Cherry Saison-ish

So here is my first attempt at producing a saison (and first attempt at posting) with a second fermentation of cherries. I've incorporated aspects of lambic and other wild beers to make it interesting. The mountain top where I live has hundreds of fruit trees (predominantly cherries) so I will be collecting about 10 kg of wild and sour cherries next week for a second fermentation. I plan on racking onto the cherries and holding them there until the winter, i.e. 6 months or so.

I'll keep posting photos and updates for those who are interested. Any suggestions from those more experienced/knowledgeable are appreciated.

Thanks,
Nathan

GRAIN AND HOP BILL

3.10 kg DinkelMalz (35%)
3.00 kg Maris Otter Malt (32%)
1.75 kg WienerMalz (17.5%)
1.22 kg MunchnerMalz (13%)
0.20 kg Caramünch Typ II (2.5%)
60 gr Saazer Hop Pellets (3.0% AAU)
60 gr Wild Hops (Collected on mountain and dried for 1 1/2 yrs)
32 gr Hallertauer Hop Pellets (7.0% AAU)
32 gr Brewers Gold Hop Pellets (4.5% AAU)
1 pkg Safbrew Abbaye Ale yeast (11.5 g)

BEER DETAILS

Volume (liters) = 31
Conv. Rate = 65% (I can't figure out why I got such bad efficiency (usually around 80) since I hit most my mash T's?)
OG = 1.061
IBUs = 7.4
BU/GU = 0.12

The beer came out a beautiful dark caramel.

MASH PROGRAM (Actual Notes) Sunday 14 June 2015

1. 10:33 - Striked 25 liters H20 @ 126-127 F. Mash T raised to 120 F.
2. 10:43 - Added 11 liters H20 @ 90 C and mash T raised to 138-139 F. Decocted 14 liters of thick mash and put to boil.
3. 11:33 - Reinjected 1st decoction and mash T raised to 155 F. Removed 10 liters of thick mash and put to boil.
4. 12:20 - Reinjected 2nd decoction and raised mash T to 160 F.
5. 12:37 - Added 11 liters of H20 @ 90 C.
6. 12:44-13:30 - Vorlaufed with 2 liters of wort until clear. Sparged with approx. 10-12 liters of H20 @ about 80 C.
7. 13:30 - Collected approx. 48-50 liters of wort measuring 9.9 Plato (SG = 1.0396)
8. 13:30-19:30 - Boiled wort. Added dry hops right away.
9. 19:30 - Removed wort from the stovetop and added all three types of hop pellets. Whirlpooled wort and let sit for 20 minutes.
10. 19:50-20:50 - Transferred and filtered wort into the primary damigiana. 31 liters of wort collected, measuring 15 Plato or SG = 1.061. Left damigiana with top open to cool down outside.
11. 6/15/15, 7:00 - Thermometer on edge of damigiana reads 22 C (Ambient T = 18 C). Pitched Safbrew Abbaye yeast after prepping it in luke warm water for 1 hour.

When I got home from work today the fermentation was going super strong. Kreusen is a good 10 cm tall.

6 Hour boil?

Yeah...I drew up the mash schedule to mimic a lambic turbid mash. Also, I liked the idea of adding depth and complexity to the beer through more Maillard reaction with the long boil.

The long time also passes nicely as I play with the kids anyhow. I've finally figured out a nice way to combine the two...which means more brewing!

BrewingUponLugano said:

So here is my first attempt at producing a saison (and first attempt at posting)

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Probably nitpicking, but the process you describe has little to do with saison, and more with a hybridized turbid/decoction mash. The whole point of saison brewing would be practicality and fermentability. A double decoction mash is not something I associate with saisons at all.
Also, the sub-10 IBU is decidedly a-typical for saison.

Not that style matters much: this will likely turn out to be great beer.

BrewingUponLugano said:

8. 13:30-19:30 - Boiled wort. Added dry hops right away.

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I assume you mean "the dried wild mountain hops"? Dry hopping is done after primary fermentation, not at the start of a 6 hour boil.

Speaking of which: 60 g of hops, boiled for 6 hours and still only 7IBU? How did you calculate/estimate this value?

BrewingUponLugano said:

9. 19:30 - Removed wort from the stovetop and added all three types of hop pellets. Whirlpooled wort and let sit for 20 minutes.

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Unless you cooled to 80°C, steeping 110g of hop pellets in the hot wort is going to add more IBUs.

BrewingUponLugano said:

10. 19:50-20:50 - Transferred and filtered wort into the primary damigiana. 31 liters of wort collected, measuring 15 Plato or SG = 1.061. Left damigiana with top open to cool down outside.

