I'm thinking about brewing two batches of beer to blend (2.5 gal batches), in which both batches have the same essential grain bill and hops but with a different yeast strain in each, then blending the two after one batch has reached a years age and the other is at 6 months, has anyone ever tried blending two beers together that are the same with the exception of the yeast strain used in each and if so what were your results/thought/comments/advice on this? Any comments would be appreciated.
Brewers have been blending beer for as long as they have been brewing. From a historic perspective, blending was typically done to fix a less than adequate beer. Or to pull one over the revenuer. Neither of which should be our concern. If you are interested in experimenting, without much regard for where it ends up, go for it. If you have an end product in sight then you probably should not be blending. Neither beer nor yeast. I guess the question is - why? Why 6 months? Why 1 year? Why two yeasts? And why blend? Why do you think blending beers is worth the effort? Before you put too much effort decide the end result and go for that. Plenty of beers to brew. Cheers.
To answer the why question, I'll elaborate a bit, the idea here is to blend a Belgian strong ale (the one year beer) with a saison (the 6 month beer), in hopes that the crispness and spiciness meets at an interesting place with big and bold that are flavors that are beginning to smooth out in the other, but all of that being said, the primary interest (beyond simply having a beer that I truly enjoy of course) is to experiment and see how the different yeasts treat the same ingredients and subsequently how the results of these two different fermentations interact. additionally I love sour beer and I am fascinated by how gueuzes blend different vintages of the same beer to bring out the best of each of them, but I'm not particularly interested in brewing sour beer and I think there's something in using that blending technique outside of sour brewing. from a more practical standpoint, brewing the batches in increments (the two separate 2.5 gallon batches) allows me to pull just a little bit of each to try separate from the blend to analyze composite parts. finally, while I have never blended before, I have brewed an iteration of this beer before (the strong ale portion) and think that the base is worthy of being subtly deepened and injected with some new life. In short (yeah yeah I know not really) I see a lot of potential in the beer I'm basing this around and I think this might be an interesting way to meet that.
My only thought is that if one yeast strain is more attenuative than the other, you might get some additional fermentation after blending (the more attenuative yeast will now have some more fermentables to work with). May not be a big deal, but it's something to be cognizant of as you plan this out.
no, that's a good point, generally, I think the saison yeast will be more attenuative than the strong ale yeast (or at least in this situation), but that brings up an interesting question: if the saison yeast converts unattenuated sugar from the other beer during/after blending, does that mean that there is more saison than there otherwise would have been in a sense or is that portion of unattenuated sugar (being acted on at the point of blending) that's being changed something entirely different/new? Basically, is that activity going to be as though there was no yeast introduced to the unattenuated portion, or is it going to be altering wort already partially altered by the strong ale yeast? Sorry if this is a confusing question I could not think of a good way to word it.
Yeah, what I think you are saying is, you might think you have a 50/50 batch because the volumes are equal, but if the saison yeast ends up eating a total of 55% of the fermentables, then isn't it really more like a 55/45 batch? My answer is, I guess, but in reality with clean yeast (by which I mean s. cerevisiae as opposed to brett or whatever) I don't think you're going to be able to detect much of a difference as a result of the "extra" fermentation. It's true that if the saison yeast ends up taking the FG down a few extra points post-blending, it might contribute a little bit extra in the way of saison character (spicy phenols or whatever), but I think it would be a minor and probably negligible amount relative to the character it imparts during peak fermentation. (By contrast, even a tiny amount of brett could end up dramatically changing the character of a blended batch, so much so that the end product could be, in effect, 95% brett in character.) My bigger concern is packaging the beer. I wouldn't bottle immediately after blending if there is a possibility the FG is going to drift down a few more points. By the way, I'm not sure you really need (or would benefit from) such long aging times. Certainly I don't think the saison needs that much time to age pre-blending.
Just my .02 but a really simple way to test this would be just buy a commercial example of each style and blend before drinking. Try different ratios until you find the right character, and go from there. Might save you a lot of time. Personally I would opt for classic examples of those styles such as Saison Dupont and Duvel. That might help you decide what flavors to emphasize and thus inform your ingredient selection.
