 F
• Added strike water to the mash tun until I had 3 gal above the false bottom.  Also let some drain backwards into the RIMS and grant to sit
• Added the grain to the mash tun and stirred to eliminate doughballs.  The grain was much less prone to doughballs with the rice hulls in it.
• The grain settled to 152 F after a few minutes
• Added the cereal mash to the main mash.  Added it gradually, stirring as I went, to avoid overheating the mash.  This ended up settling at 160 F which was right on target
• Let sit for 15 min undisturbed
• After 15 min I turned on the RIMS to cycle at ~2 qt per min set at 163 F
• Mashed for 60 min
• After 60 min I set the RIMS to 185 F to ramp up.  Let it ramp up for 25 min
• Added 5 gal of tap water to the HLT (for a total of 7.5) and heated this up to 210 F
• Fly sparged.  Ended up taking 22 min to get to 8 gal

• Started heating the kettle after collecting about 4 gal.  Had it at a boil prior to the end of the sparge
• Measured the gravity at the grant at the end of the sparge.  Was 5 brix which is about 1.02.  Left a lot of uncollected sugar behind apparently.
• Added my hops as soon as the hot break cleared
• Added the Maltodextrine with about 10 min in the boil
• Added the wort chiller just before flameout to sanitize
• Chilled down to 75 F
• Drained to bucket fermentor
• Pitch one jar of yeast slurry.  I had previously decanted off the spent beer and let it sit at room temperature for a couple hours.

• Moved to the heated fermentation chamber.  Beer was 72 F.  I will let it rise up to 75 F
• 4/9/16 - Fermentation started off slowly for this pitch.  It starting bubbling by the late morning.
• 4/22/16 - Cold crashing down to 35 F for a couple days to drop the yeast.
• 4/23/16 - Added gelatin to fine the beer
• 4/24/16 - Transferred the beer to a new bucket.  It is a really nice dark red color.  I think this is a good grainbill.  Collected almost 6 gal.  Measured the gravity as 1.016.  I had been getting 1.020 with my previous handling of the corn grits.  The wort is slightly more fermentable with a true cereal mash I guess.  I'm still pretty happy that it stopped this high.  The beer has a really nice fruity and slightly tart flavor.  Also has a pretty nice malty profile.  Setup the bucket with a vented silicone stopper (had to drill out the airlock hole to 1.25 in to fit that in.  Checked to make sure it was fairly air tight by pushing on the top of lid and then opening the vents slightly.  Could hear a hiss of air flow when I did this.  Will leave this at basement temps overnight before pitching the culture to avoid shocking the bacteria.
• 4/25/16 - Added 1 oz of oak (un-boiled and unwashed) to the beer.  Taste tested the bacteria starter.  It is thick and viscus.  I'd always heard that this could happen but this is the first time I've seen it.  The beer has a pretty nice bit of sourness.  It smells slightly of vinegar but there really isn't any in the flavor.  I'm really excited about this project.  I'm going to let this one sit for a year before opening.

• 7/23/17 - Status Report:
• Dark fruit mixed with a little earthiness
• Redish orange and very clear
• Light sourness.  It has a fruity flavor and earthiness on the finish.  Has a chocolate like finish as well (maybe from the dark malt?)
• Pretty strong flavors in this beer and a pretty complex profile

Lesson Learned:

1. Mixing rice hulls with the grain before doughing in is a good process change.  It made dough-in quite a bit easier
2. Going with a set time for temp ramp up (of 25 min) got the grain outside of the conversion range.  Saved a bit of time over going all the way up to 175 F
3. A proper cerial mash was a lot cleaner than my previous method of handling the corn.  Didn't require any stirring and I got no scorched corn.
4. Mashing with the cereal mash for 60 min produced a very clear wort and there was no point where it seemed like the mash was getting stuck.  Only time will tell if this wort is as good as the wort I produced via the other method.  In the last several batches, where I've had to stir the mash to avoid getting stuck, it seems like I've had a lot of slimy gunk get into the primary fermentor.  This could have been due to a lot of unconverted starches.  The stuff was so slimy that it was very difficult to actually transfer into the secondary.  I hope to avoid that going forward.  I think that this process change could help with that.
5. This grainbill looks to have provided a really great red color to the beer.  I think this is a winner.

Single Hop IPA (Centennial) - Tasting

I brewed up this single hop IPA using Centennial hops about a month and a half ago.  This was based on a Bell's Two Hearted Clone.  I feel like I'm still learning a lot from using other people's recipes so I'm continuing to do these.  It is also nice to brew up single hop recipes like this to get a better handle on the contributions from each hop.  Brewing clones, even when I haven't had the beer, has also turned out nicely for me.

