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Ha, it goes by many names...

The honey malt could be replaced with Dark Munich malt. It's not quite the same, but it's close. You could also just add a little more of the normal Munich Malt, and accept the small difference in beer taste. I'm not sure exactly what you are asking about the sugar or CO2. I think you are asking how to prime for carbonation with sugar? If so, then you are needing about 6 grams of white sugar per litre of beer (or about a level half teaspoon per 500 ml bottle). This will give a carbonation of about 2.5 volumes CO2. You can go up to about 3 to 3.5 volumes for Belgian Saison, but I would stay a little lower. I hope I have answered your questions......

I wonder if it's because it's a single strain isolate from Kveik. And saying that, perhaps they shouldn't refer to it being Kveik, as all others are multi-strain yeasts. I suspect it's the multiple strains that play a part in the usually rapid fermentation. Although, to be fair, it was probably finished quicker than 2 weeks, however, I have to be very sure that all fermentation is finished, as I can store my bottles for many months.

That's very kind of you, thankyou.

Hi there, If I can't get White Labs for any reason, then my favorite dry Belgian yeast is Mangrove Jacks M41 Belgian Ale. It gives quite high attenuation, so you will end up around 7.2% for this recipe, which I actually think would work well on this beer.

It's good to hear you confirm my experiences with this hop. The concept seemed great, the reality, not so much...

I find this with some other varieties as well, such as Bru-1 which is supposed have a pineapple flavour. Tried it in a very pale brew a couple of times with generous additions of Bru-1, never picked up the pineapple. I am wondering if this is down to how I experience different aromas and flavours or is it marketing hype?

There is definitely the element of taste sensitivity, and maybe Bru-1 and yourself don't get along well. However, there is certainly a lot of marketing hype I'm sure. These companies spend a lot on research and development, and they need to recoup the capital. So even if the taste is not very strong, or the hops not great, they still have to push it, to get some of their cash back. That's where I think Huell Melon is I'm afraid. The results just aren't there, regardless of how many tasters I gave it to...

👍

I had to edit this a few times as predictive text kept getting in the way 😂🤣

Cheers Rick. I know, the hop load was huge, still no taste. I accept that I maybe had a bad crop year, that can make a big difference, sure. The only melon taste I achieved was with dry hopping on the last ale, but even that was very faint. Perhaps it might stand out in a really light lager, but that's about all. I've given in on Huell Melon hops. It's not one I'll use again. The underlying beer however is really good. The Framgarden yeast is great. I've since made and bottled this beer with another hop, and it's a winner. I'll get the video out when I get enough time to edit the footage.

Thanks for letting me know. We had the same problem with the last batch, just ended up reaching for it every time we went for a beer. The lime wedge sounds great too.

I used to sparge, but actually I found that there was no/very little difference when I didn't sparge. The Braumeister seems to be so efficient, that there's very little sugar left in the grain. The porter is good, but it does need ageing to let those grains mellow. 🍺🍺

Thanks for the kind words. I don't use Brewfather at present, but it's something I might look at for the future.

It's definitely a great winter style. I really need to make another batch myself for this winter.

@@brewandbuild sounds good! i might do styrian golding ive never tried in a porter perhaps styrian golding and a dash of fuggles. i had simpsons dark crystal in mine as well and i think only 4 oz of brown malt. i dont remember the rest id have to find my paper

I think the earthy spice from Sytyrian Goldings pairs well with dark beers, not that there is much hop flavour prominence with this much dark roasted malt. Nonetheless it's always a good match for English ales.

I also wanted the beer to be substantially different as well. There was definitely more banana aroma during fermentation, and that to some degree made it through to the bottled product, however, it faded during conditioning, and became a neutral point in the end. You're right, I'm also of the opinion now that pitching a healthy amount of yeast is the better option, regardless of style. "what do you think the best way to increase esters in Belgian styles might be?" That's an interesting question you ask..... My opinion is that sugar is a large key here. I find that sugar and Belgian yeast get me more esters than any other method alone. Sometimes candi sugar, sometimes just white sugar. It's probably a controversial opinion, and I'm not finished exploring the subject..... Having said that, I also find temperature plays a good part, I think a steady rise in temperature in the first couple of days after pitching, is a driver of esters with any yeast, and that certainly applies to Belgian strains.

