So, yet another of things I’m experimenting with was inspired by The Mad Fermentationist, namely, Brettanomyces yeast in bread making. I’ve only found two cases online, one by TMF who used it to make some baguettes and the other by a guy who used Brett to make pizza dough. So a cxouple of days ago, I decided to make a sourdough starter using rye (the most easily fermented type of flour, apparently–all you really need to do is mix it with water and leave it warm, the lactobacillus and the wild yeasts do their thing quite happily, they say) but …
Tag: BEER & HOMEBREWING
Parti Gyle, Attempt #1
Back in the old days, when industrial brewers had less technology and worse malt to work with, they used a method called Parti-Gyle to extract as much of the sugar from their grains as possible. One technique that was used, is the Parti-Gyle. Essentially, brewers would mash their grains, and run off a certain amount of high-gravity wort, for use in something like a barley wine or a strong ale. Now, if you take a full batch-sparge session (where you rinse the grains a few times successively), the first third of of the wort you run off contains about half of …
Unexpected Fermentation
I was checking on the wheat beer that I split and racked onto persimmons and black raspberries, and I noticed that there was some foam on top of a third fermentation vessel in the same closet. In that vessel, I had left a little wheat beer and slurry, onto which I poured a diluted black raspberry juice syrup. The first dilution was probably not thin enough, because the yeast did practically nothing, but when I diluted it further, the yeast still refused to act. So I did what the lazy man does: I left the quart jar of twice-diluted syrup …
Less Than A Mazing
What a day. I had planned to get so many things done: brewing, mazing (meadmaking), shifting the sauerkrat to its new container, cleaning up, grading. Well, the power went out about 10:00am, and I called the office to see whether it was campus-wide. The girls in the office noted the Net wasn’t working, but they had power… and then realized that the new building (where most of my classes are, along with the office) has its own generator. They called the Facilities office around 11:30am… but didn’t call me back. I called after lunch, and was told they’d been told …
Mazing, Brewing, Renaming a Beer
Wednesday, I’ll be brewing a semi-familiar beer, my On a Jag Abbey Dubbel… except, I’m gonna get the volume right this time, damn it, and it will be a Dubbel, ie. maybe 6-7% alcohol. And, well, I’m going to use the Belgian Abbey I yeast (a little more estery), instead of Belgian Abbey II (not so estery). At least, that’s the plan, though I’ll be honest: I’ve mixed up my yeasts and I’m just going by what condition they’re in, now. (The smaller sample in rougher condition in my fridge is Belgian Abbey II, and the bigger sample in the …