Recipe: Scratch Brewing Farmhouse Ale

This is a flexible saison-like recipe from Marika Josephson and Aaron Kleidon, founders and brewers at Scratch Brewing in Ava, Illinois. It’s ideal for trying out fermentation using a sourdough bread starter. Optionally, it’s also compatible with adding other ingredients foraged from the woods, grown in the garden, or discovered at the market.

ALL GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.046
FG: 1.008
IBUs: 29
ABV: 5%

[PAYWALL]

MALT/GRAIN BILL
7 lb (3.1 kg) Belgian pilsner
0.9 lb (408 g) Vienna
0.9 lb (408 g) wheat malt

HOPS AND ADDITIONS SCHEDULE
0.53 oz (15 g) Chinook [13% AA] at 60 minutes
1.1 oz (31 g) Crystal [4% AA] at whirlpool 15 minutes

YEAST
Sourdough bread culture (see below)

DIRECTIONS
Mash grains at 149°F (65°C) for 60 minutes. Vorlauf until runnings are clear, then run off into kettle. Sparge grains and top up as necessary to obtain 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort—or more, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 90 minutes following the hops schedule. After the boil, chill the wort to slightly below fermentation temperature, about 65°F (18°C). Aerate wort and pitch sourdough starter. Ferment at about 66–68°F (19–20°C) for three to four days, then allow it to free rise over the next week until fermentation is complete.

BREWERS’ NOTES
The pitching of the sourdough culture is the unusual part with this beer. We pull a mother culture out of our refrigerator the night before, and we feed it like we would to step up a bread starter, with flour and water. For a batch of this gravity, we use about 60 g (2.1 oz) starter plus 80g (2.8 oz) flour and 80 g (2.8 oz) of water. Let the starter sit covered at room temperature overnight, and pitch when the wort has cooled to the desired temperature.

Sometimes we add about a pound of honey to help dry the beer out. It can be added at the end of the boil or during high kräusen, about 24 hours after pitching the sourdough culture.

For the hops: We use whatever bittering hop is available to get about 25 IBUs at a 60 min addition (Chinook, recently) and an aroma hop for about 4 IBUs at flameout with a 15 min whirlpool (Crystal over the last year or so).

This base recipe can be used for a number of different brewing herbs. If using an especially aromatic plant, we omit the aroma hop to showcase the plant. If using an especially bitter plant, we reduce the bittering hop addition (but usually not lower than about 22 IBUs, to make sure the antimicrobial property of the hops will counteract the wild bacteria in the sourdough culture).

One ingredient we love to use that adds an incredible citrus aroma is dried sassafras leaves, or filé powder. Use about a gallon of leaves for a 5-gallon batch of beer, added to the boil at 5 minutes before the end of the boil. Omit the aroma hop addition or find an aroma hop of your preference that complements the leaves.