#29 Blackberry Saison - Brewday

Recipe     -     Brewday     -     Tasting

I think I'm finally getting used to brewing with the cooler mash tun, and using BeerSmith to calculate strike water temperature.  I pretty much nailed my mash temp at 152F.  I'm just not getting the temperature up for the mash out like I'm expecting.  1.5 gal of boiling water only brought the temp up to 160 instead of the expected 165F.  I'm not sure whether it was that or the sparge temp (also low), or just the crush, but I haven't been able to push the efficiency above about 66%.

During the boil, I got slightly less evaporation than I anticipated, so there was a bit more wort at lower gravity, but that shouldn't be a big deal since this is a loose recipe anyway.  I suppose I could have turned up the burner a bit, but I was trying to do a double brewday, mashing the wet hop IPA at the same time, so I was a little distracted.

Fermentation:
30 sec 02, yeast pitched from smack pack @ 63F, set at ambient temperature in brewshed to ferment.

(1 Week): Looks like the ambient temperatures were cooler than I expected, so it's currently at 65F.  I know saison yeast likes it warm, but it's especially apparent since it still hasn't finished fermenting.  I needed to rack onto the berry skins though, so I racked to the bucket used for the last batch of blackberry wine, making sure to suck up lots of yeast.  Placed it in temperature control at 72F.

2 Weeks:  Time to keg.  Fermentation is complete and the yeast has dropped out.  Unfortunately there are some tiny white flakes floating on top of the fruit bag; it looks like the early stages of a brett pellicle, not that I've ever seen one in person.  I was too disgusted to take a picture and admit defeat so I went ahead and kegged it before I thought any more about it.  It doesn't taste infected, just super tart from the berries, so we'll try to drink it before anything goes wrong.