Dark Farmhouse Ale

I have begun my search to find the perfect "house" saison strain.  Wyeast re-released in July WY3725-Biere de Garde.  This is a saccharomyces isolated from Fantome and should produce mild esters/phenols, finish slightly tart, and accentuate the malt.  I decided to brew two beers in consecutive days, this dark saison and a honey grisette, to get a better feel for this yeast.  I didn't expect this yeast to be overly expressive, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to brew a farmhouse style ale with dark malt bill and have the malt and yeast play off of one another rather than clash in terms of flavor.  I've had a couple darker saisons where the yeast character and the darker malt flavors seemed to be competing, not complementing one another; so I definitely wanted the latter over the former. At the end of the day, my plan is to split this beer 3 ways: 1) straight with just saccharomyces, 2) secondarily fermented with Wyeast Brettanomyces Lambicus, and 3) secondarily fermented with Brett. Lambicus and my house sour microbe blend. I think it will be really interesting to see how different microbes and aging can make the same beer taste so different.

Gnarly pellicle on the Brett Lambicus portion

The grains to use were the most important aspect in designing this beer. For a beer than is expected to finish dry, and be refermented with various microbes, an abundance of roasted grains can lead to astringency.  To try to avoid this, I went with Briess' Midnight Wheat.  This is roasted wheat that is very dark (550L), but imparts more of a chocolate flavor and deep color as opposed to roast and astringency.  I also used flaked rye to add some spice and earthiness, and melonoidin and red wheat for a little more depth and protein in the beer for the long term secondary fermentation.

The hops are pretty much straight forward saison.  Saaz for a little spice, and a touch of Styrian Golding for earthiness and subtle citrus.

Oh and this is my first beer using a drill to turn my grain mill, which is awesome.

Dark Farmhouse Ale
Brewed 10 August 2013 by myself
Batch size: 5.25 gallons
OG: 1.056
FG: 1.005 (straight portion)
IBU: 20
SRM: 17
Boil time: 70 minutes

Grain
8 lbs. Rahr 2-Row
1 lb. Rahr Red Wheat
1 lb. Flaked Rye
1 lb. Weyermann Melonoidin
4 oz. Briess Midnight Wheat

Hops
0.25 oz. Warrior @ 60 min (15.5% AA)
1.00 oz. Saaz @ 20 min (3.1% AA)
1.00 oz. Saaz @ 0 min (3.1% AA)
1.00 oz. Styrian Goldings (3.0% AA)

Yeast
WY3725 - Biere de Garde: 2L Starter made 8/8/2013, pitched 800ml
WY5528 - Brettanomyces Lambicus
"House" Sour Blend

Misc.
1 tablet Whirlfloc and 1/2 tsp. yeast nutrient @ 15 min.

Water
Carbon filtered DC with 3g gypsum and 3.6g CaCl2 added the mash and 2.5 gallons distilled added to the sparge
Ca: 76 ppm
Mg: 5 ppm
Na: 15 ppm
Cl: 71 ppm
SO4: 84 ppm

Mash
153F for 60 min

Notes
Collected 6 gallons of 1.048 runnings (68% efficiency)
Extended boil 10 minutes to concentrate.
Cooled to 85F, 6 hr later pitched the yeast once at 70F, left at 75F ambient to ferment, solid fermentation after 12 hours

8/20/2013 - 1.005, Dubbel like, roasty, not much in terms of yeast

8/30/2013 - 1.005, bottled 2 gallons with .85 oz corn sugar; pitched house bug blend and Brett. Lambicus into 1 gallon, and pitched just Brett. Lambicus into 3 gallons