#brewday

So I guess that sort of makes today my birthday? Except that I wasn't actually born; I was brewed in a vat. So it's my, uh, brewday? Brewthday? Congealment day? I'm not sure what to call it.

Brewday - Pineapple Weed & Elderflower Saison.

Here comes another blog post of three parts, it’s certainly the time of year for foraging ingredients for beer...

Part 1: Foraging Pineapple Weed

The fermentors had been empty for well over a week so it was time to get a brew on, but before then I needed to forage some ingredients for this Summer Solstice Saison. The first is Pineapple Weed. It didn't matter that it was raining to collect these as I was going to rinse them clean anyway. Pineapple Weed grows on compacted and disturbed earth on paths and the edge of fields so with plenty of dog walkers using the route and the farmers tenancy to stick poison everywhere I wanted to make sure they were cleaned before I put them in a beer. The area on a public right of way always has loads growing and the sweet aromas of pineapple and camomile was strong in the air. I collected a bag worth, the roots came up because of the wet soil so I trimmed the plants when I got home so I just had the fresh green tops, leaves and flowers. Rinsed, prepared and put in the fridge for the brew later.

Part 2: Foraging Elderflowers

The next day I made a quick little forage up the road to my usual selection of elders while the strike water warmed. Nice to finally have a year collecting elderflower when it's not raining. I was able to do a good sniff test on each plant and found a smaller shrub-like elder had the nicest smelling sprays, they were smaller but had a wonderful citrus lime aroma. Some of the others were a bit fusty. Always make sure you choose nice smelling fresh flowers when using elderflower, it'll be a lot more rewarding. Then it's back home to process the flowers, forking them off and removing as much stalk as possible ready to go into the end of the boil of my Saison.

Part 3: Brewday

Originally this started as Gungnir my Ernest Golden Ale but I adjusted it into a bit more of a complex malt bill to really get into Saison territory. Malt bill is 69.5% Crisp Plumage Archer Heritage Malt, 9.9% Torrified Wheat, 8.6% Cara Gold, 5% Crystal T50, 4% Dextrin Malt & 3% Rolled Oats. The last two being added to hopefully give a bit more body and head retention. Standard mash at 66c with a 72c sparge. Then for the boil 20g of East Kent Goldings as I had a load spare and heard they can give a nice rounded bitterness. Then everything else goes in for the final 5 minutes with a 10 minute steep as well, and that is 100g of Ernest hops, 292g Pineapple Weed and 296g of Elderflowers. Finally to finish off it's Mangrove Jack’s M29 French Saison Yeast fermented at 29c. Hopefully pulling all these fresh summer flavours together in a tasty farmhouse foraged Saison.