Made a Fonio Pale Ale in honor of my late ninja cat - Osiris Gold. Used 81.5% Gambrinus IPA malt and 18.5% Fonio. Hopped with Michigan Magnum and Styrian Wolf.
Smooth lautering and easy brew day.
now we’ll see how it turns out!
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Brewed a British Brown Ale and a witbier today… except I accidentally used Munich II malt instead of pilsner malt in the wit, which led to low onversion/reduced efficiency… I’ve got 5.5 gallons of amber 1.040 Witbier fermenting now.
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I’ve always been interested in fermenting with my sourdough starter. Does 50 grams seem to be enough for your 6.5 liter batch? Have you ever scaled it to larger batches?
I’ve only done two batches, both small like this.
It took about 24 hours to show visible signs of fermentation and then started up pretty vigorously. Today is day seven of fermentation, and it’s at 81% apparent attenuation.
My wife’s starter isn’t terribly lactic compared to other sourdoughs I’ve had; so with 15 IBUs I’m not expecting a whole lot of lactic acid.
Brewed a Maibock/Helles bock today.
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I would use some of the starter to make a starter with wort, probably just like a 1L starter, then would pitch that. I’m not sure if I would decant or try to pitch my starter when it had active krausen, but I wouldn’t go directly from chunk of doughy starter into 20L of wort, I would want to build it up in a wort starter first.
That’s a great idea, can’t believe I hadn’t thought of that yet, I assume it would yield some kind of sour given the wild yeast?
I tasted a pro brewer’s “test batch” of a red ale (I think) brewed with a chunk of sourdough starter from a local San Francisco bakery once. It was remarkably unremarkable. I think we discussed whether it would benefit from aging longer or not. I don’t think it ever made it to production, but that brewery is also long gone. In any case, I think the sac c will likely be the main organism if you don’t age it, and will probably just come across as a little “homebrewy,” at least at first. It may be more interesting bottle conditioned and aged than the kegged batch I tasted (which was perfectly palatable).
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What sounds like a cool idea often flops in reality. Although brewing yeast and baking yeast have the same heritage, like 1056 and US05 they produce different results.
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If it follows the first batch, it’ll taste like an estery-fruity ale when young and get more phenolic-peppery as it ages. But it’s already hitting higher apparent attenuation than the first batch (I was intentionally aiming for a more fermentable wort) so we’ll see where it goes.
56% pale malt
40% wheat malt
3% dextrose
OG 1.051
~15 IBU
WLP530
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Not the weekend, but I’m brewing a version of my Oatface pale ale:
1.055 OG
~35 IBU
88% pale ale malt
9% flaked oats
3% golden naked oats
First wort- 1.5 oz. homegrown Columbus
10 min. 3/4 oz. Citra pellets
hop stand 1.25 oz. Citra pellets
maybe dry hop with 2 oz. homegrown Cascade
fermenting with Cellar Science “Hazy”
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Third iteration of an Italian Pilsner (Peroni) ??
54% Weyermann Eraclea Pilsner
28% Briess Organic/ non-GMO flaked corn
10% +/- Gold Pils Vienna
3.6% Bonlander Munich
3% Weyermann Acidulated
S-189
Hallertau to bitter/60mins/16 IBU’s
Perle @ 30mins/5 IBU’s
Czech Saaz @ 10mins
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Yesterday I brewed for the first time since June 2024.
I had two Wyeast smack packs of saison yeast that were a year past their expiration date: 3724 Belgian saison and 3726 farmhouse. I stepped them up twice with starters, 1 liter, then 2 L. Both yeast starters acted quite differently - 3724 fermented quickly, thick layer of settled yeast under clear liquid, 3726 still has most yeast suspended.
10 gallons, OG 1.065
20 lbs Viking pils
2 lbs Viking vienna
2 lbs Viking wheat
3.5 oz. Golden Naked Oats (remnant of a bag that seemed worth chucking in)
Mash at 148f for 45 min, add 2.5 gal of boiling water to mash at 156f for another 45 min. Batch sparge.
4 oz. Strisselspalt hops FWH
1.4 oz Czech Kazbek hops 90 min
1 oz Lubelski hops 90 min
2.5 lbs cane sugar added halfway during the 90 minute boil.
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This afternoon I’m brewing an “homage to an homage” of Stone’s Cali-Belgique IPA.
57% 2-row (Great Western), 29% pilsen (DIngemans), 7% dextrine (Viking), 7% Munich Dark (Viking), to hit ~1.063 and 6 SRM. Bittered with 46 IBU Chinook (60 minute boil) and 10 minute boil for Centennial (7 IBU)+Columbus (14 IBU). Fermenting with Monk (Cellar Science), and dry hopping with 1.25 oz. Columbus and 0.25 oz. Centennial. Aiming to hit 152 degree mash, 1.063 s.g., 1.011 f.g., 6.8% abv.
This is a bittersweet beer to brew. It’s an “homage to an homage” because the recipe started as my friend Steve’s attempt to clone Cali-Belgique (now no longer available commercially). He made it his own over the years, and for those familiar with the beer you’ll note it has a little bit of drift from what the original likely was. It was a darned good beer, and probably the one I associate most closely with Steve.
Steve passed away just over a week ago, after a short and unexpected illness. We first brewed together (according to my notes) over 15 years ago, when I introduced him to the hobby (I say that completely immodestly). He rapidly became a very skilled and creative brewer – I like to “stick to the numbers,” and he was always willing to chase concepts and flavors (sage from his garden in a saison, as one of my favorites). We roomed together at the AHA Conference in 2015 in San Diego, were members of the same brew club (Horse Thief Brewers Association!) and had many tastings and festivals and brew sessions together over the years. He was an amazing amateur astronomer also, and science educator, and so much more. Steve was my good friend; I’m at peace with his passing now, but it is still sad.
Making something in Steve’s honor seemed like a good project. I unfortunately didn’t have his most recent version of the recipe, but fortunately the homebrew shop (Pacific Brewing Supplies) we both use(d) happened to have a record of the ingredient lists he called in! Charles (at the shop) helped me reconstruct the recipe, although we had to take a bit of creative license on adding the hops, etc. I also upped the amount of 2-row, because I don’t have quite as high of efficiency. (I’ll note that is part of what makes our local shop so awesome – Charles totally didn’t have to do this, could have just said he couldn’t find it, etc., but I am so grateful he took the time to help me with this project).
This beer will be a wonderful way to remember a great friend and great brewer…cheers to you, Steve, and cheers to all of you out there!
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I’ve had great experiences with Charles, but the star of the shop is the big shop loaf of a cat. 
I brewed two batches this week - The Dole Whip Tripel and a fibonacci inspired saison. Got two more batches to make!
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Best cat ever! (and I say that as a dog person)
Intrigued by the Fibonacci saison…
Here’s the recipe - Grainfather Community Tools
Really wanted to get some classic characters in there without being too over the top in terms of leaning into the “idea”. Between the Hana, the Chit and the Spelt, I’m really hoping to catch a rustic old fashioned tone to the Saison.
And yes, that big ole marshmallow of a cat is quite clearly abused.
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Login required … any chance of a copy/paste?