Saison Progress

I started getting active fermentation within 4 hours. I kept the fermenter cool by placing it in my 32 quart stainless steel kettle, filling it halfway with water and placing a couple of 16.9 ounce frozen water bottles inside the kettle between the kettle and fermenter walls. This has kept the temperature at 70 to 74 degrees Fahrenheit when the ambient room temperature has been maintained at 78 degrees Fahrenheit (good-ol' San Diego summer weather). I haven't checked the gravity, but the beer is still pretty active on the fermentation.

Saison

Today was brew day. I didn't have exactly what I was looking for, so I modified my grain bill quite nicely. I used 12 pounds of Vienna malt as the base, 2 pounds Carapils, .5 pounds of Caravienne, .5 pounds Aromatic, .5 pounds Caramunich.
I mashed in 155 degrees, ph 5.0; added 3 tsp gypsum, 1 tsp amylase a-b.
At the start of the boil I added 1 ounce of Styrian bittering hops and stirred for what seemed to be forever. At 30 minutes, I added 1 pound of light Belgian candy, .5 ounces of sweet orange peel and 1 ounce Saaz flavoring hops and stirred some more. At 45 minutes I added some Irish moss, .5 ounces of sweet orange peel,.5 ounces of coriander seeds and sterilized my wort chiller for 10 minutes. At 60 minutes, I added the last ounce of Saaz hops and waited for 5 minutes before taking the kettle off the boil and into the kitchen where I chilled for about 25 minutes in ice and my cheap-o-matic wort chiller.
after siphoning the wort over to the fermenter, I aerated the wort for about 10 minutes before getting anxious and then added the White Lab Saison WLP-568 yeast and popping in the blow off tube.
I checked the SG and it was 1.082. I was only shooting for 1.068 to 1.072, but either I did better sparging this time, or I have a lot of unfermentable sugars in there. I guess I'll see in about 2 weeks exactly how strong this ale is going to be.

Belgium Saison

Starting one Belgian Saison today:
Belgian CaraVienne 10 ounces
Belgain Aromatic 6 ounces
Cara Pils 6 ounces
Belgian Pale 12.0 pounds
Candi Sugar 1.0 pounds
Styrian Golding 2 ounces
Saaz (Flavoring) 1.0 ounces
Saaz (Finishing) 1.0 ounces
Orange Peel 0.5 Ounces
Corriander 1.25 Ounces
Irish Moss 1.0 tsp.
White Labs Saison WLP-568 with starter made
I'm shooting for a 1.068-1.072 SG and a FG of 1.018.

New Opportunity

It wasn't long after the job position of Assistant Brewer was taken down that I noticed the two new staff members had their pictures on Stonebrew.com's employee page. They were better qualified; I was heartbroken. But things started looking up when I found out that Stone Brewing Co. will be hosting their thirteenth anniversary at Cal State University - San Marcos on 22 August, 2009! It looks like admission will be in A and B sessions and will cost $35.00 dollars admission (Increased to $40.00 dollars on 15 August) for 10 tasting tokens that can be used at any booth for any of the breweries attending from around the world! This made me very happy. Learn more here:
http://www.stonebrew.com/13th/