Rye Wine
For a while now I have been interested in doing a rye wine. This isn’t exactly an established style, but I have always really liked the flavors that rye imparts on a beer. To date I have done two beers with rye, Hop Ryeand Ritbier, both being somewhat restrained in their utilization of rye, thus I really was looking for something to show off what rye brings to the table.
A rye wine to me should be much like its barley wine or wheat wine siblings, high in gravity (1.090 sg or greater) and have at least 40% rye to ensure that its flavor dominates. This is actually a fairly difficult thing to do on my system because rye is very high in beta glucans. Technically speaking beta-glucans are polysacharide glucose chains but there presence in brewing causes a mash to thicken, increasing the potential for stuck mashes and difficulty sparging. Malted rye is available, but it is huskless and therefore has even less material to aid in flow through the mash. Briess recommends that rice hulls be used when approaching a 20% rye malt grain bill (this is fairly common for high adjunct beers) and supplemental betaglucanase enzyme (breaks down beta-glucans) be added for bills beyond 35%. For this recipe I am trying to get as close to 50% rye, but I’m going to have to weigh that against my need for HERMS circulation to raise the temperature of the mash between rests and for mash-out. This will be difficult because the mash kettle will be filled to the max. Hopefully if the mash is thin enough, we use enough rice hulls, and we get a good beta-glucan rest going, we should have enough flow to make it work. Otherwise my only option will be direct heat, which would probably delay the start of the second beer planned for the day. More on that later.
To make things interesting and for various other reasons, I decided to plan the rye wine as a parti-gyle. This essentially means that I am planning on doing multiples mashes and running using the same grains to make at least 2 beers. In olden days many brews were designed to produce as many as 3 different beers from the same grain. The first mash/runnings would be used for a strong beer, the second for a common or table beer, and a third for a small beer. After the first mash and runnings the grain would be re-infused with water, left to sit a little longer and run through for the next beer.
The back story on the parti-glyle for me comes from multiple points. For one, I've always been fascinated by small beers and have been wanting to do one for a long time. I never really equated the concept of small beers with the term parti-gyle untill recently, so this just adds to the fun of it. 2nd, I have this Brettanomyces blend I got from NJ homebrew shop that was cultered by Al Buck. I’m interested to see what Brett can do to rye and I need to use this yeast before I starts to die (was purchased in December). Lastly, I really want to start making multiple beers from the same wort source because it’s a great way to learn the effects of different yeast and get some drinking variety at the same time.
I still have the job of figuring out how I want to portion this because I have a few options. For instance, I could do 2/3 1st runnings and 1/3 2nd second, or 1/3 1st runnings and 2/3 2nd runnings, or I could split it right down the middle. Either way I’m only going to end up with at most 15 gallons of wort. The second question is how to split the yeast. The brett yeast will be used for one and another yeast to be chosen for the other. How I partition this is still up in the air at this point though I’m leaning towards a 2/3rd 1st runnings with Sacharomyces yeast and a 1/3 2nd runnings with the Brett. Suggestions are always welcome.
Last note on this beer. I noticed a few months ago in one of my northern brewer catalogs a reference to some rye wine experiment. At the time this re-perked my interest in the whole rye wine idea. When I started researching the idea I immediately found a reference to the experiment on the northern brewer blog. As it turned out they had done a 20 gal rye wine parti-gyle, split down the middle, with too different yeasts. So this definitely had a large part in motivating me to make this to happen once in for all. In my searching I found maybe 3-4 references to rye wine including the northern brewer one, so its not something that’s really being explored that much.
Gluten Free Saison
I know this one is a little strange but I have good reasons. My mother struggles with a gluten digestion, not sure if its full bore celiacs, but she definately has a lot of trouble with gluten. Ever since I have started brewing she has asked me, “when are you going to make me a gluten free beer?” Of course I never had a good answer because the only viable option I found was doing a special mash using buckwheat, sorghum, rice, and other adjuncts. I’ve always know it was doable, but figured it would be hard to source the ingredients and that it may take a few batches to get a recipe right (I’m not going to be drinking bad GF Beer).
Since then a new product has emerged from Briess called BriesSweet™ White Sorghum Syrup. This is essentially a high maltose sorghum extract that can be used 1 to 1 like a malt extract but is gluten free. MDHB now carried the syrup so I figured it was about time. My moms birthday is coming up in April and now I have a reason to make my first extract beer, simple choice really.
My mom has always like my farmhouse style beers because of their dryness and rich flavors so I figured I would give a saison a try. My hope is that the yeast will impart enough ester compounds to help hide that the beer is actually made from sorghum. I have no idea what to expect from this one seeing as it will be made from water and this syrup alone, but hopefully the Wyeast 3711 won’t let me down.
The goal is to get this going in the boil while the rye wine is mashing. As long as the Rye Wine is able to circulate this should be doable and we shouldn’t lose any time. Otherwise the Gluten Free beer may have to wait till later in the day or even Sunday.
Experiences in Beer
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