BrewCon Homebrew Recipes

Here are a two recipes related to Chop & Brew – Episode 59: BrewCon & Homebrewing in Ireland. See below for the following recipes:

Saison’s in the Sun (Table Strength Saison) brewed by Adrian Crombie. This beer won Best of Show at the 2017 Irish National Brewing Championships.
Sweet Brown (Almond Cherry Brown Ale) a bonus recipe from Sarah Finney, beer blogger/reviewer and host of Five Minutes of Finney

Huge thanks to the homebrewers and the National Homebrew Club for their help in providing the recipes for fans of Chop & Brew.

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Saison’s in the Sun (Table Strength Saison)
This beer was the Best of Show winner from the 2017 Irish National Brewing Championships.
Recipe brewed and provided to Chop & Brew by Adrian Crombie.

Notes from Adrian:

I was looking to create a recipe for a Saison which was yeast forward, not too many specialty grains or additions to interfere with the yeast. I found a recipe on Brew Your Own magazine called “Mike’s Best Saison” which seemed to fit what I wanted. That recipe was 7.7% ABV, I didn’t want any alcohol to interfere with the yeast so I cut the ABV down to 5.2%. I was reading Brew Like a Monk around the time I was generating the recipe and was fascinated that different abbey tripel beers would be made using the same yeast but different fermentation profiles. The higher end of the temperature scale was chosen to try maximize the spicy character and ensure full attenuation as I heard the yeast can stall during fermentation.

It’s been too long since I’ve last had the beer to give reliable notes from memory so I’ll give some of the keywords of the judging comments from the competition instead:

Aroma: Bready & Biscuit Malt, slight toasty aroma. Earthy, Spicy phenols.
Appearance: Pale Straw, large foamy longlasting white head
Flavour: Moderate malt, Earthy hop, Sweet Bready malt, Spicy pepper
Mouthfeel: clean dry finish

From my memory, the beer is peppery spicy, nice dry finish which complements the yeast character, both in aroma and flavour. Some medium low earthyness from the hops also.

For 9L/2.37Gal at 78% efficiency
OG: 1.048 / FG: 1.008
ABV: 5.2%

Malt:

Pilsner (2 Row) (Minch Lager/Pilsner Malt): 1.5kg (81.2%)
Vienna Malt: 240g (13.0%)
Cara-Pils: 108g (5.8%)

Hops & Boil Additions:

Perle: 17g @ 60 mins (44.9IBU)
EKG: 10g @ 10 mins (6.0IBU)
Corriander Seed: 1 tsp @ 5 min
Bitter Orange Peel: 1 tsp 5 min
Saaz: 7g @ 0 min (0 IBU)
EKG: 3g @ 0 min (0 IBU)
Irish Moss: 10 mins before end of boil

Yeast:

Belgian Saison I Ale (WLP 565)

Directions:

Mash at 67C for 45 minutes.
60 minute boil.
Ferment at 25°C until over 60% attenuation achieved, then raise temperature 1°C every few hours until 30°C is reached.
Final gravity should be reached in approximately 3 days if yeast pitch is an adequate size and in good condition. Once final gravity has been achieved leave at 30°C for 2 days, then condition in the fermenter at room temperature for 2-3 weeks followed by cold crash.

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Sweet Brown (Almond Cherry Brown Ale)

Note from Sarah Finney: I love brown ales, but very few breweries in Ireland brew them as it is just not a popular style over here. I love using fruit in beer and find it works really well. I have used raw nuts a few times and like the character they add, but felt with almonds an extract might work better. A combination of cherry and almond just sounded like it could work, especially in a brown ale. In the finished beer, both the cherry and almond came through quite nicely and complemented each other. An English friend said it reminded him of a Bakewell tart!

For 5 Litres All-Grain BIAB
OG: 1.078 / FG: 1.018
ABV (standard): 7.8%
IBU (tinseth): 34.94
SRM (morey): 27.88Grains:

1.4 kg – Pale Malt
150 g – Caramunich
120 g – Munich
100 g – Carabohemian
50 g – Carafa II
60 g – Brown Sugar @ 15 min left Boil

Hops:

6 g – Fuggles @ 60 min
6 g – Fuggles @ 30 min
6 g – Chinook @ 15 min

Yeast:

Fermentis / Safale – American Ale Yeast US-05

Primary:

300 g Opies Black Cherries
100 ml Grenadine

Secondary:

300 g Opies Black Cherries
100 ml Grenadine
1.5 tsp Almond Extract

Directions:

Mash grains for 60 minutes at 67-68°C, then mash out over 10 minutes at 75-76°C.
Collect wort, boil for 60 minutes with hops additions as noted
Primary fermentation is 7 days at 22°C