I've had some really great luck with IPAs so far.  Some of the best beers I've made so far have been heavily hopped.  Hops are a pretty amazing spice in general given all the different flavors you can get out of them.  Having a beer with a lot of late flavoring hops seems like a pretty clear cut way to get a great beer.

I took a few lessons from the Heady Topper clone I did a few months back and loaded up on post flameout hops to try to get intense hop flavor and aroma in this one.  It worked as expected but I may not have properly vetted some of the ingredients (hops and hop extract) I had been storing in the fridge.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Piney and citrusy hops dominate.  Maybe get a bit of caramel from the malt.  I don't really get any yeast or alcohol character from it as the hops are very potent.  Some of the first bottles I drank were the last ones filled which got a lot of hop particulate.  Those had an unpleasant grassy aroma.  This one, and other recent ones don't have that fortunately.  This is a pretty nice smelling beer.
• Appearance:
• Pours with a two finger head.  The foam lasts for quite a while and leaves lacing on the glass.  The beer is a dark gold and is fairly clear.
• Flavor:
• Up front I get some nice hop flavors (pine mostly) with a bit of sweet honey and caramel from the malt.  It finishes with a pretty pronounced bitterness which dominates.  I don't really care for the character of the bitterness.  It has odd (maybe off) flavor that lingers.  I'm a bit torn on whether this might be due to some oxidation in the beer.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium light bodied.  Pretty low carbonation.  A bit of sweetness in the finish.  Bitterness seems to have a slightly astringent component to it.  The finish is slightly harsh.
• Overall:
• Not really too happy with how this one turned out.  The odd flavor in the bitterness doesn't ruin the batch (I'm going to drink the rest of it) but it certainly detracts.  I suspect that the hop extract (which was admittedly not stored very well for the last 5 months) could have gotten a bit oxidized.  I used it in my Double IPA (which turned out great) and didn't notice this strange flavor.  That one did have a richer malt bill and more hops so it's possible that those masked this flavor and that this is how the extract is supposed to taste.  Anyway, it's an IPA so it's supposed to be bitter.  I shouldn't be complaining too much that it is.  I'm tempted to enter this into an upcoming local competition to get some unbiased opinions as to whether it tastes "off" to anyone else.

Tart and Funky Saison

Tired Hand's SaisonHands is, without question, the best Saison I have ever had.  It has a really wonderful mix of spicy, earthy, citrusy, and tart flavors all rolled into a really easy drinking package.  It is a real pleasure to drink in volume.  The beer is pretty much at a Lambic level of complexity.  I don't recall this from my initial tastings of the beer but there seems to be a fairly significant contribution from Brett and possibly some Lactic Acid Bacteria.  This seems to be in line with their current use of Oak Foeders for maturing the beer.  It is a tall order but I've decided to attempt to create a Saison with a similar level of complexity.

The SaisonHands grainbill is a mix of Barley, Wheat, Rye, and Oats according to the brewery.  Apparently they are pretty tight lipped with their recipes so their ratios are an open question.  I decided to go with something similar to this recipe from the Ales of the Riverwards blog.  Ultimately, I think the grainbill is sort of secondary in this beer as the yeast and other critters will really be the star of the show.  I will be shooting for an OG of 1.040 and an FG of 1.004 which should get me in the neighborhood of 4.7% ABV

To try to duplicate the complex fermentation character I am going to primary with both yeast and bugs.  I'm sort of taking a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach with this beer:

• For the primary yeast I'll use Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison which is the Saison Dupont strain.  I believe, with it's spicy and tart character, it is probably a bit closer to the Tired Hands strain than the Wyeast French Saison Yeast (3711) I used for my last Saison.  The downside with using this yeast is that it is reported to be a bit finicky and prone to stalling out.  I will try to hold the fermentation in the 80s to keep things moving along.  I wont just be relying on this strain to do the job though so even if it does stall it wont be the end of the world.
• I picked up a Growler of SaisonHands a couple weeks ago and saved the last bit of beer to try to seed my starter with a bit of Tired Hand's microbes.  It turned out that nothing really came out of suspension during it's time sitting so I may be out of luck but I will pitch this anyway.
• Decided to also throw in a few tablespoons of my Lacto Culture (eighth generation of WLP 672 Lactobacillus Brevis) for good measure.  Hopefully this will help it develop a bit of the tartness found in the original.
• Finally, I have opted to also add some dregs from a Oud Beersel "Oude Geuze Vieille" which has a fairly similar Brett character to what I picked up in SaisonHands.  If the primary yeast stalls out I would expect these microbes to pick up the slack.

