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Taste Notes

2018-03-08: Cloudy and dark straw colored. No head at this point but I am raising the pressure. Still just a bit too bitter but not as much as when kegged a few months ago. Fennel has slid more into the background which might just be a positive.

Notes

Consider Wyeast 3711 French Saison (spicy, dry and preferred) or 3463 Forbidden Fruit (fruity) yeast. Anywhere from .25oz to .5oz of coriander would be reasonable. But I am thinking of using Fennel from our garden. Need to look up quantity. 2017-11-03: Starter started - it’s cooling off so that I can add the yeast later. 1.2L boiled a little long down to 0.8L but used the 3.4oz of DME recommended for 1L. Oh well. 2017-11-04: Brew Day: using 10G MT but strike water doesn’t reach thermometer (1.35 ratio, 10.75lbs grain and 4.5G liquor). Should have used 7.5G MT. We flirted with a stuck mash the entire morning despite adding a couple of handfulls of rice hulls before dough-in. We were able to avoid serious problems but kept the flow to 0.5 GPM (couldn’t really get it over that anyway) the entire mash. It’s very pale and smells good. Mashout refused to get the temp up beyond 166°F so I added and extra 30 minutes at setpoint 170°F which attained the desire 168°F. Original target for IBUs was 29.1. Expect AA for the Styrian Goldings was 5.4% but they are only 2.6%! I am going to add some Perle and move things around. OG via refractometer of 1.056, nearly 1.057 - exceeded target by 2 points. Oxyginated and yeast pitched. A good brew day! Now for cleanup… 2017-11-04 19:30: Carboy still at 66°F and I want it to rise. No activity, reasonable of course. I applied the heat belt. 2017-11-05 06:40: Temp on bucket up to 74°F. Good. 2017-11-05 14:10: Temp on the bucket is now up to 76°F and the yeast limit per Wyeast is 77°F. I have employed a time so that the heat belt only runs 30 minutes out of every hour and will see if that brings it back in line. I also dropped the room temp two degrees to 64°F. Checking at 20:20 - 74°F, that’s better. 2017-11-07 18:00: As the temp moderates to 70°F I felt that it might make sense to change the timer to run 1 hour on and half an hour off (2/3 on time). 2017-11-10 12:01: Carboy down to 69°F. Racked to secondary. I used the refractometer to get a reading of 6.0 Brix. Admittedly, the blue line is pretty soft and hard to read but that is my best guess. Using the Refractometer tool I get a SG reading of 1.004!!! Tastes fine as well. 2017-12-27: Racked to Keg #5 and pressurized keg with CO2. FG is 5.5 Brix or roughly 1.022 in the Refractometer. Corrected that is 1.001 for the FG! Not bad. Warm and uncarbonated, taste is fine, smooth, thick, not sweet (obviously), a touch more bitter than I might like, but is what I perceive the rye? Specific spices are not obvious at this point, but spicy is a fair descriptor. Clarity is good and straw colored. 2018-03-08: Tapped today. Taste notes above.