Spicy Beer?! Yes!

So this post's title isn't the punniest I've come up with, but that's ok because the batch of homebrew written about isn't that original.  This is the second time I've repeated a recipe and this time it was because I really enjoyed the beer the first time I brewed it.  The beer in question is a Saison, a continental beer brewed during the winter from the leftovers of the harvest and let condition until the summer.  Saisons are traditionally low in alcohol and light of body and were drunk by the fieldhands during their working hours to quench their thirst and keep them hydrated.  This recipe ups the alcohol content by adding Clear Belgian Candi Sugar and Agave Nectar at the end of the boil.  This additional sugar is more food for the yeast to ferment without adding more body, keeping the beer light but increasing the kick.  And this recipe has another strength: jalapeno!

Hops, Agave Nectar, more hope, yeast, jalapeno, clear Belgian Candi sugar.  All this make a mighty fine brew.

While I had planned to brew this, the timing was almost on a whim one Saturday night.  I had bought the ingredients that morning, along with those for two more batches I wanted to brew before the end of March so they would have time to ferment and condition before the end of May. The first time I brewed this Spicy Jalapeno Saison I tried the first bottle a week or two after bottling and it was not ready.  But by the last few bottles the beer had conditioned nicely and was an enjoyable thirst quencher during the summer.  In general I've found that letting my beer sit in the fermenter and then bottle condition a little longer, or a lot longer depending on the batch, the first bottle is better and the batch overall is more enjoyable.

But back to the brewing day.  I spent all morning and into the afternoon running errands: attending a monthly devotional breakfast; driving down to a brewing supply store I had never visited before; and doing the weekly grocery shopping.  I came home and my wife was heading out to an afternoon shopping with her friend and I wanted to brew in her absence.  She reminded me that the apartment needed cleaning and that had precedence, so after she left I put on my favorite movie musical, Fiddler on the Roof (long live Topol!), and got to work.  I dusted, swept, swiffered, vacuumed, and cleaned the bathroom.  My wife returned home before 6 and upon seeing the cleaned apartment she gave me permission to brew.  We have a much more equal relationship than this simple depiction, but she did enjoy not having to clean the apartment and I now had an evening free, free to brew.  And brew I did.

Straining the first running from the mash (bottom) while heating the sparge water (top).

Strained first runnings (bottom) and steeping the mash in the sparge (top).

First and second runnings, bottom and top, respectively, ready to be mixed and boiled.

Heat break!  Start the timer and add the hops.

The mash, sparge, and boil went without a hitch and there's not much to report from those first steps.  My trusty remote probe thermometer read the temperature throughout and the oven mash went well as usual.  I got plenty of wort to boil and added the hops, jalapeno, and extra sugar as per the recipe.  A nice plus to the rebrew of this recipe is that I was able to find one of the two hops the recipe explicitly calls for.  If you remember from the review post I wrote summarizing my first five batches before I detailed each one individually, I had to substitute in hops I could purchase for the hipster-y fancy and rarer hops used by the authors of the Brooklyn BrewShop Beer Making Book.  For this batch and the other two for which I also purchased the ingredients that day I visited Leener's down in Macedonia, OH.  Now don't get me wrong, I love The Brew Mentor, but I found via Leener's website that they carry a greater variety of hops than Brew Mentor and I've been wanting to visit that store anyway to see what it has to offer, so I took a trip down there to buy me some beer makin' stuff!  I'll write up in another post a detailed impression of Leener's versus Brew Mentor, but for now I'll say I liked Leener's, it has a greater variety of hops, but it's lacking in ways that Brew Mentor excels.  That said, I was able to buy the Pacific Jade/Gem hops the recipe called for but still had to substitute the Sorachi hops I could not easily purchase at a local brewing supply store for Citra hops, which happens to be the same pouch I bought last year for this batch.

All the boil additions fit to be added.

First hops.

Jalapeno in the boil.

In go the clear Belgian candi sugar and Agave Nectar (not pictured).

Final hops.

Chillin' that wort.