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Ah. Spontaneous
I'm not sure how this will interact with the Safbrew Abbeye, but I'm curious as to how this will turn out.

An ambitious brew. Don't mind my nitpicking, it'll be an impressive beer by the time winter comes.

Nitpicking is totally allowed...in fact it helps those reading clarify what was in the brewer's head.

Yeah...giving it a stylename was a hard task and you are right about the decoction not being saison-ish. I like to use decoction because it is much easier to calculate and hit the programmed Ts while maximizing the capacity of the mash tun.

The dried hops we collected (not dry hopping) and I threw them in the wort for the full boil time for utilization of their antibacterial effect but no contribution of IBU. In fact, I calculated 0 IBUs for them. As for the 120 gr of pellets, they were added completely after the boil so their contribution should be very low...or around 7 IBUs as per my calculator (actually I used 5 mins in the IBU calculation for this hop addition since I can't use 0). If you have a better chart or calculator for IBU calculation after boil please share since I would love to have it.

As for spontaneous we'll see what we get. This is definitely a conservative approach but I hope to get some nice acidity and other goodness.

You can't just decide not to calculate alpha acids for an unknown wilds hops that was boiled for 6 hours....because you say so. Those hops likely have plenty of AA and that long of a boil extracted way more then 0. If you don't know, you don't know. But you don't add them then choose to ignore them.

Its an interesting beer, but if it had to be named, its a wild ale pure and through

MileHigh,

It isn't my deciding not to calculate the IBU contribution of the dry hops that were boiled for a long time. But rather hops that have been aged this long (actually almost two years since we collected this bunch) can be assumed to contribute 0 bitterness since all the alpha acids have been fully oxidized. In fact, munching on the dried suckers you can't taste a darn anything! No bitterness, no nothing. With this said there is still a preservative value for which dried hops were traditionally added to the boiling wort when making Lambic.

As for the AA percentage of the hops we collected, I have no idea, but I am willing to bet they are on the lower side of 2-5% since we are in the Alps and therefore I would expect a noble variety to predominate.

The Safbrew Abbaye ate its way through the wort quickly and fermentation is going much slower now with no kreusen present. The whole cellar is world of banana and other fruit. I've got a cold right now so I do not have the best taste or smell perception at the moment. I'll taste once my senses are back.

Cool, you got banana out of Safbrew Abbeye.

Mine reeked of sulphur.

I have some experience to share adding cherries. I added 1lb / gallon of sweet, dark cherries to a wheat beer. I washed them and then froze them before use. On the day of the fruit addition, I removed them from the freezer to thaw. Added to secondary and racked beer on top. When SG was again stable over the course of a week, I bottled. The cherries were added whole. It took more than 6 months for the tannins from the dark skins to fade, but is a delicious beer now. Try to utilize sour cherries with light skins and I think the maturation may be faster. That said, it looks like you may have some other bugs in your brew, so it may be different.

Thanks for your advice.

It's nice to hear about the tannins taking 6 months to calm down, I was wondering about that. If I understand correctly, your beer was bottled right away and wasn't sitting for 6 months on the cherries in bulk, right? Also, did you measure or calculate the additional ABV from your cherry addition?

I plan on using a mix of the wild and sour (amarene) cherries around here. The wild ones are small, darker, pretty thick skin, and have a much lower flesh to pit ratio, i.e. higher % weight of pits. The amarene are nice sized, very dark, thin skin, and pretty average flesh to pit ratio. I wanted to mix the two since I am hoping the wilds will impart more flavor from the pits while the amarene will impart more sugar and color.

Correct, after the fermentation of the cherries and a stable SG it was bottled. I did not attempt to recalculate ABV after the fruit addition. If you have the fermentor space to bulk age, it probably isn't a bad idea.

Missed the aged part! My bad

So I got home tonight and the wife gave me permission to go cherry picking for a couple hours. I picked 4 different trees for a total of almost 3 kg. Cleaned them and put them in the freezer. I figure the final flavor and tartness of this beer will be highly dependent on what cherries are added so I think it is good to show some pics and description.

I plan on getting another 4-7 kg of cherries before racking. I'll taste soon and measure the attenuation. Cheers!

Pic 1: Amarene (Sour Cherries) (650 g) - This tree was pretty far along already and the cherries are dark rather than bright red so a pretty good balance between the tartness and sugar. Thin skin. Juice bursts in your mouth.

Pic 2: Wild cherry 1 (200 g) - Very small. Almost no pulp compared to the pit. So tart that your mouth puckers. Very thin skin and juice bursts in your mouth.

Pic 3: Wild cherry 2 (900 g) - Small but double the size of the other wild. More tart than sweet. Thin skin and juicy.

