Friday 11 October 2013

Brewing a Prairie Artisan Ales 'Merica clone

In September, my wife and I were lucky enough to make another trip to San Diego, one of the beer meccas of the U.S. Despite being accompanied by our 16-month-old daughter, we did pretty well in the beer department, I thought; I personally had 36 new beers during the week we were there. Along with trips to the San Diego Zoo and several beaches, we also visited Modern Times, Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens (Liberty Station location), Pizza Port Ocean Beach, and a few choice beer bars, such as Toronado.

As expected, many of the beers I had were fantastic... lots of very hoppy IPAs and DIPAs were consumed! However, one of my favorite beers of the trip was a hoppy Saison brewed by a fairly new brewery called Prairie Artisan Ales... out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Yep. Oklahoma. They brew many different types of Saisons; the one I had was called 'Merica. It was fabulously grassy and fruity, with a good amount of funk in both the aroma and flavor. When I arrived home, the Wyeast 3711 French Saison yeast I had ordered from my LHBS arrived; I had originally planned on brewing a Modern Times Lomaland clone, or some other Saison, but I decided to attempt to put together a 'Merica clone recipe.

Searching the internet for other attempts at 'Merica clones turned up nothing. There IS some helpful info on Prairie's website, however:

"‘Merica is a single malt, single hop saison. It’s brewed with floot malted pilsner and 3lbs per bbl Nelson Sauvin hops. The beer is conditioned with 2 brett strains and wine yeast."

While I've never brewed with Nelson Sauvin hops before, I just happened to have 8 oz of it from an order I made with Yakima Valley Hops a few months ago... 3 lbs/bbl equates to about 8 oz for a 5 gallon batch. Perfect! It was meant to be (Disclaimer: If you put your mind to it, you can convince yourself of anything in homebrewing). Nelson Sauvin is a New Zealand variety hop that has been quickly growing in popularity over the past few years. It is well-known for a strong fruity flavor and aroma: gooseberries, passionfruit and grapefruit, or a Sauvignon Blanc (white wine) character.

I thought I'd try sending a direct message to Prairie's Facebook account, asking for a bit more help with the recipe, but unfortunately they didn't respond. I mainly wanted to get a rough idea of the hop schedule, and find out whether the beer was dry-hopped or not (I assumed it was, from the strong aroma). I dug around a little more, and found the IBUs (35) listed on the Shelton Bros. (beer importers) site; they also note that the beer is "heavily dry-hopped". After a little more searching on Prairie's website, I found that their Standard Saison (their "everyday" beer) is dry-hopped with 1 lb/bbl of Motueka, another New Zealand hop variety. I figured this was a good number to shoot for in the dry-hopping of my 'Merica clone, which amounts to about 2.5 oz for 5 gallons.

The grist of the recipe was easy, obviously - 100% pilsner malt - with 3 grams of Gypsum thrown in the mash, just to increase the calcium levels of my water a little. As for the hop-schedule, however, I was on my own. When you're hopping a beer to about 35 IBUs with 8 oz in a 5 gallon batch, and the hop variety has an alpha acid % of 11... well, it seems to me that you pretty much have to avoid any early hop additions, or the IBUs on the beer are going to end up being too high. I fooled around with the additions on Beersmith, and decided to go with three at increasing amounts: 1 oz at 10 minutes, 2 oz at 5 minutes, and 2.5 oz at flameout, with a 15-minute hop steep. That should get me roughly around 35 IBUs... and hopefully one hell of a lot of hop flavor and aroma. And a lot of hop sludge leftover.

Now, while I've brewed with Brettanomyces in the past, I've never strictly bottle-conditioned with it. Because Brett is capable of fermenting carbohydrates with as many as nine molecules of glucose (compared to brewer's yeast max of three molecules long), it can slowly chew away at leftover sugars in the beer for months, and even years, producing more CO2, increasing the risk of gushing and bottle bombs.

