Arctic Vortex Winter Saison
Yes, here at SheppyBrew Brewery, we brew at least 4 saisons every year.
Winter Spring Summer Autumn.
I call them my Seasonal Saison series of beers.
The Arctic Vortex Winter Saison happens to be a black saison, because winter is generally dark ... and it would be boring to make all my saisons look the same.
This weekend, I brewed this year's Arctic Vortex Winter Saison.
When I went to buy ingredients last week, my Local Homebrew Shop didn't have my favorite Saison yeast (WY3711 French Saison). I ended up picking up WY3724 (Belgium Saison) instead.
I'm a real fan of WY3711, and I almost decided to wait to brew this beer until they could get more in, but I had already crushed my grains. It doesn't hurt to try new things. I guess we'll see how it turns out.
The brew day started around before 5AM. It took me about half an hour to get the mash temperature up above 140. Once I got it where I wanted it, it stayed through the course.
My pre-boil gravity was a bit higher than expected, so I diluted it down some. No big deal.
The boil went fine. I've been doing more 60 minute boils lately, and this beer followed this new trend. It makes for a quite a bit more busy boil. There is less time to relax and start on cleaning during this time. It does, however cut down on the length of the brew day, however, which is nice.
My old Better Bottle fermentor formed a crack in it recently, causing me to have picked up a new 7 Gallon "FerMonster Carboy" right after Christmas.
The bigger volume and the bigger mouth is nice. The plastic doesn't feel as substantial as the better bottle fermentor. We'll have to see how much I get used to the more flimsy plastic.
I finished the brew day before noon, and there were signs of fermentation when I looked later in the evening.
I've put a space heater in the fermentation room in hopes of keeping the WY3724 yeast nice and happy. Once of the known issues for this yeast is a "stall" around 1.035. Keeping the yeast warm hopefully will keep this from happening.
So far so good (after day 2).
Obviously, you can always keep an eye on the regular SheppyBrew Channels to see what is happening with this beer (and many others): SheppyBrew's Facebook Page; Sheppy's Twitter Feed;SheppyBrew's Instagram Page; and SheppyBrew's Website. Of course, don't forget to visit this blog often as well!
Happy New Year everyone.
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