Saison Recipe Thoughts

Howdy all. Was hoping to get a little feedback on this recipe, and had some questions on my mash temps/fermentation.

7# Belgian pale malt
2#Munich
1# Belgian wheat malt
Styrian Aurora at 60 mins
(possibly Strissespalt at 5 or flameout)
1# agave nectar at flameout
3711 French saison yeast

any ideas on mash temp? i usually mash for a medium body when dealing with 3711 ... it's a beast, and pretty much dries the beer right up.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I was under the impression that pilsner was the go-to base malt for saison, rather than pale ale malt?

On mash temps, we will be mashing our saison at 149 this weekend. We will start the ferment at 66-68, then probably ramp up into the high 70s over the course of the week.

Looks good to me. My last Saison I used US 2 row as my base malt and some munich and it turned out awesome. I would go with a mash at 152ish just because of what 3711 is known for.

I usually mash at 147-149 for 90 min with 3711, but my grist contains both oats and rye.


Pale is fine for saison.

thanks for the thoughts. i've used 3711 pretty exclusively for saisons, but i've never added any additional fermentables (like the agave nectar) to a saison. Also, what do you think about the strisselspalt? yay or nay at flameout?

3711 yeast is a beast but I have had no trouble with it having a thin mouth feel... late addition strisselspalt for sure! I don't brew my saison without it. Very interesting finish.

That recipe looks like a great way to use agave. I was thinking of adding some to a wit but perhaps a saison would be better.

I'm trying to do a Saison for a home brew comp, i'm using White Labs WLP566 Saison II yeast, its a beast it brought down the gravity to 1.003 but I also did mash low for 75 minutes

i've used agave in a kit beer (AHS Agave Wheat) and an (underhopped) amber ale of my own making. both times it gave some very neat slight spiciness. i thought it would go well with the french saison yeast and some paradise grains. which i'm still debating on.

Looks good to me. I would normally use aromatic malt instead of wheat, but that's my personal preference and what you've got looks tasty to me. Even with 3711, I usually use 10-15% sugar (usually a lb of blonde candi syrup, and then the rest corn sugar), and still mash at 147. I like my Saisons bone dry, 1.002-1.004. Although if you can keep the temps up I would recommend a different strain since it's such a muted strain as far as Saison yeasts. I think the 3724 strain is MUCH better, and what I'll do is keep some 3711 on hand in case the first strain craps out on me. Then if I end up not needing it I'll make a smaller Saison with the 3711 as a lawnmower beer.

I also love the Strisselspalt contribution. I often use a couple ounces in mine. Never used Styrian Aurora, but I usually use a combo of Styrian Goldings and Strisselspalt.

i've never used aurora, but have used celeja; i wanted to try something different. 3711 is pretty much my go-to saison yeast. i'm kind of under a time crunch as well, so i don't have time for the belgian strain and its lag/restart period.

Agave will give it a tequila-like tinge, but totally ok as far as the recipe goes. I've used it all really and I can say for a more traditional grist Pilsner is the go-to, but 2-row or Belgian pale is also superb. This style is really about the yeast more than anything. After all the direct translation from french is "season" so the term is pretty open to interpretation. I would recommend more wheat or rye/oats/ etc but they all work alone and they all work together. That and I have a serious rye problem, but I used to drink a lot of rye whiskey, so.

I'm using Strisselspalt in my saison as a dry hop.

tomorrow's the brew day; pretty excited. this will my first competition beer in a general competition. thanks for all the input!

not the best saison I've ever brewed, but not bad either. i miss my Celeja hops. i also opted out of the paradise seeds, which was probably a mistake. however ... the agave gave the beer some very interesting spiciness on the back end. it definately sneeks up on you.