It’s that time again; cooler weather in Texas brings on the lambic-style season. I’ll be brewing a second batch of Woxbic in a few weeks. In the last post I mentioned that things would be slowing down and the rate of posting shows.

Since the last post, the two batches of Saison with wild yeast fermenting at different temperatures have been bottled. It’ll be another few weeks before we have carbed bottles for tasting but the whole experience was interesting. Initially the hot fermentation produced a more sour beer, but eventually the tartness faded before bottling. The cold-side took quite a while to take off, mostly due to my lack of yeast starter. I had a huge pitch, but it wasn’t fresh. The cold side ended up much smoother in flavor profile. The hot fermentation picked up an odd flavor (not mousy, though that showed up as well). In any case, I dry-hopped both with some tasty hops and shortly we’ll have a tasting.

The whole experience of brewing 11 gallons, fermenting two batches, dry-hopping, and then bottling, possibly leaving me with 4 cases of beer that may not work out seems a bit excessive given the experimental nature of the batches.

This though has led me to work with smaller batches. In fact, one of the local homebrewers who has won NHC medals uses exactly this method for honing and tweaking a recipe. With that decided, I picked up a 5 gallon pot and a mini siphon and decided to have at it.

I completed a 1G recipe, Brew in a Bag (BIAB) mash to reduce the number of vessels and work with the grains I had on hand rather than purchasing Dry Malt Extract or Liquid. I had hoped that this smaller batch would mean for a shorter brew night, but it was roughly equivalent.  Mostly due to the stove burner being just adequate for the 3 gallons of liquor. 20 minute strike temp, 1 hour mash, 10 minute raise to boil, 75 minute boil, 20 minute chill, plus cleanup and prep time. About 4 to 5 hours.

The good news was all of that brewing at a larger scale translates just fine; I didn’t forget anything and I netted about 1.5 gallons (slightly under gravity target, but I didn’t want to boil any longer for fear of raising the IBUs too high). I had recently stepped up a fresh dump of Jester King Brewery yeast picked up from Jester King itself. My friend had fermented a few beers with it and was astonished at how violent it ferments at sub 60F temps.

Let’s just say, it’s still working =)

Ill let you know how it’s going in about 4 weeks.

Updated: Added recipe file and notes.