Don't get me wrong, lots of breweries bottle condition with Brett, and it certainly doesn't always result in exploding bottles. Orval is probably the most well-known Brett-bottle-conditioned beer out there; I've opened bottles that were over three years old, and there hasn't been any gushing at all... just fantastic, mouth-watering funkiness! For the homebrewer, the two main issues when adding Brett at bottling are how MUCH Brett do you add, and how much bottling sugar, if any?

There's some good articles out there about approaches to take (check out this one from The Mad Fermentationist), but I'm going to keep it simple for myself, and take the safe route. I decided on splitting the batch in two from the very beginning: 
  • Half will have the bottle dregs from several Brett beers pitched in over time. I'll try to start pitching the dregs before the 3711 is completely done fermenting, because in my experience with it, it can ferment LOW, which wouldn't leave much in the way of sugars behind for the Brett to work on. Not a very accurate approach, but hopefully it'll be ok. When the gravity seems to have plateaued, I'll dry-hop for a week or so and then bottle it as-is.
  • The other half will be fermented with JUST the 3711, dry-hopped for a week, and bottled without Brett. I figure this is a good way to a) have a Saison to drink a little earlier, and b) compare the qualities that the Brett hopefully adds to the other half.
I'm not really sure what the added wine yeast at bottling provides to the beer, but I'll probably add a little dry wine yeast that I have on hand, at least to the Brett-half, just for the heck of it. Some of Prairie's beers are starting to show up in Maine, I believe, so hopefully I'll find a bottle of 'Merica when I'm there later in the month to compare to my results.

UPDATE: After I tweeted the link to this post, Prairie responded back about the hop schedule. They say they use a 60-minute bittering addition (so, it would have to be very small), and 1 lb/bbl whirlpool, 2 lb/bbl dry-hop. This translates to 2.5 oz Nelson at flameout for a 5-gallon batch, and 5 oz for dry-hopping. So, I was right for the whirlpool, but added hops at 5 & 10 minutes that should have gone into the dry-hop, for the most part. 

Recipe targets: (5.5 gallons, 75% efficiency) OG 1.056, FG ~1.007, IBU ~35, SRM 4, ABV ~6.5%

Grains:
5 kg (100%) Bohemian Pilsner

Hops:
Nelson Sauvin - 28 g (11% AA) @ 10 min
Nelson Sauvin - 56 g @ 5 min
Nelson Sauvin - 70 g @ flameout (steeped for 15 minutes)
Nelson Sauvin - 78 g dry-hop for 7 days (divided in two, 39 g for each half-batch)

Misc.: 1/2 tab Irish moss @ 5 min

Yeast: Wyeast 3711 French Saison (with a 1.5 L starter)

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 3 g Gypsum in the mash

- Brewed on October 7th, 2013, by myself. 60-minute mash with 16.5 L of strike water, mashed in a little under target temp of 151 F. Sparged with 5.5 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~7.5 gallons in the kettle.

- SG at 1.044, slightly over target of 1.042. 90-minute boil. Final volume a bit over 5.5 gallons. Flameout hops steeped for 15 minutes, then turned on immersion chiller. Chilled down to 64 F, then poured ~10 L into 3-gallon Better Bottle, and the rest into a 6-gallon BB (lots of trub got into this half). OG on target of 1.056. Aerated with 60 seconds of pure O2 for each half, and placed in laundry room, ambient temp about 72 F.

- 8/10/13 - 14/10/13 - Over this week, visible fermentation was never fast and furious, bubbling about 3-4 times per 10 seconds in the airlock, temp 70 F.  Gravity got down to 1.009, so I attached a heat belt to the non-Brett portion and turned it on, bringing the temp up to the high 70s. Pitched the bottle dregs of two bottles of Orval into Brett portion.

- 25/10/13 - Added dry hops to non-Brett portion directly into primary.

- 29/10/13 - Bottled non-Brett portion with 85 g table sugar, aiming for 3 vol CO2 for 10 L and a max temp of 78 reached.

