Spaceship Beer (CG)
Dark, very low gravity Saison made with second runnings from CF and our nectarines. I have no clue how this will turn out, but I need to get the nectarines out of the freezer.
Brewed 5.0 gallons on 2023-03-26
Preboil gravity: 1.02
Original gravity: 1.02
Final gravity: 1.004
ABV: 2.1%
Apparent Attenuation: 80.0%
Parti-gyle first beer was Black Garnet (CF)
Process notes
2023-03-28
10:00am: active fermentation. Lots of bubbles and ~1 inch of krausen.
2023-04-03
Fermentation really kicked up again after adding the fruit. Lots of bubbles in the wort and lots of activity in the airlock.
2023-04-14
Kegged. Siphoning was a huge pain, so this beer will probably be oxidized.
Decent nectarine character, maybe a bit of the phenols comes through in the aroma. Light body (not surprising), but not watery. Nectarine actually doesn't overpower the beer, despite how low the abv is. Should be easy drinking if it's not terribly oxidized.
Decent nectarine character, maybe a bit of the phenols comes through in the aroma. Light body (not surprising), but not watery. Nectarine actually doesn't overpower the beer, despite how low the abv is. Should be easy drinking if it's not terribly oxidized.
2023-08-02
Put the keg on today. Previously, it had been sitting in the fermentation chest freezer at around 40°.
2024-10-23
The keg has been moved between the office and the fermenting cheese freezer. Today, it was put back on tap.
Boil for 30 minutes
At 30 minutes
2 ounces of 5% Alpha Acid Lemondrop pellets (These hops had been vacuum sealed in the freezer since April 27, 2019. There was air in the bag, but I submerged it and didn't see any bubbles and no water got in. They also smelled fine.)
At 15 minutes
Sparge
Sparged for 15 minutes with 4 gallons of 68° reverse osmosis water. (Dumped 4 gallons of RO water into the sparge bucket + added the Lactic Acid. I sparged directly into a sanitized carboy while CF was boiling.)
2.00mL lactic acid added to water
After 0 mins
pH is 5.33; specific gravity is 1.041
After 12 mins
pH is 5.63; specific gravity is 1.012
After 15 mins
Gravity was pretty low, so I stopped the sparge at this point and added ~1 gallon of the sparge water directly to the wort.
Yeast
2023-03-26
Pitch 1 pack of WLP565 Belgian Saison (WhiteLabs) at 68°. (Best By: April 16, 2023. Lot #12147800. Pitched directly into wort; no oxygen or yeast nutrient. After pitching, I put the carboy in the sewing room covered with a towel.)
Dry additions
2023-04-02
1 gallon of Nectarine. (Four bags of frozen nectarines from our tree have been in the freezer. Three were from August 2022 and one was from August 2020. Frozen, they weighed just over 10 pounds.
I let them defrost for ~8 hours, emptied them into a pot, put on medium heat, strained them, and dumped them into the fermented while still pretty hot. )
I let them defrost for ~8 hours, emptied them into a pot, put on medium heat, strained them, and dumped them into the fermented while still pretty hot. )
Images
