Honey Jasmine Saison

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Kithara

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So I've been working my way up to brewing some GF beers for a while now, and I thought I'd try reworking a saison I've made in the past that turned out well

2 gallon batch

3 lbs. Millet
1/2 lb. Vienna roast millet
1/2 lb. Buckwheat
1/3 lb. rice hulls
4 oz. raw wildflower honey at flameout
1/2 oz Saaz 60 min.
1/2 oz Saaz 20 min.
1 oz jasmine at flameout

I've never used jasmine before in brewing, but my wife and I were hoping to get that pretty up front in the aroma and flavor departments which is why I also went with Saaz since they tend to give some nice floral notes. In the past I've used Wyeast 3711 French Saison with excellent attenuation and flavor. I didn't know if anyone knew of a suitable GF replacement strain, otherwise I will just grow it up in a GF starter of honey and yeast nutrient before pitching. Let me know how it looks.
 
Yes, I do plan on doing that modified decoction mash where you remove some of the fluid containing the enzymes before boiling. Since I have essentially no adjuncts I'm not too worried about having sufficient diastatic power to finish conversion as long as I mash properly.
 
Wow, I am SUPER curious how this comes out. Please, please, PLEASE be sure to post follow-ups! I would love to know what kind of conversion you get on the grains. Did you malt them yourself? I've been wanting to do something with jasmine for a while now but I keep chickening out or deciding it's not a good fit for whatever recipe I intended it for. This looks like a very interesting brew!
 
ditto on the updates... please.
I am heading down the same path.
I have malted some millet, but need to do some more to get a reasonable sized batch.
Bravo for trying and good luck
 
I've malted some buckwheat and quinoa recently, but I thought I'd give Colorado Malting Company's stuff a try since I haven't been able to get millet to sprout properly. I'm trying a different source for my grain to try malting again. I will continue to update, but I probably won't have time to put this plan into action until next weekend.
 
So, after a bit of a brewing hiatus I finally got this into the fermenter yesterday. I ended up using 8 oz. of honey instead of 4, and went with Diastase enzyme for my conversion since I had heard that Colorado Malting Company's GF grain enzymatic activity was pretty darn low.

As for the jasmine I ended up using 1 oz. at 10 minutes, and it definitely had a pleasant aroma at the end. The OG on this batch was around 1.036, so a bit lower than expected, but I think that's probably due to having closer to 2.5 gallons. While I was chilling the wort it was definitely looking pretty cloudy, but in the sample I took it seemed to settle out pretty quickly so I'm optimistic about that.

I'm curious to see how the saison yeast will interact with the jasmine. I'll make sure to update as things progress.
 
Just another update on this brew. I just bottled this yesterday, and I am really excited for it to finish carbonating. There was a lot of trub when I racked to the bottling bucket, but I'm hoping that the haze won't be too bad once it's in the glass. The aroma is excellent, a lot of jasmine tea type aroma, and the flavor at this point is mainly a mix of spicy Belgian notes, jasmine and some almost tropical fruitiness as well. I'll get some pics up in a couple weeks with some proper tasting notes once it has carbed up properly.
 
So I finally tried this beer after letting it bottle condition for a few weeks, and I have to say that I was pretty pleased with it. My tasting notes are as follows:

A: Pours a clear, straw yellow with a couple of fingers of head that very quickly dissipate.
S: Lots of jasmine aroma up front along with a sweet candy sugar smell as well as notes of pear, banana, and ripe fruit in general.
T: Again, jasmine, and Belgian candy sweetness up front that fade into some notes of toasted grain, and then hints of pear, and nuttiness.
M: Dry, crisp, lightly effervescent. The body was quite light as well.
O: Good flavor transitions from sweet to dry, and seems to match the saison style pretty well.

I think it went pretty well for my first foray into gluten free brewing, and I'd probably only make minor modifications to this recipe in the future. Maybe a touch more hop character, or a little less dry, but not much.

Gluten Free Jasmine Saison.jpg
 
I haven't been able to brew for several months, but last night I brewed a Saison with malted quinoa, brown rice extract, sorghum at flameout and all Stygian. 1 ounce at 60, another at 20. I used s-33, which I haven't brewed with before but believe has the proper lineage. Fermentation was crazy after 7 hours and even more so now. Coriander, sweet and bitter orange at 10, as well as a little molasses(4 oz) for color. Tomorrow I'm going to move outside to garage to ramp up temp. Excited about this one.
 
I wish they'd stop calling S-33 a "Belgian" yeast. Don't expect a saison out of it. T-58 or even WB-06 are much closer. S-33 is, if anything, closer to a British yeast. It's the old Edme strain, of which John Palmer has this to say: "Edme Ale (Edme Ltd.)
One of the original dry yeast strains, this produces a soft, bready finish. Medium flocculation and medium-high attenuation. Fermentation range of 62-70°F." I agree with the "bready". I use it for stouts and British styles. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
 
Igliashon- that's ok. I had a Belle Saison but couldn't find it while I was brewing, so the s-33 was my next best option. I had planned on ramping up fermentation to get the Saison esters, but instead decided to keep it at 68 and try and do more of a pale ale, which plays better to the yeast. My sample this morning was promising, but its all just experimentation. Thanks for the info, I haven't researched yeasts much, so it's good to know.
 
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