@@brewandbuild Thanks for your reply. I would agree that sugar might be the X factor. It strikes me as interesting that so many Belgian beers use some form of sugar. Yes a lot of them are higher in alcohol but it would seem that the Belgian brewers have learned that the use of sugar gives the beer a certain extra compared to all malt. I have been brewing a Belgian blonde without any sugar trying to settle on recipe and yeast choice. I like the Achouffe yeast (Gnone or maybe Ardennes) but after thinking about it now, I think it is time to add the sugar back in and see where it goes. Cheers!

Cheers, will do. There's nothing I find more frustrating than people putting together a recipe online, not explaining their thoughts on why, and then not telling us how it turns out. After all, we're all watching these videos to get ideas and learn. 🍺

I find pretty much every Simpsons malt (in the darker ranges anyway) to be outliers. I'm not sure I could manage a beer with 12% of Simpsons brown. That sure must have needed some aging. 😁 The crystal used in this was Simpsons Dark Crystal also. I use their dark crystals, as they seem to have so much more toasted/burnt sugar taste compared to many others. You've hit on something I've sometimes considered doing a piece on, and that's the difference that can be in two beers, just because there is a different brand of even just one malt. It wouldn't be the most enthralling video, I know....

I love American porter, great choice there. I'm really happy that you've been inspired to get into this. Homebrewing needs more people getting into it, so thanks for joining the community.

Absolutely, yes. I've got a different style of porter in the fermentor now, where the roast barley went in just before mash out. I'll find out the initial thoughts on that in a week or so. I've done this a number of times with different styles , however, I'm not decided entirely on the late dark grains thing. Part of me is always sitting there thinking, "have I just missed a whole stack of flavour extraction?" After all, with a bit of aging, it always smooths out nicely. I might need to do a side by side one day, and see if I notice a difference, either good or bad.... ahhhh future projects....

@@brewandbuild I would enjoy seeing comparisons on a video if you do the experiment. Many brewers today are using the dehusked grains or the roasted wheat in the place of the barley. I quite like the flavour the roasted wheat brings to the beer. Thanks for the video.

Yeah. I was skeptical about that crystal amount when I was writing up the recipe, but it's really well balanced in the end, so... 'phew'.... I can't see any reason Challenger wouldn't work every bit as well, it's not really aroma hops we're looking for here, just as long as the hops are not too "harsh"

That's nice to hear, cheers. I don't find any difference in hop utilisation with the hop spider, unless there is a ton of hops in there. As long as the wort is circulating through it, I'm happy. On the occasions that I'm using a lot of hops, I give the hop basket a stir every 10 minutes or so, just to get some circulation, and that seems to work. I generally like to use it, as a large amount of pellet hops clogs the pump, which then makes chilling slower, and whirlpool very difficult. So I just have to select when to use it or not, according to the beer requirements.

Yep, I've been freezing yeast for a few years now. That's what the 5 ml vial was from. Similar percentage glycerine as yourself, plus distilled water. You're right there, liquid yeast ain't cheap these days.

or just add elderflower cordial to a cold glass of beer!

I've certainly considered using cordial or syrup for this. I make Elderflower syrup each year, so that would be a possibility. (It would then get lemon juice and zest in the beer, but it would work) The problem with adding after cold crash is secondary fermentation. I have never seen a (natural) cordial without sugar, so that would certainly present issues. Cordials using artificial sweeteners are of course an option, but you will ALWAYS taste artificial sweetener in beer, so not a great option. As for adding some cordial to a glass of beer, well, that's a good way of trialing a taste, but once again, you unfortunately just end up with beer tasting of sweet cordial.... so not great. Ultimately, it comes back to using Elderflowers in the raw state. You can freeze the flowers quite successfully if you want to brew out of season, but I quite like the whole seasonal aspect of flavours.

Cheers for that, I've got to say, there hasn't been much decent weather to be outside this summer. I'm hoping to get a couple more videos filmed outside before "summer" ends again....

Thankyou. I didn't cool the starter and decant, that was the starter in it's entirety. I took that off the stir plate about an hour before shooting that footage. It was literally just 5 ml of (pre)frozen yeast put into 100ml of wort, stir plate for 18 hours, and then pitched. As you say, Saison yeast is a beast. 🍺

Thankyou, sorry about that. I sometimes feel that maybe people get too much of that side of it. I'll keep it in mind for the future.

I love to hear that, thank you. Happy drinking. 🍺🍺

😂😂 I have a feeling we might be blaming the volume consumed, rather than the rice alone. I haven't had that effect from my rice brewing, but then I don't drink it in anywhere quite the volume of my younger years....

