Small Pimpin' (a table saison)

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highgravitybacon

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2012
Messages
925
Reaction score
223
Recipe Type
All Grain
Yeast
WLP566 Saison II
Yeast Starter
Yes
Batch Size (Gallons)
5.5
Original Gravity
1.040
Final Gravity
1.006
Boiling Time (Minutes)
75
IBU
20
Color
7 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
21 days at 72F
Tasting Notes
Heaven!
I got tired of all the huge ass saisons. 7,8, 9+% abv. I wanted something simple. I wanted a pounder beer. The kind of beer that Coors would make if they made a summer saison: utterly and simply drinkable.

Its pale, yellow with a hint of orange. Effervescent with a nice thick white head. There's some graininess and candy sweetness from the pils. A citrus spice, a rich maltiness from the aromatic, and some foral and spice from the hops.

It is exceedingly dry and refreshing. Thin body, but with a touch of chewiness and maltiness. Starts slightly sweet but finishes just a touch bitter and spicy, maybe a hint of medicinal or phenolic. Nothing untoward, but present.

A decent beer. I found it was a bit unbalanced until I put it in the fridge at 32F for a week. Then the bitterness fell a bit and the flavor was cleaner. We have water high in sulfates, low in chloride which accentuates the bitterness from noble type hops. If your water is high (>100 ppm) in sulfates, you may consider RO dilution prior to brewing to keep the bitterness in check.

All malt grist, 84% ADF with the yeast. It's a machine. The amount of table sugar needed to prime will increase ABV slightly. As is in the recipe, it is a 4.5% beer, but with the addition of priming sugar, it becomes a 4.8% beer and also dries out a bit. If you want a fuller beer to retain the little bit of body, reserve some wort from the kettle to prime with on bottling day and use a speise or krausen calculator to account for carbonation. Braukaiser.com has a wonderful spreadsheet for krausening or speise priming.

Code:
================================================================================
Batch Size: 21.485 L
Boil Size: 28.360 L
Boil Time: 75.000 min
Efficiency: 76%%
OG: 1.040
FG: 1.008
ABV: 4.2%%
Bitterness: 20.3 IBUs (Rager)
Color: 7 SRM (Mosher)

Fermentables
================================================================================
                  Name  Type    Amount Mashed Late Yield Color
      White Wheat Malt Grain 750.000 g    Yes   No  86%%   2 L
       Melanoiden Malt Grain 300.000 g    Yes   No  80%%  20 L
   Pilsner (2 Row) Ger Grain  2.500 kg    Yes   No  81%%   2 L
 Weyermann - Carafa II Grain  15.000 g    Yes   No  70%% 425 L
Total grain: 3.565 kg

Hops
================================================================================
       Name  Alpha   Amount  Use       Time   Form  IBU
     Magnum 12.5%%  8.000 g Boil 60.000 min Pellet 14.4
 Willamette  4.0%% 20.000 g Boil    0.000 s Pellet  1.9
 Willamette  4.0%% 15.000 g Boil 10.000 min Pellet  1.9
  Hallertau  4.1%% 22.000 g Boil    0.000 s Pellet  2.1

Misc
================================================================================
       Name   Type  Use   Amount    Time
 Irish Moss Fining Boil 0.000 mL 0.000 s

Yeast
================================================================================
                             Name Type   Form    Amount   Stage
 WLP566 - Belgian Saison II Yeast  Ale Liquid 35.000 mL Primary

Mash
================================================================================
               Name     Type   Amount     Temp   Target       Time
                    Infusion 14.200 L 71.600 C 66.500 C 90.000 min
 Final Batch Sparge Infusion 18.725 L 78.512 C 74.000 C 15.000 min

Carbonate to 3.5 volumes with table sugar. I used 175 grams for the volume I had.
 
I'm not sure if it's unintentional or sarcastic about the Coors saison , but Coors makes a wit, very closely related to a saison. Blue Moon is the most popular Belgian beer in Americs haha
 
I'm not sure if it's unintentional or sarcastic, but Coors makes a wit, very closely related to a saison. Blue Moon is the most popular Belgian beer in Americs haha

Well, they do but they kind of bastardize the original wit. It's a solid beer, Blue Moon, but this is the Banquet Saison.
 
sweetcell said:
:off:
i'd hesitate to call Blue Moon a belgian beer. it's inspired by witbier, they use peel and coriander, it's belgian'ish... but they don't use belgian yeast, which in my books is what makes a belgian beer.

I'm with you but I'll give Coors the benefit of the doubt... I'm fairly certain it's not the classic American pilsner strain, and it might even be an ale yeast
 
sweetcell said:
:off:
i'd hesitate to call Blue Moon a belgian beer. it's inspired by witbier, they use peel and coriander, it's belgian'ish... but they don't use belgian yeast, which in my books is what makes a belgian beer.

For me Belgian beer means it is brewed in Belgium, but what do I know.
 
Ill second the requirement of Belgian yeast for making Belgian-style beers. Blue moon is (at best) a spiced wheat beer IMHO.

I'm with you OP: I like my saisons sessionable. All these amber colored super saisons don't do it for me. I likes 'em dry, straw yellow to very light orange in color, and sessionable. I'll be brewing one up this summer not unlike what you have here, but I'll be starting with the dupont strain and finishing with 3711 in a secondary fermenter (so I can rinse and save the dupont strain separately from the blended culture).

Cheers!
 
I like the idea of the table saison. Kind of authentic dating back to some of its original intent as a refresher for farm laborers. Victory has come out with a session saison which I find delightful: "Swing" http://www.victorybeer.com/beers/swing/

I'd like to brew something like this, perhaps in June.
 
I've got a session saison in my recipe drop-down that turned out quite nice. I've got another one in my fermenter right now that I used Maris Otter (needed to use it up), Strisselspalt and Belma hops, and Wyeast 3711 French Saison.

Should be great, but I'd say whatever saison strain you use, for such a small beer I'd only pitch between about 3/4 of the pack. That'll slow fermentation a little, and stress the yeast enough to get some of that saison funk and spice you might not otherwise get in a fast fermentation.
 
I've got a session saison in my recipe drop-down that turned out quite nice. I've got another one in my fermenter right now that I used Maris Otter (needed to use it up), Strisselspalt and Belma hops, and Wyeast 3711 French Saison.

Should be great, but I'd say whatever saison strain you use, for such a small beer I'd only pitch between about 3/4 of the pack. That'll slow fermentation a little, and stress the yeast enough to get some of that saison funk and spice you might not otherwise get in a fast fermentation.

Intentionally underpitching has many many more negative outcomes than positive ones. You should be pitching an appropriate amount of yeast at all times. The yeast will produce the right flavor at the correct pitch rate.
 
Intentionally underpitching has many many more negative outcomes than positive ones. You should be pitching an appropriate amount of yeast at all times. The yeast will produce the right flavor at the correct pitch rate.

All I'm saying is that it worked for me. Got the right amount of saison character for such a low beer. Still finished in three days.
 
Intentionally underpitching has many many more negative outcomes than positive ones. You should be pitching an appropriate amount of yeast at all times. The yeast will produce the right flavor at the correct pitch rate.

Agree that it can have many negative outcomes; however, I think you can do it properly with nice results. If you are pitching healthy/active yeast from a starter, those negatives are reduced and underpitching a bit (no more than 20%) to generate some more ester profile is fine.
 
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