when you think about beer as much as we do…
In case you want make your own beer at home
A week ago, I spoke about brewing a saison. The temperature fluctuated a bit, but stayed around the 75-85 degree range. After about 3 days, the fermentation process appeared to stop, but I recalled from Farmhouse Ales that there may be a chance the process wasn’t yet done.
5 days later (8 days total), in the morning, I heard the airlock start bubbling again. I’m going to let it continue for another week or two before transferring the beer to a keg.
Today I brewed my first Saison. I usually use White Labs yeast, but in this case, I salvaged the yeast from the bottom of 2 Boulevard Smokestack Series Saisons. I plan to crank the heat up on this one, to 75 for a couple of days, then to even 80. I read from Phil Markowski in Farmhouse Ales that brewing a Saison is not like any other type – particularly in the temperature department. It is kind of neat because in the old days, the farmers would have their own house yeasts, and sometimes swap with neighbors to “liven up” the little buggers.
Not that this is the same, but borrowing some friends from Boulevard kind of makes me feel the same way.
What’s your experience “harvesting” yeast? Has it worked out for you?