Cheers🍺 Ooh that's interesting. I was just looking at Hawkston earlier this week, didn't end up getting any. If there's possibly elderflower in there, then I definitely have to get some now.

Thankyou very much.

😁Yep, I got that a lot on the Mex lager video. This was all recorded before the Mex release, so hence the captions I put in to show that I know it's wrong.... oh well.

I make syrup each year also, and I agree, it's hard to picture in a beer. However, there's a couple of commercial ales here in Scotland that have used it for many years. As long as the elderflower is kept very subtle, it works well in light ales.

Let me know how it goes with the Nova Lager. 👍

I know what you're saying with the huge amount of ingredients. The more I brew, the more I try to drop ingredients these days. Simple seems to work best sometimes. I think this recipe could work with fruit, although I've not tried it. I find fruit will often strip out some body in a beer, but this is a saison with a bit more body than most, so it may actually lend itself to working here. Good or bad, please let me know the results if you end up trying it. 🍺🍺

Cheers for that, and good luck with your brew. I've just bottled the second attempt at this with a slightly modified recipe. Still waiting for it to condition properly, but I should be able to get a comparison soon. This original recipe is great tho, and I hope you'll like it.

Thanks for letting me know. Your successful brew has made my week. 🍺🍺👍

Yeah, the Jasmine rice works really well. Go for that for sure. Hopefully that corn taste clears up. i get that a bit during fermentation, but it never seems to carry through to the final product. Good luck with that one. Now kaffir lime leaves. That's never even crossed my mind. I love the idea. Let me know how that works out.

Yeah the Lager X is seasonal in many places here too. I freeze my yeast stocks though, so I just make sure if I think I'll run out, to get some while it's in (or spin up a starter to split). Hmmm, Huell Melon...... I think I've given in on that hops. I just can't get the taste out of it, without getting a whole load of grassy type flavours. I've done yet another beer with it, where I put it all in various stages of the mash and the boil. I figured I'd try and pack it in everywhere (knowing full well that I'd get more grass flavour) with the idea that if I could get a real melon flavour, then I'd narrow down where in the process it was best drawn from..... The result?... Nothing but grass. Virtually no melon. So the best results actually came from the dry hop for me. Still not enough to choose to use it again. I've got footage of that beer that I'm still undecided whether I'll put the time in to edit and release. Maybe...

Thanks for taking the time to comment. I appreciate it. I take onboard what you say about the South German profile I used here. I agree, it could definitely be lower in minerals. I didn't originally set up this as a side by side, I brewed the South version as a stand alone beer, and was probably not thinking hard enough about the profile to achieve a "true enough" southern lager. The Northern profile however, I agonised over for some time. The profile you can use for a Northern Pils here is very much a dart shot on the dart board. Where do I decide to call north here. I didn't go for the Jever profile in the end, simply because, as you rightly point out, it ends up being very close to the southern profile. The decision I made in the end was to go with something close to the Dortmund profile (albeit decarbonated) as it was about the most extreme difference in German water that I could build in. (I even backed off on the salts a bit, simply because, even I thought the beer was going to be too bitter) To my understanding though, German brewers are absolutely allowed to use brewing salts/minerals under Rheinheitsgebot to adjust their mash water, but sure, mash ph control requires them to be a little more cunning, however, cunning they are, and still achieve it.

@@brewandbuild Thanks for the reply! That makes a TON of sense and I agree targeting the Dortmund profile is a good way to REALLY make sure there's a big impact on the taste so that you don't "miss it" (I personally LOVE the minerally goodness of DAB). You were also right about Rheinheitsgebot allowing salt additions to the WATER (but not the mash); I did NOT remember that correctly. It's great to encounter another German-style brewing obsessive homebrewer. I heard you say that you're also spunding, so a dead giveaway that you've gone fully obsessive. I did a similar experiment for my home brewing club earlier this year to try to help people understand the impact of brewing salts on beer flavor that was simple enough and fun: I bought six 500ml cans of Pilsner Urquell and then poured 2 cans into each of 3 beer pitchers so I had 1 L of beer in each. We kept the 1st pitcher just regular Urquell with it's nearly ZERO mineral content water profile, and then I calculated how much calcium chloride and gypsum to add to each of the other two pitchers to hit 150ppm of CL / SO4 and I just used a very accurate jeweler's scale 0.001 gram accurate to measure the salt quantities -I put the salt into a little jar with 1-2oz of Pilsner Urquell and shook it up and left it for 1/2 hour to ensure it dissolved fully and then added that to the pitchers of beer. -Definitely fun and educational. The next month I did something similar with a Micropipette and dosed lactic acid into one dark beer and one light beer to create a "low pH" version of each beer and then added baking soda into a "high pH" version of the light and dark beer and we could then evaluate how the pH impacts the flavor of a light and a dark beer. (I didn't want to brew 10 gallons of potentially bad beer to try all that out.)