- 4/11/13 - Over the next few weeks, pitched bottle dregs of three more bottles of Orval and one bottle of Allagash Confluence. Racked Brett portion into secondary on Nov. 12th.

- 28/11/13 - Added dry-hops to Brett portion into secondary fermentor.

- 4/12/13 - Bottled Brett portion with 67 g table sugar (and ~1/8 pack Lalvin EC-1118 rehydrated yeast... a white wine yeast, unfortunately realized I didn't have any red wine yeast), aiming for 3 vol CO2 for 2.13 gallons with a max temp of 78 F reached.

- 24/12/13 - Tasting notes... damn, what a delicious beer! Huge Nelson presence, lots of fruit (berries, specifically)... amazing! Close to the real thing, but more hoppy and lacking a bit of hard-to-place funkish character.

29 comments:

  1. I'm sitting on a pound of Nelson and discovered this recipe. I'm going to brew this on Weds. Any last minute advice? I'm going to use White labs Saison II (since I have it in the fridge) and will probably pitch a couple strains of Brett. I'm sure it will end up totally different than yours! I'm sort of worried about bottling the Brett half too.
    I've never had the original but I've heard they are all tasty.

    Thanks for the great work on the hop schedule.

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    1. Hmmm... nothing I can think of advice-wise, since the hop schedule has been cleared up. If I was a little further along in fermentation or tasting notes, maybe I could add more, but it looks like you know what you're doing!

      Hope it turns out. Let me know!

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  2. I just had my first bottle of this a few weeks ago and have been thinking about brewing a clone myself. I may have to piggyback on what youve done here and give it a try. I'll follow along and see what you thought worked and what didnt. But I will probably brew before yours is done, I'll post on my blog about it as well.

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    1. It's been conditioning in the bottle for a week and a half now... I'll definitely be trying my first bottle this weekend. If I don't get the tasting notes up that soon, I'll try to email you and let you know how it turned out, unless of course it seems like it needs more time.

      I'd definitely follow the suggestions by the brewery for the hopping!

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    2. Shawn, have you had a chance to give this a try? I'm brewing a double batch on Saturday and may make this one of the two.

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    3. Hey Ed... I was actually trying to figure out last week how to send you an email, but couldn't find a way to contact you directly!

      I haven't published the tasting notes yet because I've been waiting to open a bottle of the real thing and compare, but regardless, the non-Brett portion came out fantastic! The Nelson character is huge, and combined with the Saison yeast... quite impressive. I strongly recommend giving the recipe a go!

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    4. Awesome, thanks for the reply. I am going to give it a go I think. I should have had my email address set to public so you could see it. My fault.

      Cheers!

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    5. Good luck! And make sure you let me know how it turns out. I'll be posting some tasting notes here soon. I really like the non-Brett half; if I had my time back, I'd just ferment the whole batch with the Saison yeast and not bother with the Brett at all!

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    6. Not a home brewer myself, but am a big fan of Merica (sipping on one right now as an after Thanksgiving lunch treat). Looking forward to hearing the tasting notes and that someone else appreciates this fantastic farmhouse brew!

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    7. Nice... happy (American) Thanksgiving!

      Should be posting the tasting notes soon, maybe even compared to the real thing!

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    8. Its in the fermenter Shawn, I'll be posting about it on my blog in the next few weeks. Thanks for doing the leg work. http://riverwards.blogspot.com/

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    9. Great, hope it turns out amazing!

      I've been keeping up with your blog, so looking forward to reading about it.

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  3. Shawn, thanks for doing the legwork on this recipe. I have it in Beersmith now, looking to brew it sometime in Jan

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    1. My pleasure... looking forward to hearing how yours comes out!

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  4. Just stumbled across this- would White Labs' Belgian Style Saison Ale Yeast Blend and Brettanomyces Bruxellensis work as a yeast combination?

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    1. I don't see why not... I went with the French Saison strain simply because I liked it when I had used it in the past; not because I thought it would necessarily be better-suited to clone this beer. I really have no idea what commercially available yeast is most similar to whatever Saison yeast Prairie uses.