I will probably give the beer 2 weeks of temperature control and then move it to ambient basement temps for couple month secondary.  Basement should start warming up in this period.  The original beer is aged in oak but I don't really get much in the way of oak flavor from it so I'm not going to add any cubes.

For the hops,  I will be using cascades like the original beer.  I am going to wait until the end of the boil to minimize bitterness a maximize the flavoring contributions.

I will give this beer as much time as it needs but as a going in position I am thinking two months would be a good amount of time to let the various bugs do their thing.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 6 lb 8 oz Pilsner
• 12 oz White Wheat
• 12 oz Rye
• 8 oz Flaked Oats
• 3 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Cascade (Pellet, 5.5% AA) at 10 min
• 1 oz Cascade (Pellet, 5.5% AA) at 5 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison
• WLP 672 Lactobacillus Brevis (Ninth Generation)
• Tired Hands "SaisonHands" Dregs
• Oud Beersel "Oude Geuze Vieille" Dregs
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 5.75 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 150 F for 60 min (Target 150 F for 60 min)
• Boil:
• 90 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 80 F
• Primary Duration:
• 15 Months (Target 2 Months)
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.038 (Target 1.040)
• Efficiency:
• 69% (Target 76%)
• FG:
• 1.000  (Target 1.004)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 100 (Target 90%)
• ABV:
• 4.99% (Target 4.73%)

Brewing Notes:

• 3/31/16 - Made a 1.5 L starter with 6.5 oz of DME and 1/8 an ounce of yeast nutrient.  Chilled in the sink and then added SaisonHands dregs.  Put it on the stir plate to propagate.
• 4/1/16 - Added Wyeast 3724, Lacto, and Lambic dregs to the starter.  The starter had reached high krausen by the next day

• 4/3/16 - Brewday - 10:30 AM to 2:00 PM - Including setup and cleanup
• Heated 10 gal of spring water 160 F
• Power was out so I had to mill the grain using the hand crank
• Transferred 28 qt of water to the Mash Tun by hand which gave me about 3.5 gal above the false bottom
• Added CaCl and Gypsum to the mash tun
• Added the grain and stirred in well to eliminate dough balls
• Checked the mash temp after 10 min - had settled to 150 F
• Let mash for 60 min

• Heated the remaining 4 gal of water to 200 F with about 15 min left in the mash
• Added the mash out water to the mash tun and then gravity drained to the kettle
• Collected 9 gal
• Brought the wort to a boil
• Added the first dose of hops with 10 min left in the boil
• Added the second dose of hops with 5 min left in the boil
• Added the wort chiller just before flameout and brought the wort back up to a boil
• Chilled to 85 F before transferring to the fermenter.  It is very cloudy wort.
• Measured the gravity as 1.038 F
• Moved to the fermentation chamber with reptile heater.  The beer is just about 80 F.  Will allow the fermentation to rise up to 90 F
• Added the yeast to the batch

• 4/4/16 - The beer stated bubbling vigorously by yesterday evening and is still bubbling strongly this morning.  The fermenter is up to 82 F.  Will be interesting to see if it continues to rise.
• 4/22/16 - The fermentation chamber has been in the low 70s for the last couple weeks.  I moved this beer out to the 60 F basement to age out a bit more.
• 5/8/16 - Checked on the beer.  Had a pellicle and a funky aroma.  Smells funky and a bit like a pickle.  I noticed this smell in the dregs of the SaisonHands.  Decided not to take a sample just yet.  I'll give this one another month undisturbed.

• 7/3/17 - Finally getting around to bottling this beer!  It still has the pellicle and has a really funky aroma including the pickle like smell I got from the SaisonHands.  The sample measures 1.000 SG and is straw colored and crystal clear.  Lovely beer.  The flavor is lightly tart with spicy yeast character and slight earthiness in the finish.  The beer underwent two short moves over the last year - got shaken up slightly in the car.  Doesn't seem like this had any negative effects on this beer.  Bottled with 4 oz of priming sugar and a rehydrated package of Red Star Premier Cuvee wine yeast.  Got 56 12 oz bottles of beer from this batch.  I'll give it a couple weeks to carbonate at basement temps before trying one.

• 8/30/17 - Tasting Notes - The level of complexity in this beer is very satisfying.  I feel like I could pass this off as a Lambic as easily as I could a Saison with all the flavors it brings to play.

Lessons Learned:

1. Batch sparging saved a lot of time over the normal fly sparging.  Another pound of grain would have more than made up for the efficiency loss associated with this sparge method.  Need to evaluate where I want my efficiency to be and consider the cost/benefit a bit more.