They're great experiments. That's a fantastic way to get people (and ourselves) to understand the differences between water profiles. Unfortunately we can't get it completely true to taste due to the amount of minerals or acid you can lose during mash and fermentation. But let's face it, you can adjust beer a whole lot easier that way than brewing a large batch, as you say. Now obsessive is a strong word..... I just like things to be done right.... 😁😁

Cheers for that Alan. Yeah, life gets in the way of editing at times. 🤷 No, not bottle conditioning (although I do for a couple of styles) Instead, I force carbonate after clearing the beers, then I'm using a Blichmann Beer Gun. I carbonate about 0.2 vol over my desired end carbonation level, at 3 degrees c, as we lose some carbonation during bottling. Then we CO2 purge each bottle as we go, and fill and cap. There's some short bits of footage of the bottling on a few of the other videos in places (German Pils South and Honey Pale lager, I think)

That sounds like you're good to go on that. Good luck with the brewing, and I hope it turns out well. 🍺🍺

Hope it works out for you. Cheers

OK, right.... I am definitely not suggesting or recommending this, it's just what I have used for years, as it's the cheapest and easiest way to buy oxygen. It's not food grade oxygen. It's just an Oxyturbo bottle for propane/oxygen burning torches. I do quite a lot of lead welding etc, and therefore have a ready supply of them. I used it once, didn't die, figured I'd continue. Never went back. As it's not food grade, you are of course taking the risk that the gas may not be perfectly clean. I always figured that it's a very small amount, and fermentation would take care of any bacteria. There's always the risk of other gasses or heavy metals though, so.... you know.....

Hi there, It's a Mattmill Master. I keep meaning to do a review of it on my website.... one day..... I have no affiliation with them, but the link to their website is www.mattmill.de/mattmill-master/ I've found it to be a great mill. The rollers are quite narrow, which means the volume it can crush at once is quite small. This means it's certainly not a fast mill. However, speed is not my concern, accuracy and durability are. The narrow rollers mean that the accuracy from one side of the roller to the other is spot on, so all the grain is perfectly crushed at the setting you've chosen. Hope that helps a little.

@@brewandbuild thank you so much for the detailed answer, you helped me))))

Vienna is definitely a great option, and I would say a larger dose of that instead of the Munich would give a very similar result. I would say however, that the percentage is small enough in this recipe that I don't think you would notice a taste difference. I've never been convinced of the Modelo Negra/ Vienna malt thing. I'm a little in the camp of thinking it's more likely Munich malt. I've never found any official Modelo information, it just seems to be that every homebrew recipe has decided it is Vienna malt. If you have direct info pointing to Vienna though, I'd be grateful if you could point me that direction. 🍺🍺

@@brewandbuild after I made the comment I noticed your beer color was lighter than the ambers. Relative to your question I did go to the Web sites of Modelo and Dos Equis. Modelo Negra is a Munich Dunkel style, and Dos Equis amber is a Vienna.

@@brewandbuild Most of the modern macro dark Mexican lagers are no longer made anything like a traditional Vienna lager would have been. Most of them use a commercial carmel colorant syrup to make the dark beers, which is why they're so flavor neutral. ;-(

@@adamarndt7617 I can certainly believe that of the large macro type companies.

Cheers, 😂 It may as well be, it certainly takes up plenty of time. I think it's all the beer that gives me that healthy glow.....

To be honest, 99% of the work was done for me during the cold crash. It sat at 3 degrees centigrade on the yeast for about 3 weeks, and then it sat cold for two weeks off the yeast in the unitank. I do fine most things with gelatin and this was no exception. This yeast seems to like to drop clear.

Beers containing a lot of low adjunct proteins like Mexican lagers (up to 30% corn) or Rice Lagers (up to 30% rice) tend to get much clearer much faster as they don't provide very many proteins and proteins are half of "non-biological haze" complexes in beer. (Once you get rid of the yeast in beer most haze is a combination of proteins and polyphenols, and beer is unique amongst fermentable beverages in that it has a giant overabundance of protein.)

Thanks a lot for that. I hope it works as well for you as it has me. 🍺🍺