Pic 4: Some cultivar (1050 g) - Big cherries. Super sweet. Absolutely no tartness. Thick skin and very meaty.

Pic 5: Beer on day 3 - The temp has already dropped to ambient (18 C) a strong bubble gum (?) coming off the damigiana.

Those cherries all have lighter skins than what I used. You probably won't have near as much tannin. Update with your results!

Picked another 6 kg of cherries today and racked the beer on to those and the others that I took out of the freezer. The cherries mostly (5.1 kg) came from one tree that was a cultivar that was sweet, meaty, and thick skinned. Then I picked a bunch of different sour cherries (0.75 kg). See the pics.

I used almost 9 kg of cherries for the 30 liters of transferred beer. That is whole lot of cherries! I mean they seemed like whole lot more in the damigiana after I put them in there (check out the pic! It's a 60 liter damigiana).

The beer measured a SG of 1.0133 and is quite hazy. The aroma is overwhelmingly grapefruit....I've never had that before. The taste is rather non descript but then again I'm still getting over a sinus infection so tastebuds aren't the best. It is more bitter than I expected...maybe the dried hops did contribute IBUs!!!

So about 8 hours post racking the beer onto the cherries there was a little foam on the surface but no noticeable fermentation activity going. I left for work and came back about 10 hours later to the beer fermenting like crazy. It has been fermenting like crazy for three straight days now with all the cherries pushed to the top. Check out the photos.

I did some quick calculations as to extra alcohol from the cherries and here's what I got:

Base beer:
OG = 1.061
FG = 1.0133
App. Atten. = 78.2%
ABV = 6.3%

After cherry addition:
Quantity = 8.9 kg (I approximated 7 kg of cherries w/o pits, probably low)
Sugar Cont. = 0.84 kg
Delta ABV = 1.65% (I assumed total fermentation of all the cherry sugar)

Final ABV = 7.9%

So I'm at 6 weeks post-brewday and 5 weeks post-cherry addition...and I was needing to check how things were going.

The cherries floating on top in the damigiana are really dark, almost blackish...probably from oxidation. Actually the cherries probably work as a nice protective layer against the beer oxidizing!

The beer is a nice light reddish brown and really clear for sitting at such high temps recently. The temperature outside here has been in the 90s up to 100 F for almost a month now, which has brought the cellar temperature where I keep the beers uncharacteristically into the mid 70s. The aroma is a nice cherry and not overpowering and a bit of acetic acid is noticeable. Very light body and crisp on the tongue. On the palate I don't notice any vinegar. The wheat is pleasantly present. There is a slight bitter aftertaste that grabs the back of my tongue. Not harsh but there. Hopefully the bitterness will fade with time.

The beer SG measures 1.0127 so it looks like all the cherry sugar has been eaten through but no wild yeast consumption yet...I think.

There isn't much funkiness present as I was hoping to have by now. This could be a time factor or possibly I didn't get a good wild inoculation strong enough to overcome the yeast I pitched. Time will tell!

I'll sample in another 2 months or so! Cheers

fun project!

BrewingUponLugano said:

I plan on racking onto the cherries and holding them there until the winter, i.e. 6 months or so.

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you could do a shorter time on cherries. if you've got bugs in there (see next question), everything should be fermented out in 2-3 months. the cherry flavor might fade a little during those additional 3-4 months.

BrewingUponLugano said:

Left damigiana with top open to cool down outside.

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are you adding any bugs (bottle dregs or commercial yeast/bacteria)? chances are you got very little to nothing through the opening of that demi-john. when brewers are going for natural inoculation they use wide, shallow pans to maximize surface area.

(FYI, the translation for damigiana is demi-john/demijohn )

please keep us updated!

Sweetcell,

You're right on the mark I think.

1) I don't think I got good enough contact with the open air to get a wild inoculation.

2) I'm going to check the beer in another 6 weeks or so to see how it's progressing. If there aren't major changes I was planning on bottling.

However, I'm not too worried on the cherry flavor diminishing. The cherries with pits intact are in the beer so I think the flavor should hold. I'm pretty sure the kriek producers hold cherries on the beer for 6 months so I should be good.

Thanks for your input.

So I went down into the cellar to shelve some goods...and what do I see to excited amazement! We've got some wildness a'brewin!

A couple photos for those interested: one with flash and one without. (Sorry...it was pretty hard to get a good photo)

It looks like brettanomyces to my untrained eyes. Any experts want to chime in? It hasn't fully covered all the cherries yet...only about a third of the surface so far. Pretty amazing how quick it goes because a couple days ago there was nothing!

i don't know if that's brett, but you definitely got something going on in there - congrats! as far as i know, you can't really determine what is making a pellicle based only on appearance but brett is the most likely candidate, probably from the skin of the cherries.

looks like you're in it for the long term now. very exciting!

