Rack the Wazoo, Taste the Cat

Monday night, I racked the wallonian wazoo to secondary. I added 1/4 cup of medium toast French oak chips, and 2 bits from the wassail to wallonia. I also pitched half a pack of wyeast's brettanomyces bruxelis. That saison will live in the basement for 6 months as flavors develop. The gravity at racking was 1.012.

We also tasted the first of the scooting cat. It pours a hazy orange, with wonderful white head. the retention is excellent. The spelt definitely helped out there. The flavors range from sweet to resinous citrus notes and the hops can get a bit grassy. It's also very full bodied, which was unexpected given my recent run of thin beers.

Wallonian Wazoo

The saison I brewed last summer has developed very nicely, and is easily the best beer I ever brewed. Since Kate and I have become miserly in its consumption, so that there is more to share, we decided it would be best to brew another. Instead of trying to recreate a high temp fermentation as temperatures fall, I figured that I'd switch yeasts and take some liberties with my recipe so that I can better explore the style. I also ordered some brettanomyces yeast to sour the brew in secondary.

Again, I used a 2 hour boil but with this stove I encountered complications from evaporation and the occasional boil-over. I need to think ahead and boil additional water to add at the one hour point to replace evaporated liquid durring my partial boil.

This saison is my first beer that will not have irish moss as a clarification agent. We'll see how that works out. I also tried using my brewing chest to cool my pot (after adding a gallon of ice water). It wasn't especially effective. I need a wort cooler.

Grains: 1.5 lb Aromatic, 1lb Pilsner, 1 Lb Wheat, 0.5 lb Munich Malt. Mashed with a single 60 minute infusion at 148-152 sparged @ 170 F.
Dry Extracts: 2lbs Muntons Light DME
Liquid Extracts: 3.3 lbs Breiss Bavarian Wheat
Hops: 1 oz East Kent Goldings (60), 0.5 oz Hallertauer (20), 1 oz Hallertauer (1), 0.5 oz East Kent Goldings (1)
Yeast: Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes (cultured from flasks)
Etc: 1 g Grains of Paradise (20 min)
Fermentation Notes 1 week @ 75 F
OG: 1.060