Sunday, December 5, 2010

Arrogant Bastard's




Stone's Arrogant Bastard is an over the top red ale that I've enjoyed more than a few of over the years, so I was pretty excited when I saw it as a challenge on the Brewing Network's ' Can You Brew It Show".


I was even more excited after I listened to the podcast and learned that Stone was completely unwilling to give any details on the grist or how to brew the beer. Although I've listened to most of the episodes I feel that the CYBI show is pretty bollocks seeing as how they get the full malt/ hopping bill as well as yeast/ sacch temp/ferm temp, why not just have the pro brewer set aside 6 gallons so jamil can ferment it in his garage? That said, they really had to work out what the flavors in this beer were and how to go about achieving them. I'm really impressed with Jamil's "pro brewer" logic of scaling a recipe and then rescaling to acount for grain bag size and most pro brewer's tendency to use a whole bag instead of holding back a few pounds.
Anyways give it a listen, it made way better radio to me than just " here's all the number's, ferment it"


Red Ale # 1 is based on the suggested changes to Tasy McDoles AB clone attempt #1

7.25 g. run off
85% eff
og 1072
fg 1015
90min boil
80ibu rager
colour: ~23srm
yeast:cal ale
mash @ 148


6.35kg pale/2-row
0.50kg Crystal 150
0.25kg Crystal 15
0.25kg Crystal 40
0.25kg Crystal 80
0.15kg Chocolate



28g Chinook @ 85
14g Chinook @ 45
14g Chinook @ 15
14g Chinook @ 0

fermented at 68 degrees for 7 days
and then raised to 72 degrees for 5 days
crash cooled and kegged


This beer does not taste anything like AB. But it kicks ass none the less. Those sharper more aggressive chinook notes are still very far in the background while the caramel notes stick out, brown sugar, buttery toffee, raisins browned with dark sugar, mixed with resiny tree sap from the hops, even at 80 IBU the malt seems to dominate the hop character.
I want to brew this recipe again but sub in some toasty malt character, most likely 20% munich for base malt, or aromatic/ biscuit. This beer is all caramel it needs, some toasty malts.
This recipe is a great starting point for adding roast malts. I will definitely be using this as a base for some brown ales and porters in the future.

Recipe #2 is Based off the actual re brew of AB on Can You Brew It, the recipe is much simpler yet apparently spot on, listen to www.thebrewingnetwork,com/canyoubrewit for more details

7.25Gallon PB
85%Eff
95IBU Rager
1.072 SG
1.015FG
21 SRM
cal ale yeast
148 sacc temp

89% 2 row
11% special B (120L)

chinook @ 12.9%
.85G @85 min
.85G @45 min
.85G @15 min
.85G @ 0 min



8 comments:

  1. Hi there Paul!
    Great blog!
    I´m visiting for recommendation of Seanywonton´s.
    I have a trick question for you since I know you suffered a lot with a Saison...
    I´m designing a Saison, but as I live in Brazil and due to complete lack of liquid yeast (not viable since the time consumed by international shipping is an average of 30/40 days, which degenerates pretty much the brave yeast cells), I´m thinking in replace the SAison belgian yeast for the Fermentis SafBrew T-58, which is fruitty and spicy... with a complimentary pitching of SafAle US-05 or dry champagne yeast 5 or 6 days after....
    The thing is: do you think this will work?
    Does de T-58 will work good at 75/77ºF range? Or will I have vinegar instead of a good beer?

    What do you think? Is this a viable experience???

    Oh, by the way... if you can, please, visit my blog: http://kessbier.blogspot.com It´s in Portuguese, but with subtitles in english. I´m actually in a real fight for the perfect Irish Red Ale recipe too... The recipe (red) is posted in the blog.

    Regards, brother!

    Cheers!

    Marco

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think T 58 is a fine choice for a saison. In my experience Ive gotten lots of spicy pepper notes and some banana just from fermenting at 65 degrees. I'm not sure what the yeast spits out at 70 degrees and up though.

