Just a peach of a brew session today with Mr. Jake Keeler, and the boiler is soaking in the PBW as I type. Writeup and tasting notes to follow, but first a word about our first time out with Mosaic hops:
They’re real nice.
Daughter of Simcoe, so piney-citrus like you’d expect; I thought of balsam fir and white grapefruit salty dogs, waxy and seductively pungent with a big snort of dank, catty funk. We think it will do well as a stand-alone, unblended showcase hop: a flavor addition, a flameout addition, and a dry hop addition. Stay tuned, we’ll keep you posted.
Have you used them yet? Thoughts?
the beer engine 
Well, there it is: ” white grapefruit salty dogs”. I’ve been waiting to hear that all my life.
I got my hands on a pound of them back in July and tried a Rye IPA. I didn’t use them alone though so the full character was not as easy to distinguish. I’m gearing up for a basic ‘house’ pale ale on New Years Day where I intend to use home grown Columbus for bittering with the Mosaics at the 30 and 10 mins for aroma. I’m curious to just how ‘pungent’ this will be.
Mr. Dawson, I apologize for the off-topic post, but I was wondering what you would do in this situation. Last week (12/21/12), I brewed a patersbier with Wyeast 3787. Next week, I’m going to brew a tripel that requires the same yeast. I would like to use the existing yeast I have. Further, I was going to brew the tripel, and while the wort is cooling down, racking the patersbier into secondary – freeing up the yeast in the primary.
My question is would you rack the tripel right onto the patersbier yeast cake, or would you wash the yeast first? The patersbier is lighter in gravity and SRM than the tripel. Additionally, the beers use the exact same hops, and primarily Belgian pilsner malt.
FYI – like the Wyeast website says, 3787 is an “aggressive top cropper.” I just checked the head space on the carboy, and it’s pretty nasty.
I am about to repeat myself (one of my favorite hobbies) from a convo in another thread: I think there’s a Platonic ideal of reusing yeast, and then there’s practicalities …
In this situation you could decant the Patersbier slurry, wash it, and pitch it into the Tripel wort in a clean primary; you could rack the Tripel wort into a clean primary and dump the unwashed slurry right in after it; or you could put the Tripel wort right in the crusty primary without moving the slurry. At one time or another I have done all of these, and – from a homebrewing perspective at least – I think there are good arguments to be made in favor of each.
The first (washed slurry, clean carboy) is probably best practice, the second (clean carboy, unwashed slurry) seems like a pretty reasonable middle path, the third (crusty carboy, unwashed slurry) works if you’re in a hurry and if sanitation during the extra yeast handling may be an issue.
And oh yes, I know well the top-cropping ways of 3787. It’s one of my top 5 all-time strains, but it don’t like to stay put. Let us know what you do and how it works out.
Will do! Thank you for your help, and excellent blog, Mr. Dawson!
Once again, thank you for your advice, Mr. Dawson!
Just letting you know that I brewed the tripel on Saturday. Since the carboy that had the patersbier looked absolutely disgusting (the empty carboy equivalent of a gas station bathroom) and smelled like herby shrimp cocktail sauce (DMS?), I chose to do option 1 (washed slurry, clean carboy). Fortunately, the patersbier tasted great. 🙂
I washed the yeast twice, and dumped a healthy dose of creamy white slurry into the tripel. What terrified me was how long it took for fermentation to begin – at least 36 hours.
Last night at around midnight, the wort looked absolutely dead. Even the foam from multi-stage aeration I did disappeared completely (temperature @ 66). I was prepared to rush to the local HBS this morning to pick up another packet of 3787. Fortunately, the blow off tube was going mental when I woke up at 5:00am. I just wish I had a time-lapse video of the transformation
Another good thing is that the aroma from the blow off is much better than the patersbier. The tripel smells like you are lying down in a fresh berry patch.
I do have a question for you, though. My OG came in 5 points under my original target. Probably not a big deal. However, I was wondering what you would do in that scenario? I was thinking about doing what you did to The Wookie in BTV Episode 26: Big Beer Brewing – adding honey at high krausen.
Do you think adding the honey is even worth it? Is there a way to calculate how many points you can add per volume of honey? You added 1lb of honey, any idea how many points that added to the gravity?
Thanks again for your advice and excellent blog!
As long as it doesn’t take the total malt:sugar ratio too far over 80:20, sure, why not? A pound of honey in 5 gallons should raise the effective OG by about 6 or 7 points.
Thank you for your expeditious response, Mr. Dawson!
I just added 1lb of clover honey to the fermenting wort. This addition brings the malt:sugar ratio to 86:14.
If you don’t mind another question, what is the danger of taking the malt:sugar ratio over 80:20?
It seems that the Pareto Principle even applies to brewing!
Once again, thank you for all of your help! 😀
A good dose of sugar is a good thing for strong Belgian ales and things like that; from what I’ve read and from firsthand experience, 20% is about right. Blowing past that, the risk is that the body can get thinned out too far, off-flavors can arise from the high adjunct ratio (“cidery”), and fermentation issues can arise when the nutrients that are present in an all-malt wort get diluted too far and/or the cells have the option to preferentially ferment sucrose or glucose instead of maltose.
Mike,
Off topic question.
Just found your blog. Great stuff. Going back to your sour beer episode on Brewing TV, you blended a red ale fermented with 1056 with Kriek or something equally funky. Did you bottle immediately? Gave time for Kriek bugs to attenuate red ale? No problems with bottle bombs?
I’d appreciate any advice because I have a very sour Flanders Red kicking around and I’d love to blend some into a Rodenbach type product for non sour beer fans. Thanks!!
Yep. As soon as the young, 1056-fermented batch was at TG and had dropped bright I blended and bottled.
Nope, but I have to note that the priming dose was extremely conservative and I used crown-finish Champagne bottles, which are heavier glass than most returnable beer bottles you can find.
I have used Mosaic twice, and think they may be the best smelling hops I have come across. One was a single hopped brew, and the second was a small addition at flameout to a California Commonish type beer with the San Fran Lager yeast, and a good amount of homegrown Brewer’s Gold. Both are still in the fermenter, so I haven’t tasted the final product yet. I am thinking that this may be a heartbreaker of a hop, as one develops a couple of recipes that use it, and then it is available for only a month every year. Cheers though, it is a fantastic smelling hop.
Nice! Yeah, I’m already wishing I had bought more when I had the chance. They do smell incredible – we weighed out the additions inside and the kitchen reeked (in a good way) long after we toted them out to the boiler.
Going to look for some! Im lucky that I live less than a half mile from fresh hops facility!
Boxing Cat Brewery in Shanghai made an all Mosaic pale ale as a one-off which has now become a return treat. It does great on its own. All of what you say about it, minus the salty dog. Quite the treat in this town.
Victory made a double IPA with HBC 369 which I believe is now mosaic. It was by far my favorite hoppy beer ever. Piney, citrus, tropical, all in harmony. I hope I can find some.
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