Yeast Coast Lifestyle

This beer was brewed on October 21, 2017.  For my second all-grain batch, I was inspired to brew a saison in the vein of something by Jester King--  I had recently had access to a bottle that I saved dregs from, and had propped them up to a pitchable volume.  I can't recall which beer, but I know it was a saison in its base form (may've been Das Wunderkind, or one of the Provenance beers, but I can't be sure).   A beautiful pellicle formed on the starter after a few cycles of feeding I fished around online to find existing accounts of people who'd attempted something similar (any beer with a Jester King culture)-- I don't recall whether or not I found much of anything informative, but I do recall discovering that Jester King posted a handful of their recipes on their website's blog .  The one I chose to use was the recipe for Das Uberkind , from this post , which has a good amount of other recipes, as well. My derivative recipe looked like this:...

I wanted to make a quick loaf yesterday, so I whipped up a recipe based on the Saturday White Bread Recipe from Ken Forkish (Flour Water Salt Yeast).  I love rye bread with caraway seeds , so I put that spin on it.  I also halved the recipe, since I don't eat a ton of bread. Ingredients : 400g all-purpose unbleached flour 100g rye flour 360g water 11g salt 2g active dry yeast (while I like the idea of sourdough better, sometimes short and simple is nice) 1tbsp caraway seeds As you can see, this is a pretty simple recipe.  The water should be fairly hot, but I didn't measure the temperature.  I usually just use hot tap-water that's hot to the touch, but not scalding.  The thermal mass of the bowl and flour usually reach equilibrium at about the right place, leaving the dough in the mid-70s. My procedure: Mix flour and water by hand in a large bowl, until everything is just incorporated. Let the dough sit for 5 minutes, then fold-- usually abou...

Between the time of the last partial mash beer I brewed and the first all-grain batch I brewed, I grew my knowledge of beer quite extensively.  I was regularly listening to tons of beer podcasts, buying beer books, and doing lots of research online.  I couldn't get enough-- passion was a driving force.  Unfortunately, the nature of my personality was preventing me from getting back into brewing.  I can be a bit obsessive over details (a perfectionist of sorts).  I didn't have every single piece of gear I wanted to have in order to do things the way I felt they should have been done.  I got the equipment I needed, bit by bit, but seemed to still get stuck at certain steps.  For a while, it was the fittings on a mash tun.  Then it was finding gaskets to seal the tun-- then I would learn something and new, and scrap the way I was doing it.  It was a vicious circle. A friend of mine saw that I was holding myself back, and was kind enough to let...

I've decided to begin keeping track of things that I spend my time on, markedly those that require yeast and/or bacterial cultures.  Within the past couple years, I have grown increasingly interested in fermentation-- this interest has mostly manifested itself in the forms of bread making and brewing, but I continue to be casually interested in things like kimchi and fermented coffees (which I have yet to try).  Beer was my gateway-- I began nerding out on the details of beer, which led me to crawl down the romantic rabbit hole of mixed-fermentation, where yeast and bacteria are the stars of the show.  I then got into baking bread, where I became excited to use a sourdough culture.  I thoroughly enjoy learning the processes that govern how things come to be-- it is immanently rewarding being able to produce something with your knowledge and abilities.  Empowerment! As I've learned through work and school, it's always a good idea to ensure that everything you d...