    I would recommend adding about 20% sugar in place of malt to dry your beer out,also mash around 145 degrees, In my opinion setting up your wort profile to be very attenuative is much easier and more reliable than managing 2 yeast strains, for instance most champagne yeasts will actually kill other yeasts, which can cause problems if the first yeast hasn't cleaned up the fermentation's by products, diacytl, acetylaldhyde, and such. If you choose to add us 05 make sure it is from a starter of actively fermenting wort or it will just drop to the bottom accomplishing nothing.

    One last tip, you might want to look into using gelatin to help clear your finished beer, the last beer I made with T 58 sat in my keggerator at around 40 degrees for several weeks and still wouldn't clear, it's definitely a wit beer strain.

    I hope this helps, let me know how it turns out.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Again, Paul!

    First of all, thank you so much for the lesson about yeast.

    Yes, I agree 100% with your considerations about T-58.

    So, this is the recipe I´ll be brewing next saturday:

    Grain Bill
    4,5 kg Pilsner Malt
    0,35 kg Vienna Malt
    0,350 kg Wheat Malt Pale
    0,05 kg Cara-amber® (only for a good color profile)
    0,300 kg White Table Sugar (Sucrose)

    Hops
    18,0 g Amarillo (8,5%) - added during boil, boiled 70,0 min
    18,0 g Cascade (5,5%) - added during boil, boiled 60,0 min
    12,0 g Cascade (5,5%) - added during boil, boiled 5,0 min
    10,0g Amarillo 0 min.

    Yeast
    11,5 g Fermentis T-58 SafBrew T-58

    Mash-in and saccharification: single rest - 90 min at 64ºC (147ºF).

    Fermentation initiating at 20ºC (68ºF) rising on ramps until 27º (80ºF).... Maibe I keep the "thing" restrained to a top of 25ºC (77ºF)

    I´ll use the US-05 ONLY if the original yeast don´t attenuate enought, making a small starter and pitching it at high kraeusen, as suggested by Seanywonton´s.

    I´ll let you know if I succeed.

    Thanks a lot for everything!

    ReplyDelete
  4. After reviewing my calculations, I decided to change the recipe.

    Added more sugar to try getting a dryer profile and getting more attenuation from yeast (Following your good advice).

    Changed the hops, in order to obtaining more citrus taste from Centennial.

    Here´s it:

    4,221 kg Pilsner Malt
    0,394 kg Vienna Malt
    0,362 kg Wheat Malt Pale 11,5 g
    0,750 kg White Table Sugar (Sucrose)
    0,053 kg Cara-amber® 10,0 g

    Centennial (9,7%) - added during boil, boiled 70,0 min 10,0 g

    Magnum (12,5%) - added during boil, boiled 60,0 min 10,0 g

    Centennial (9,7%) - added during boil, boiled 5,0 min 5,0 g

    Magnum (12,5%) - added during boil, boiled 5,0 min

    Fermentis T-58 SafBrew T-58

    ReplyDelete
  5. looks good. If your looking to maxamize citrus, maybe put all the magnum in as bittering and up the centennial or possibly dry hop with centennial.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Put all the Magnum as bittering is viable... just have to recalculate the IBU´s.
    I like to do dry hoppingwith whole hops, but for now I just have pellets in stock´. But it is a very nice idea.
    Anyways... This is like a "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" beer due to the fact that it is a Saison without the Saison yeast, so I´ll consider the dry hopping if I succeed in this mad experiment.
    Thanks for your notes and for the help. I´ll Let you know the results...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Well... after all the talking I finally brewed the f...ing Saison...
    I described the whole thing at my blog kessbier.blogspot.com)

    The worst trouble I had was forgetting to add the damn whirfloc...(because I received visits just during the boil... damn ppl who don´t know the telephone yet) so I have a beer so cloudy that can be taken by milk.... lol.

    DO you have any sugestion to clear the beer besides a looooong period of cold conditioning?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Finished the Saison´s primary fermentation last saturday.

    The attenuation semmed good to me: FG=1.010 (OG was 1.061).

    I took a sample, and the taste seemed a little bit harsh on alcohol... I hope the Secondary at low temperature fix this.

    Racked to another vessel for the secondary, where the "thing" rests at 35ºF.

    ReplyDelete