      As for the Brett, I just pitched Orval dregs, so I think what you have planned would have just as good a chance as working, if not better.

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    2. Thanks for the reply. Just curious, how would you adjust the dry hop schedule now that you've been told Prairie's approach?

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    3. Well, I guess I'd just do as they mentioned, which is about 5 oz for dry-hopping. Probably wouldn't hurt to divide that into two additions, 2.5 oz each, maybe for 4-5 days each? If I did it again I'd likely keg the beer, and add the dry-hops directly into the keg.

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    4. Perfect! Will do two additions then. Thanks for the help! Will let you know how it turns out.

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  5. Thanks for doing all the hardwork on this one. I brewed it up following the revised hopping schedule and it is the best beer I've ever made. I pitched a vial of Brett C. at bottling (not wine yeast..long story) because that's all I could get and mine has a huge pineapple nose.

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    1. No problem, glad it turned out well for you!

      I think pitching the Brett C. sounds like a great idea... it'll be interesting to see how the beer develops over time (if you can save some to age, that is!).

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  6. Not sure this posted when I clicked publish the first time.

    Quick question Shawn. Basically the correction you received from Prairie eliminates the 10 and 5 minute additions altogether, moves them to dry hop. Meaning all ~30 IBU's come directly from a bittering addition, right? The change moves all additions to bittering and whirlpool.

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    1. Yes and no. You'd definitely be getting SOME IBUs from a 15-min steep with a high-AA hop like Nelson, so you'd have to assume some bitterness from the whirlpool addition. The version of BeerSmith I used to calculate the numbers when I brewed this didn't calculate any IBUs based on a hop steep; the newer version does (however, whatever formula the never version uses seems to overcalculate the IBUs, in my opinion).

      So, I wouldn't really add too much at 60 minutes... maybe to 20 IBUs or so?

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  7. Hey one more question. Did you originally plan to boil for 60 mins, which got you to 1.044...then adjusted on the fly to a 90 min boil to get down to target 1.042? Or did you plan a 90 min boil from the start?

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    1. I planned a 90-minute boil from the start. Whether it's necessary or not, I always try to do a 90-minute boil when there's pilsner malt involved, to reduce the DMS presence in the beer.

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  8. Hi Shawn,

    Just brewed this 1-20-16 and was able to change my Johnson Controller to Heat control to use my queen size heating blanket to raise the temperature to 80. Pretty excited as I am getting the nice Saison esters/phenols you'd expect I've heard that before Primary is completely over, you might benefit from dry-hopping and that the warmer you can do it, the more oils are extracted, so I'm just gave it a whirl tonight by dry-hopping the entire 5 oz quantity.

    I hit an OG of 1.054 and a FG of 1.006 tonight, but when I tasted the beer, it had a slightly bitter taste to it that I don't recall in the saisons I've had. I followed the revised hop schedule by adding .75 oz 12.2 AA% Nelson for IBU of 34 and 2.5 flameout for about 25 minutes. I'm wondering if this is because I haven't ever made a saison and I'm just not used to the green flavor of it with the use of so much Nelson. Either way, I was wondering how your sample tasted if you can recall!

    Thanks and Cheers!

    Ryan

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    1. Hey Ryan,

      I wish I could remember how it tasted before it was ready, but I can't! I wouldn't worry yet, though, it's not packaged, correct? I find it's always hard to tell for sure until it's properly carbed and served at the right temp. It sounds like the method you took was sound.

      When you say 34 ibu, do you mean as the bittering addition? If so, that plus the 24 min whirlpool may bring your IBU into the 50ish range or so, which is a little higher than mine came out. Hard to say though, till it's really ready!

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    3. Hi Shawn, thanks for the reply.

      And yes, that was all the bittering addition with the rest being at flame out. I suspect it may be a little more bitter, but hey it's going to be beer! Packaging today and I'll let you know how it came out - the aroma is amazing! Thanks again for doing the legwork. Cheers!

      Ryan

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