Jacob Sembrano loves ingredients, and his background as a chef instilled in him a deep love of connecting ingredients and their stories with the dishes he presented to customers. Now, at the helm of the brewhouse at Chicago’s Cruz Blanca (https://cruzblanca.com), he’s forged a similar identity for his beers—connecting through ingredients with stories, and making beers with unusual methods. Their customers may not realize the technical prowess it takes to brew a 100 percent malted-corn grisette with French saison yeast, Brettanomyces, and a Lactobacillus strain cultured from the corn itself ... but they don’t have to—Cruz Blanca’s reverence for corn as an ingredient is apparent and welcome.
In this episode, Sembrano discusses how they brew a range of beers. Along the way, he covers:
making your own luck in the food and brewing worlds
applying a minimal-intervention yet highly technical approach to making a 100 percent corn grisette
pushing fermentation temperatures to reduce esters
brewing a red corn lager with 70 percent corn malt
using significant amounts of black and heavily roasted malts in barrel-aged stouts
building body without excessive sweetness
working with partner breweries to grow the brand
matching brewing profiles between locations across states
And more.
“I want my stout to fight me back a bit,” Sembrano says. “I want to feel it when I drink it.”
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