As the weather today is rubbish, I spent my last day off brewing another Saison, with half an eye on next week's weather forecast. Recipe:
Minch Pale 4.3kg
Munich 1kg
Wheat 200g
Special B 250g
Columbus 14g @ 60m
Mandarina Bavaria 25g @ 0m
My usual supplier (WHS) does not despatch until next Monday, so I got some stuff from the HBC in Ireland.
The Minch pale malt seems to be quite a fine crush, as I had a very sticky mash and sparge.
The mash in the GF was just weird, as the pump kept picking up air as well as liquid and there was a load of froth on the top.
The sparge had to be "hand-balled" by removing the top plate and stirring in the sparge water in half litre additions.
This seemed to give a pretty decent efficiency, but the wort in the FV was very cloudy indeed.
No doubt there will be a lot of trub at racking.
Also added the rest of the Mandarina @ racking ~37g. This is great already! Very pleased with the result. As orange peel is often added to a Saison, using Mandarina Bavaria seemed obvious - and it works.