Saison How Rye I Am (Rye Saison) - 2011 - 1st Place Best of Show - HBT Comp

So I brewed this a few weeks back and I'm thinking about adding some wild yeast to half the batch during bottling. Possibly some brett. No sure what strain though. Any thoughts/suggestions?

As an update, my buddy and I finally got to brewing a 10g batch of this over the past weekend. The only changes were adding 2 lbs of flaked oats to the mash (intentional) and using German pils instead of Belgian pils (unintentional). My LHBS had only a pound of Belgian pils left in stock and our hands were forced.

From what I gather, it shouldn't really affect the overall flavor/mouthfeel of this saison, considering that the complexity of it derives from the 3711.

Regardless, pretty flawless brewday! We ended up with a 1.061 starting gravity and she smelled absolutely wonderful. Also, 3711 is no joke.

Grasslands said:

Thanks and will do! This looks like an awesome (and surprisingly simple) recipe.

We debated on using flaked vs. oat malt - and if the desire is really only to get an increased silkiness into the saison (and it'd only be <10% of the grainbill anyway), then it seemed easier just to go the flaked route.

My buddy (the brew club pres) can't help himself from being overly creative. He's prepared to lose his mind by splitting his 5g into 3 different saisons: 2g unmodified w/3711, 2g secondary(ed) with some brett to get a sour rye saison, and 1g dryhopped with Cascade or Citra.

I'm completely fine leaving as is and letting him do all the crazy stuff.

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My buddy who brewed this with me is splitting his 5g up in three ways (simply because he can't help himself): 2g normal with 3711, 2g soured (racked onto a white labs sour mix cake), and 1g dryhopped with citra.

I'll have to let you know how that all turns out; though it'll most likely be months and months from now before there's any results. This is my first saison, so I've got no idea as to how adding brett or any other souring yeast would do to the beer. I say go for it - this is an easy recipe to re-do if the brett make it undrinkable (though I don't think that'll be the case).

TairyHesticles said:

So I brewed this a few weeks back and I'm thinking about adding some wild yeast to half the batch during bottling. Possibly some brett. No sure what strain though. Any thoughts/suggestions?

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Man, hope it settles out for ya. How did you end up with particulates though? There are almost no hops in this. Is it just break material?

KCBigDog said:

Put this in the kegerator Friday night after 5 weeks of primary and 2 weeks of keg conditioning. I'm totally loving the flavor, but the particles floating in the beer are more than I've ever had. I'm hoping that it settles out soon, otherwise it's almost undrinkable.

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The "German" rye saison is amazingly still chugging away - I'd say I'm giving it another week and a half before kegging. I'm extremely eager to taste this sucker.

I think you will be hard pressed to taste any difference in this beer with regards to using German vs Belgian Pils.

Grasslands said:

The "German" rye saison is amazingly still chugging away - I'd say I'm giving it another week and a half before kegging. I'm extremely eager to taste this sucker.

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This was my thought as well. Though when I was in the LHBS, I had to make a decision as to either wait several days for them to get some Belgian Pils in, or purchase the German Pils...as a man of little patience, I made the predictable decision. A third option was two-row, which I might try at some point in the future...

Here's a quick peek at it going off on the 2nd day:
[ame="http://youtu.be/QIVkhgT2guA"]http://youtu.be/QIVkhgT2guA[/ame]

usurpers26 said:

I think you will be hard pressed to taste any difference in this beer with regards to using German vs Belgian Pils.

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I have this in my schedule for October and cannot wait. Please post your results!

coypoo said:

I have this in my schedule for October and cannot wait. Please post your results!

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I'm really considering making this batch the first one I harvest yeast from. 3711 is quite the hungry yeast and my LHBS has to special order Wyeast packs because they usually have White Labs.

Amazingly, it's still fermenting. I get CO2 action about every 8-10 seconds, but still, that's a lot of action considering it's been fermenting for over a week. I think the yeast from the yeast cake will be fairly healthy, given that I pitched a bigger starter than the OP.

