Сеймур Гречка Альо
a spicy white ale brewed with Ukrainian buckwheat
5 US gallons = 4.2 Imperial gallons = 19 Litres (hey English mates, note the smaller brewlength than you're used to)
GRAINBILL
75% = 5.28 lbs = 2395 g, Simpsons Best Pale Ale Malt (UK)
25% = 1.76 lbs = 800 g, Grechka (Ukraine)
STRIKE with 2.2 US gal/1.8 Imp gal/8.3 L Burtonized water, 168°F/75.5°C to reach single infusion temp.
MASH for 60 minutes at 155°F/68°C. Add boiling water to raise temp to 172°F/78°C.
VORLAUF and SPARGE to collect 6.5 US gal/5.4 Imp gal/24.6 L preboil, added a bit more gypsum.
BOIL hard for 60 minutes, reduce down to 5 US gal = 4.2 Imp gal = 19 L.
HOPS
40% = .52 oz = 15 g, Flyer (UK), first wort addition
60% = .78 oz = 22 g, Flyer (UK), 15 min
My Flyer hops were getting old, so these quantities are increased to compensate.
YEAST split batch:
1. Seymour house blend #3 at 67°F/19°C, fast-acting, high-attenuating, slow to clear. Emphasizes banana ester and black pepper phenol, similar to DuPont Saison but without the hang-up issues. Originally comprised of Adnams Brewery dual-strain and bakers yeast, but noticeably mutated over numerous repitches.
2. Seymour foeder blend for extended sour aging.
APPROXIMATE STATS (mash efficiency 82%, apparent attenuation 78%)
OG: 1043
FG: 1009
ABV: 4.4%
IBU: 30
COLOUR: hazy golden with white foam
BJCP Style: 6B. Blonde Ale (before sour treatment, that is)
I bought a bag of grechka at a nearby global foods supermarket, here's the label.
Here's the grist. Good crush, uniform, pale. Once the brown buckwheat is ground and mixed-in, it doesn't really look any different from typical barley malt.
Prepping the hops, gypsum, yeast starter.
Vorlaufing to settle the grainbed before sparging. Look at this weird murky greyish hue.
Sparging onto the first wort hop addition.
During the boil I enjoyed an old bottle of Seymour Flyer Best, another brew which used this Adnams Brewery dual-strain yeast. I added the dregs to my current yeast starter.
Knock-out. It was approaching nighttime, but you can still see how pale this beer is turning out.
Measuring the OG. After temperature correction, I get 1043.
Ditch's good ol' drill-powered paint stirrer trick for aeration.
Pitching the yeast. As you can see, my starter wort was very dark but it still didn't impact the overall colour much.
Tucked away in a fermentor bucket.
After a week and a half, primary fermentation was complete. I bottled half as-is, and racked the other half into a smaller carboy with my insane foeder blend of sour funky stuff (more about this another time) to age.
The House Blend #3 yeast dregs saved for two more future brews.