Another change from the last time I brewed this recipe is the yeast.  The first time I brewed this spicy saison it was my third batch and I had yet to branch out into different yeasts.  As you can see from my photos I still use packets of dehydrated yeast which I rehydrate in sanitized water cooled from boiling down to 90°F, and I make an effort to find the proper yeast for the recipe I'm brewing.  I had one-half of a packet of Safbrew T-58 leftover from the stout I brewed in November.  I let it come to room temperature from sitting in the fridge and when the rehydrating water was ready I pitched it and let it sit for the allotted 10-20 minutes.  It was ready to go when the wort was chilled to 65°F, and I poured it into the wort when I let the wort foam rest a bit and took a sample for the hydrometer gravity measurement during fermenter filling.

Safbrew T-58 dry yeast rehydrated.

Pouring the chilled wort into the fermenter.

Hydrometer sample for OG, hydrated yeast ready to pitch, wort ready for yeast.

The hydrometer measurement went well, nothing shocking there.  I got a reading of 1.051, and the recipe for this spicy saison with the extra sugar kick predicts an ABV of 6.2%.  I hoped I'd hit that, which would mean both the mash and fermentation went well.

OG measurement of 1.051.

Wort + yeast in fermenter; blow-off tube and bottle ready.  Into the brew bin!

Did the fermentation go well?  As I'm writing this a few weeks after I bottled, I have evidence that the fermentation was successful, and vigorous!  Comparing the above and below photos shows plenty of yeast crud caked onto the neck of the fermenter, and some of the wort was pushed out of the fermenter through the blow-off tube, lowering the overall beer available to be bottled after the final hydrometer sample.

After two weeks of fermenting, pre-racking.

Post-racking, another week to sit and clarity before bottling.

Since buying a hydrometer I've been taking gravity measurements before pitching the yeast at the end of brewing, at the racking to get an idea of the fermentation completion, and again at bottling before syphoning the fermented beer into the pot with the bottling sugar.  In my experience, and since I have yet to brew something higher than 8% ABV, I don't feel as though I need to measure the gravity at racking.  Not only have I seen no appreciable change in the gravity at that point and the final measurement, but that's another 6 ounces of beer I won't be able to bottle.  In previous posts I've discussed topping off the beer with sanitized and chilled water to keep the total level around a gallon.  While I don't have any distinct evidence that this dilutes and weakens the final product (some of my best beers have had this water addition), I've decided to no longer take this risk.  So now I know I'll only get 8-9 bottles per batch, and every ounce of beer I produce is precious.

After another week or so of letting the beer settle so as little solid matter as possible would end up in the final product I bottled the saison. A final hydrometer measurement of 1.003 gave an ABV of 6.3%; target hit!  My final output came to 9 bottles, barely.  The bottling sugar called for in this recipe was agave nectar, and 3 tablespoons went in to carbonate this batch.

9 bottles of beer to condition, 9 bottles of beer!

Here' my slightly modified recipe from Brooklyn Hipsters through me to you:

Spicy Jalapeno Saison
Grain Bill:
1.6 lb Belgian Pilsner Malt
0.1 lb Aromatic Malt
0.02 lb Munich Malt

Strike 2.15 qt H2O at 160°F. Mash in oven for 60 min at 152°F.  Sparge with 6 qt H2O at 170°F.

60-min Boil:
0.1 oz Pacific Jade hops 14.2 AA% at 60 min.
0.1 oz Pacific Jade hops 14.2 AA% at 30 min.
0.08 oz Citra hops 13.9 AA% at 15 min.
1 cleaned and diced jalapeno with seeds at 10 min.
0.08 oz Citra hops 13.9 AA% at 5 min.
0.08 oz Citra hops 13.9 AA% at flameout.
0.2 lb Clear Belgian Candi Sugar at flameout.
1/3 C Agave Nectar at flameout.
Stir to dissolve the added sugar into the wort before chilling.

Cool to 65°F in ice bath. Hydrate and pitch 1/2 packet Safbrew T-58 yeast. Bottle with 3 tbsp agave nectar.

The full gallery of photos is here.  The 9 bottles are sitting in my apartment allowing for full carbonation and conditioning.  Last summer the final few bottles of this batch were the best and I hope to hit that again for the full batch, so I won't touch one at least until May, and I plan to save these for BBQ season.

Until next time friends, happy brewing!