Brewing a Saison!

I live downtown in an apartment in California and I am therefore rather restricted in the brewing and temperatures of my beer at present. I have brewed a couple of great IPAs (including the American Dog Fish IPA extract which I definitely recommend to beginners like me).

As such I was planning on brewing a saison this weekend given the requirement for higher temperatures and less complaints from the wife about the temperature inside of our apartment resembling that of the rockies!

My only question is that my extract recipe calls for addition of the Sorachi Ace hop only? My hope was to achieve a really hoppy saison and I'm not sure that this hop schedule alone will do this. As such I'm hoping I could get any additional advice?

Thanks everyone for your help, its great to have a community to be able to ask questions and get feedback.

In my opinion, traditional German hops are best in a Saison. It's going to depend on the yeast you use, whether it pushes more towards spice or fruit, but generally German noble hops work best....lemony hops like Sorachi Ace and Meridian work well alongside spice-forward saison strains. American hops can be used with some success but generally in my opinion tend to clash with yeast character.

Stick with the Sorachi Ace...you'll be happy with the outcome. If you want to boost hop flavor just add more Sorachi Ace, Meridian, or traditional German hops late in the boil.

The yeast provides the main flavor in a saison, not the hops or grain.

As a quick follow up to my post. I took the beer into my LHBS and the taste I was not a fan of was from the use of oxidized liquid malt rather than through chlorinated phenols.

His suggestion was to continue to use powdered malts rather than the liquid ones.

Cheers everyone

theowlman16 said:

The yeast provides the main flavor in a saison, not the hops or grain.

Click to expand...

I second...Sorachi is a great hop.....you will not be disappointed