Can you post some pictures please

Quick update...I'm at 4 weeks since noticing the new growth on the cherries. Thought I would give the beer a try to make sure it was going in the right direction. The SG = 1.0121 since the last time I measured it so it has gone down 0.0006....that's some slow wild progress!

It was nice outside so I thought I would give an outdoor money shot. The color looks the same. The clarity is unbelievable as before. The aroma has more noticeable acetic profile and I might say some more depth to it than I am able to express. The flavor is almost identical from what I can remember. Not much change there.

I wish it was December already!!!

My wife was out of town for 4 days last week and I had a couple of empty damigianas so I decided to take some brewcation days. Thursday I brewed up 40 liters of a continental lager with 5 kg of chestnuts I had gathered recently. Friday I brewed up 28 liters of a nice christmas ale. As I brewed, nearby I saw my cherry saison which was about 4 1/2 months old and by Thursday had a nice thick green-and-white pellicle covering most of the cherries floating on top. I decided it was time to taste...the first time since my last post 2 months prior.

The bouquet is still beautiful and acetic profile much more noticeable to the nose. In 2 months time the beer has developed a wonderfully complex flavor profile and it marries with the added acetic character perfectly. I am astonished at how nice this beer is at my first attempt at such. The only noticeable defect to me is that there remains (if slightly diminished) a tiny bit of bitterness in the back of the tongue. It is not harsh or problematic but I would have it otherwise if I could. Interestingly, the beer is slightly more viscous...possibly a sign of onsetting rope however it is neither slimy or unpleasant. On the contrary, I find it quite nice!

I wanted to keep the beer as is and so I decided to bottle. Saturday I racked off the cherries and pellicle into an intermediary damigiana and primed with 220 grams of table sugar syrup for a final CO2 volume of 2.5-2.8. Then I bottled.

SUMMARY OF BEER

Vol. = 30 liters bottled
OG = 1.061
FG = 1.0113 (2.9 P)
Att. = 81.5%
ABV = 8.0% (estimated with fermentation of cherries)

I am slightly worried on two final points:

1) Will the ropiness continue in the bottle?
2) Was there enough yeast still in suspension within the beer to eat the priming sugar? I contemplated adding a new yeast before bottling but I was too worried about changing the beer.

I am going to let 3 weeks pass with the bottles at 21 C before opening the first. I will give a final update with pics sometime around then.

Cheers!

i would be worried about something different:

BrewingUponLugano said:

FG = 1.0113 (2.9 P)

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that's a pretty high FG to be bottling at. there is a chance that the bugs will continue to munch away at that extra sugar - you might end up with over-carbonated beer, or bottle bombs.

BrewingUponLugano said:

I wanted to keep the beer as is and so I decided to bottle.

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bottling the beer will not stop it from fermenting, continuing to develop, etc. at 4.5 months, it has pulled most of the flavor out of the cherries. there is still a good amount of sugar left in there (1.011) so it should continue to sour.

if you don't want the beer to change any more, and ensure that it doesn't over-carbonate, i would keep it cold (in a fridge) once it the priming sugar is consumed and you have decent carbonation.

BrewingUponLugano said:

1) Will the ropiness continue in the bottle?

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yes. or, being in a bottle isn't going to stop it. hopefully you have some brett in the beer that can clean up the ropiness.

BrewingUponLugano said:

2) Was there enough yeast still in suspension within the beer to eat the priming sugar? I contemplated adding a new yeast before bottling but I was too worried about changing the beer.

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chances are good that you had enough yeast in suspension, but hard to know for sure with a lab test. time will tell!

you can use a neutral yeast that will add little to nothing to the taste. i like using champagne yeast. i find it adds no flavor, has good alcohol and pH resistance, and will only ferment simple sugars (i.e. the added priming sugar, not any residual dextrines).

Thanks Sweetcell for the comments! Especially about the bottle bombs. It didn't even come to mind as it should have so now I'm going to have to keep an eye on the bottles. Luckily I only used champagne bottles but I'll still have to keep an eye and release pressure from them every once in a while.

It has taken 4 1/2 months for the SG to drop 2 GU....so if I do my calculations right, at this rate an extra 2.3-2.5 volumes of CO2 will be produced in the bottles every 4-5 months. Assuming whatever is in the bottle keeps on eating, I will being having to do this pressure release at least a couple of times.

Thanks again for pointing this out to me. You saved me future heartache and possibly more.