Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Wyeast 3711
Yeast Starter: 4L
Batch Size (Gallons): 15.5
Original Gravity: 1.058
Final Gravity: 1.004
IBU: 24.5
Boiling Time (Minutes): 90
Color: 18
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 5 weeks @ 71*
Tasting Notes: A ridiculously rye saison with nice citrus notes throughout.

This beer won Best of Show and placed 1st in Cat. 16 for the 2011 HBT Competition.

So the day started off like any other brew day...or so we thought. Eh, no big deal that it was only going to be 10 degrees out, we will have those burners raging in the garage it will be plenty warm. We should have called it off then...

After spending 30 minutes with a torch thawing out the plumbing and hoses we were set. Wow, it IS cold out. No problem, lets get the strike water going, measure the grains and get crushing. Fast forward about 45 more minutes and we are just about ready to dough in. Hmm, what the hell is that smell - "it sure does smell like propane" we tell each other. Then "whoooosh" and all our concerns about being cold were gone as we now had a 3 foot flamethrower coming out of our damper, sweet...not planned but sweet nonetheless. A couple objects hurdled and a few barrel rolls later, we were able to kill the propane. Wow, it IS cold out and now I sh*t my pants too, great...

Still alive, we continued on - there is beer to make after all!

Now we aren't really sure how much of this process you have to repeat if you decide to make this beverage but good luck (and oh yeah, we learned to check ALL our connections much more regualrly after that, especially in the cold).

How Rye I Am - A Rye Saison

Amount Item Type % or IBU
1 lbs Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 2.70 %
25 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (1.8 SRM) Grain 67.57 %
9 lbs Rye Malt (2.9 SRM) Grain 24.32 %
4.00 oz Styrian Goldings [5.20 %] (60 min) Hops 24.4 IBU
2 lbs Candi Sugar, Dark (275.0 SRM) Sugar 5.41 %
French Saison (Wyeast Labs #3711) [Starter 4000 ml] Yeast-Ale

Mash Profile
Mash @ 152* for 60 minutes. We mashed thin at 1.8qt/lb.

Notes
Grain to glass in 7 weeks. Competiton entries (first round) were 8 weeks old. Carbed to 2.7 volumes of CO2. We underpitched by about 20% as to stress the yeast a little for more ester production.