Can't wait to get this badboy carbed up

A bit off topic - but we used WY3711 for a different beer (an apple-wheat saison) and we just pitched another beer (a really hoppy, roasty black ale) on top of the cake last weekend. Both beers had OGs in the 70's. It took right off in a few hours...

Grasslands said:

I'm really considering making this batch the first one I harvest yeast from. 3711 is quite the hungry yeast and my LHBS has to special order Wyeast packs because they usually have White Labs.

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A few weeks in the Keg, and I still have serious debris in the beer. Have to pour it through my funnel strainer to get a clear glass.

KCBigDog said:

A few weeks in the Keg, and I still have serious debris in the beer. Have to pour it through my funnel strainer to get a clear glass.

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something went wrong

Has anyone fermented this beer hotter than 71? I let mine free rise from pitching (65) and it got up to 84 for a few days. Wondering if that will increase the spicy profile or just give me more bubblegum/banana flavor.

I ferment this higher than 71. It sounds like I did mine a bit like your describing and I got a lot of spicy/peppery flavor and little banana/bubblegum.

What temps do you get up to?

If I recall, it was 80-82 range. But it was between 72 and 80 for the first week or so, then I ramped it up maybe to 82 and held it there for at least a week to make sure it attenuated out all the way. Totally not a problem with 3711 though.

I've spoken to the people at Wyeast and they've told me that there 'should' be no bubblegum flavor from this strain. Interesting considering many people have documented this ester profile through the use of 3711.

midfielder5 said:

something went wrong

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I don't think so.

Brewed a version of this on Saturday, and one thing to watch out for - boil overs! I couldn't keep it from boiling over (even with FermCap), and lost around a gallon. I also left a bit of wort in my mash tun because I believe I was pretty close to having a stuck sparge and some wort pooled up above the false bottom. I've never used rye before, but in the future I'll be adding some rice hulls...

Wow, consider yourself very lucky that you didn't get a completely stuck sparge with no hulls!

MNDan said:

but in the future I'll be adding some rice hulls...

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I didn't have any issues with boil overs but I did have trouble with an excessively foamy head with it on draft and tried to carb. it to the levels I like my saisons at so bottling might be a better move with this much Rye.

usurpers26 said:

Wow, consider yourself very lucky that you didn't get a completely stuck sparge with no hulls!

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Yeah - somehow I forgot them. Oops...

I'm thinking about brewing this on Sunday because I have a different Saison in the primary now that I'm going to bottle this weekend. My question is should I wash the old yeast and save some of it or just pitch the Rye Saison directly on the old 3711 yeast cake?

Using the whole cake will be severely over-pitching. You'll likely only need 1/4-1/3 of a cup of slurry to pitch into the next batch

has anyone brewed this with soft water and used acid malt to lower pH.. im not sure what rye does to mash pH...

thoughts?

HItransplant said:

has anyone brewed this with soft water and used acid malt to lower pH.. im not sure what rye does to mash pH...

thoughts?

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Nevermind

KCBigDog said:

I don't think so.

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Obviously something did...or else you wouldn't have debris in your kegged beer.

When you racked into the keg, did your cane make heavy contact with the yeast cake at the bottom? That's the only thing I can think of is that you got a bunch of yeasties and break material into your racking cane and subsequently into your keg...unless there was already debris at the bottom of your keg to begin with.

Exactly. Not trying to pile on whatsoever but any debris (to the extent you have to filter it before it is drinkable) in any beer equals a process/equipment issue.

Have you checked / cleaned the liquid tube in your corny? It might be harboring the debris and letting it out a little with each pour.

Grasslands said:

Obviously something did...or else you wouldn't have debris in your kegged beer.

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KCBigDog said:

A few weeks in the Keg, and I still have serious debris in the beer. Have to pour it through my funnel strainer to get a clear glass.

