Funkmaster Friar
Lead: Joey | Brewed: 1/16/21 | Packaged: 1/31/21
ABV: 9.2% | OG: 1.067 | FG: 0.997
Style: “Super” Saison/Tripel
Malt: American “Pilsner” (6-row & corn)
Adjuncts: Dextrose
Hops: Nugget, Amarillo
Yeast: Bootleg Biology “The Mad Fermentationist Saison Blend”
When Evan and Joey first sat down and started talking about brewing together they had a shared joy (Passion? Nerds…) for Belgian styles, especially saisons and tripels. In 2020, John joined our “merry band of misfits brewers” at a time when he was still experiencing a handful of beer things for the first time. Sours and wild ales were a big share for all of us, so, for our first beer of 2021 we decided we’d try our hand at a mixed culture fermentation by revisiting our first beer together, a tripel inspired by Westmalle’s.
The name came from the title of an article Joey wrote for Spec’s email newsletter about Orval. We’re still entertained with the title, and the image of George Clinton in a friar’s cowl, that it had to be the name.
Recipe and process by Joey
The recipe is essentially a tripel, “pilsner” malt and simple sugar, in recipe and strength, but the fermentation involving a saison yeast/culture blurs that line a bit. A shared love of Amarillo hops and its mention by name in the yeast culture’s write up. Our hope is that we get most of, if not all, the things we love about both a tripel and a saison with the added influence of a touch of funk, acidity and delicious hops.
This being our first mixed culture fermentation wasn’t enough of a “first” for us, so I decided I’d take one of the two packets of the yeast culture that I’d bought and made my first attempt at a yeast starter. After receiving some equipment that I joked resembled suggested a “Breaking Bad” situation, I followed instructions John shared and others that I found online. I probably picked up that flask every hour of the day leading up to brewday and texted the group, and John even more, about my concerns it wasn’t working. Later on day 1 it looked like we night have activity and the morning of brewday it looked even more promising.
Still, a new fermentation process and my first yeast started wasn’t enough of an undertaking. Evan had gotten it in his mind sometime in 2020 that a step mash, rather than single infusion, might serve our interests. I found a step mash process that Ommegang used, or uses, either in searching for information online or one of the homebrewing books I have. I poured over that process for weeks leading up to brewday. John and I went back and forth about specifics and we all discussed the logistics of the actual process for brewday.
So, brewday came, Kim and I loaded up our cooler of beers to share, ice for chilling beers, both bottled and brewing, and headed out to pickup empanadas Kyle & Evan had ordered for the group. Kim managed the 3L Erlenmeyer flask of yeast on the drive. Again, we were a sight. Empanadas “in hand” we got to CCMF Heights and unloaded.
The step mash process was more labor intensive than how we’d done things previously, but we managed it well enough. We use a sous vide in the mash tun to help maintain temperature throughout the mash so we stayed pretty much within a degree or two of where we wanted to be throughout. After we’d added water for the final rest, we had a mash tun full to the brim with grains and water. No issues as far as I saw or know of though.
The boil and subsequent chilling of the wort followed the usual course without issue. Liquid was transferred to a carboy and yeast was added.
Then, we incorporated EVEN MORE NEW THINGS! It’s understandable that I was anxious heading into this brewday, now looking back, because we changed damn near everything. Our fermentation fridge had crapped out in late 2020, so Evan and Darryl had just gotten us a new chest freezer that we installed on brewday. I had grabbed a fermentation heating pad for the 2 saisons that would be fermenting this go around and a new temperature regulator for the freezer. All was setup while we were brewing and ready for the carboys full of beer.
And still, there’s more! John is new to brewing as of late 2019/early 2020 and early in his explorations of many things beer, but he’s taken to it all like he does in his music and we all started receiving texts and pictures of the things he was learning, doing, brewing and buying. One of them was a Tilt and its ability to track fermentation from inside the beer and communicate all of that information, via Bluetooth, to a phone or BrewFather was mind blowing. I had to have one and eventually got one with gifts from Christmas. So, that Tilt got dropped into pre-Funkmaster and we were off.
Evan checked on things that night and fermentation was already moving so quickly. By the morning of the following day, half of the sugars had been converted. I was, and still am as I write this (prior to bottling and tasting), so impressed and excited about it.
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