First Partial Mash - Ommegang Hennepin

[BrewBee74]

Fairly new brewer here. I've done a couple steeping batches, but am now going for my first partial mash. As a big fan of Hennepin, I'm trying to clone it as close as I can. Here's what I've come up with so far...

MASH
3lb Belgian Pilsner Malt
2lb Belgian Pale Ale Malt
.5lb Flaked Oats
Plan to mash at 150deg for one hour in stovetop kettle, using ratio of 1.25qts water per 1lb grain. Rinse with 170deg water.

BOIL
Boil size of 3 gallons.
3.3lb Golden Light LME (60)
2lb Light Belgian Candi Sugar (60)
2lb Pilsen DME (15)
1.5oz Styrian Goldings (60)
0.5oz Styrian Goldings (15)
1oz Saaz (5)
0.5oz Bitter Orange Peel (15)
0.25oz Coriander Seed (15)
0.25oz Dried Ginger Root (15)
0.25oz Grains of Paradise (15)
White Labs Saison II yeast (with starter)

Info when put into Brewer's Friend:
OG 1.063
FG 1.012
IBU 25.42
ABV 6.74%
SRM 4.77

Not sure what other info would be helpful to provide on here. Any advice is greatly appreciated!



Cheers!

 

[adamk816]

Your spicing is probably a bit high. Based on a brewing network interview with Ommegang's former brewmaster Randy Thiel I would suggest 200 mg per liter of wort for the both the orange peel and coriander (about half of what you are using) and 25 mg/l of dried ginger. Not sure about the grains of paradise. I seem to recall that They put their spice in for last 10 minutes of boil and take out at knock out. Also, I think the Hennepin ABV is higher. 15-20% corn sugar is not unreasonable. If you want to really clone Hennepin, culture their yeast from one of their low ABV beers like Witte. Ommegang uses the same yeast for bottle conditioning as for fermentation. I've never tried cloning an exact Hennepin clone, so, consider that when considering my suggestions.

 

[BrewBee74]

Thanks for the info about the spices, very good to know. How should I go about harvesting yeast from their bottle? I've never done that. I'll do some other research on the topic too. First step would be to find a bottle of Ommegang, which I haven't seen anywhere here in Eastern Carolina. Maybe I haven't been looking hard enough.

Did you see anything you'd change about the grain bill?


Cheers!

 

[adamk816]

YEAST

Harvesting yeast from a commercial bottle can be a little tricky, and requires close attention to sanitation.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/ommegang-harvested-319771/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/harvesting-yeast-commercial-brews-45007/

If you don't want to bother with harevesting yeast, some people have suggested using Belgian Strong yeasts to replicate Ommegang beers (White Labs 570 or Wyeast 1388)
http://www.whitelabs.com/yeast/wlp570-belgian-golden-ale-yeast
http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=128

There are also reports that Ommegang's yeast is White Labs 410
http://www.whitelabs.com/yeast/wlp410-belgian-wit-ii-ale-yeast

If you want a good Saison, I would personally use a Saison yeast. The Ommegang yeast is not a traditional Saison yeast, which is probably why they use the various spices to give it character.

MALT

I think your grain bill looks good, except I am not sure about your amounts. When I put the recipe in BrewToad I was getting a much higher OG! I would lower the dry malt extract from 2 lb to 1 lb in order to get a original gravity around 1.067. You are correct that Hennepin is made with Pilsner and Pale malts, but I would probably switch out the Golden Light LME with a Pilsen LME, and use Light DME instead of the Pilsen DME. No oats reportedly in the real thing, but they won't hurt. Randy Thiel (former Ommegang brewmaster) said that they use simple corn sugar instead of the expensive belgian candi sugars, so you may wish to skip the candi sugar if it is hard to obtain and simply use corn sugar. You will want to up your sugar percent to 15-20% of the fermentables. Currently you are about 13-15%, however, if you reduce your Malt Extract in order to get a lower Original Gravity, the sugar percentage will increase slightly. What efficiency are you planning on getting for the partial mash portion? 70% efficiency?

Do you have capability to do a full boil (8 gallons)? Or are you constrained to a 3 gallon boil? If you are doing a partial boil, you want to keep the gravity of your wort the same as a full volume boil in order to get the proper hop utilization, and then add the Malt Extract at the end of the boil. There is a section in "Brewing Classic Styles" about how to calculate extract additions for a partial boil.

Hennepin has a original gravity of 1.069 (16.8 Plato) and a final gravity of 1.010 (2.6 Plato), which comes out to be a pretty high 85% attenuation. I doubt you will be able to get an attenuation of 85% when using Malt Extract. Accordingly, I would focus on reaching the final gravity of 1.010 more than attempting to get the high 7.7% abv. You may wish to consider lowering your partial mash infusion temp from 150 to 148 (for 75 minutes) to try and squeeze out some more fermentability.


HOPS

The 25 IBU target for the hop additions is right on; however, the full ounce of Saaz might be a bit strong for the style. Perhaps reduce to 0.5 oz?

SPICES
For 5 gallon batch, try 4 g Coriander, 4 g SWEET orange peel (Sweet, not bitter according to Ommegang website), 1 g Grains of Paradise, and 0.25 tsp of dried ginger. Add at 10 minutes in a hop sack and pull out at flame out.

Check out what I've thrown together for you:
http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/brewbees-saison