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If what you’re seeing are small brown partials that look like the candy “Nerds” floating around in the beer, not floating to the top and/or dropping to the bottom but floating/drifting in the beer (so its very hard to it avoid transferring it when rack) then I too have experience those a time or two when it’s high proteins grain bills fermented at high temps. My theory is that with ales that are pitched into and fermented at high temps they still have something suspended in them my guess would be proteins and when they are crashed or cooled off in the keg they coagulate and cling together similar to the way a fining will cause them to. Something like, its hot break but it was still too hot to, well, break until after fermentation and it’s chilled…

But it sounds like there’s a lot I’ve only ended up with a few (2-3) partials in every third or forth pint.

can BARELY wait to get more RYE! we just did a rye beer on Sunday with a belgian safale 58 yeast.

I made this scaled down to a 5.5 gal. batch with some minor adjustments so the measurements weren't all wonky:

9lb pils
3lb 8oz rye malt
11.4 oz dark candi sugar

Also altered the hop schedule a bit with a couple of late additions. I took a sample today (down to 1.012) and wow, wow, wow does this taste good. Good like astoundingly delicious good. This one is definitely getting brewed again.

Thanks for providing the recipe.
I came up with this and brewed up a batch last night;

11lbs Belgian Pilsner Malt
3lbs Weyermann Rye
1lb Belgian Candy Syrup (180)
2.5 oz of Styrian Goldings 3.8% @ 60
.5 oz of Styrian Goldings @ flameout
2 liter 3711 starter.

80 minute mash at 152, 90 minute boil. pitched at 68 and will let rise to 70-72 in my swamp cooler for 5 weeks. Can't wait. Only thing was after the syrup addition it got way brown. Hopefully some of that color will lighten up.

OG 1.068

This beer won a small local competition. First one I entered, and won 1st and 3rd.

Sad part is my keg leaked last week and I lost a bunch! Not sure what happened, but my keezer has Saison in the bottom of it.

Has anyone tried this with brett, too? I'm thinking of doing a split batch; half with and half without. I just want to see what people think.

dougdecinces said:

Has anyone tried this with brett, too? I'm thinking of doing a split batch; half with and half without. I just want to see what people think.

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A buddy of mine and I brewed a 10g batch of this up and split it two ways. Our primarys were fermented with 3711 and while I left mine in the primary for the 5 weeks, he racked his to a secondary after 2 weeks onto a brett mix (WLP650, I think) from a previous sour Belgian.

We just tasted his "Farmhouse Saison" last week and it really wasn't bad! My thought is that if you throw it onto some Brett, let it go for a while. I couldn't really get the sourness out of it as much as I was expecting, and maybe that's because of competing spice/sour flavors.

If you are going to use Brett, let it age for a while! Brett can sit around for months before getting to work.

Grasslands said:

A buddy of mine and I brewed a 10g batch of this up and split it two ways. Our primarys were fermented with 3711 and while I left mine in the primary for the 5 weeks, he racked his to a secondary after 2 weeks onto a brett mix (WLP650, I think) from a previous sour Belgian.

We just tasted his "Farmhouse Saison" last week and it really wasn't bad! My thought is that if you throw it onto some Brett, let it go for a while. I couldn't really get the sourness out of it as much as I was expecting, and maybe that's because of competing spice/sour flavors.

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Brett doesn't really impart sour favors, more funky dirty farmhouse, etc.

Just brewed this today and it was my first time nailing my mash temp w/out adding water. I also pulled a 74% efficiency and ended up with 1.060 but man did that wort taste good.

Did everyone else get a large amount of trub in their fermenter? It was a lot.

Can't wait to see how this is all going to turn out.

Just finished brewing a modified version of this based on what I had on hand.

7 lbs 2-row
2.25 lbs rye

2 oz styrian goldings (3.4%) FWH

With 85% efficiency, the SG is 1.050. I wanted a slightly weaker version so i skipped the sugar addition. Mine is a lot lighter in color also (SRM=4).

Finally bottled last night after a full 5 weeks in primary.
Finished up at 1.004. Hydro sample tasted pretty great.
Had to make a label for this one...