Saison with spices and apricot puree? Ideas?

I'm planning on brewing a saison in a couple weeks, and (for the first time) would like some refipe feedback *before* I brew.

I want to do a stovetop partial mash a la DeathBrewer. I'm thinking as light of DME (does pilsener dme exist?) as I can get and Vienna for the rest. Target OG somewhere in the 1.050-60 ballpark. FG around 1.010?

For hops, I'm thinking a small Saaz first wort addition for bitterness with some of that nice herbal spicy flavor. Maybe some EKG or more Saaz later in the boil for aroma and flavor.

For spices, I only want to add complexity and dimension, not showcase any particular spice. I'm thinking coriander, ginger, and orange or tangelo peel, all at 5 min. Tangelos have an absurd amount of oil in the rind and smell amazing. I know ginger is dangerous, I have ginger tea and would probably only use 1/2 to 1 tea bag's worth.

The same thought (dimension & complexity) applies to the apricot. I'm thinking a pound or two of puree in secondary. Just enough to lend a subtle apricot essence.

Of course a saison yeast pitched cool and allowed to warm for lots of esters.

I want to buy ingredients the first weekend of June, and will have 8 weeks to work with from brew to serve. That should give me enough wiggle room for primary/secondary/bottle conditioning. Brewing it for a saison tasting with a monthly beer tasting group, it'll be served alongside commercial saisons.

Any thoughts, suggestions, and insights are welcome! Thanks! Cheers!

Feedback PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

I've used BeerSmith and Hopville's Beer Calculus calculator to mess around with recipes, here's basically what I've come up with:

Target OG: 1.052-1.056
Target FG: 1.016-1.017
Target IBU: 22-24

Grains:
4lbs Extra Light DME
3lbs Vienna Malt
2oz Special B

Hops:
1oz Styrian Goldings (First Wort, ~16-17 IBU)
1oz Czech Saaz (15 min, 5-6 IBU)

Spices:
.5 oz Coriander Seed (5 min)
.5 oz Ginger (5 min)
.5 oz Orange/Tangelo Peel (5 min)

Yeast:
Either WLP Saison I (565) or WLP Saison II (566). I like the sound of 565, but don't like the sound of it stalling around 1.020...

Other:
2 lbs apricot puree in secondary fermentation, can sit for up to 3 weeks there assuming primary is 1 week. Otherwise, 2ish weeks primary and 2 weeks secondary... doesn't sound like enough time for apricot puree..

Anybody? Anything? Please?

You know you want to add your 2 cents... I'll even give complimentary sample photos of the finished product

I know you're out there. I see you lurking.

The only problem i am seeing is that with DME and the Vienna, this might not dry out enough (I like my Saisons in the 1.005 range). Maybe add a pound of sugar and ferment it warmer, like 75-80. The spices additions look pretty good.

Thanks! I saw that too, but couldn't figure out how on earth to dry it out. I'll definitely check that out.

So I should try to dry out the FG a bit, anybody else have any thoughts?

So I fiddled around with it in BeerSmith and Hopville's Beer Calculus, and adding a pound of sugar, be it dextrose, sucrose, or turbinado, only increases both the OG and the FG. What gives!?

BeerSmith says for 4# DME, 3# Vienna, 1# Dextrose: OG 1.060, FG 1.017
Hopville says OG 1.053, FG 1.016

Will it dry out?

I don't know about your Lbh mine carries liquid pilsen malt

I would recommend going easier on the ginger (is this ginger powder? Fresh ginger?). It's a spice that can pile up REALLY easily. I think the breadth of your spice complexity should come from your yeast, really (but that's just my preference here). Maybe a touch of black pepper or a chili of some kind (again, just thinking really, really light amount here). Any of your monosaccharides are going to ferment out, so don't fret that. Eff BS. Keep your mash temperature on the low-ish side and ferment on the upper end of the yeast's threshold (more flavors and attenuation, so double win).

Let us know how it turns out.

I'll look for pilsen lme but i was thinking dme for color.

Thanks for the tip on the ginger, i'll be using ginger root tea, i think it's ground. I will lighten up on it, I'd rather have not enough than too much.
Good to know that it will ferment further than BS (lol) claims.
I will probably brew a spiceless saison soon, I just got a wild hair and went with it this time

I'm planning my first saison too. I'm using mostly Pilsner malt, but probably a fraction of the bill will be plain ole table sugar. That should dry it out quite a bit.

From what I understand, most/all your spiciness should come from the yeast, almost the point where you don't need any spice additions. Ferment this guy warm... start in the mid-to-high 60s, wrap him in a blanket, put it in a warm spot, do whatever you can to get it to rise up to 80 or 85degF.

I'll definitely wrap a blanket around it to encourage warm fermentation, after I initially pitch in mid/high-60's. Good idea, thanks!

I can't decide what kind of sugar to use; dextrose? sucrose? turbinado? I know the last two will add a little flavor of their own, and dextrose is almost the only non-flavor-contributing sugar. Hmm....decisions, decisions.

I guess the reason I want to use spices is because it will be served at a Saison tasting. If I use 565 (supposedly the Dupont strain), and Dupont is also served, I want to make sure that my brew tastes distinctly different from not only that, but also the rest of the saisons at the tasting.

That's my "wild hair"

After listenimg to the Saison episode of The Jamil Show and doing a little more research, I've decided to completely axe the spices and fruit. I'm just going to brew a straight saison. Carefully picking the yeast and controlling my fermentation temperatures will give me the flavors I'm looking for.

I'm thinking WLP 566, Wyeast French Saison, or Wyeast Belgian Saison Blend

Definitely go with the French Saison. It won't give up at 1.020 like the others; it is a beast! I've got a saison in the primary right now using that strain and after 2 days I'm already down to 1.015 from 1.060. The other great thing about this strain is that you don't have to keep it that warm; it seems to be perfectly happy right at 70F.

I like your original idea of light dme and some Vienna. Sugar will dry it out regardless of what the software says. I would skip table sugar or candy sugar. If you want to keep it light, plain old corn sugar is great. Partially refined sugars like turbinado are authentic and add a nice bit of color and flavor. My current batch is at the darker end of the saison spectrum, having a fifty-fifty split of pilsner and 7L munich for the base, so I went with the dextrose to dry it out.

I agree that you should skip the fruit, but unless you really keep the fermentation temperature up, you might want to toss in a little bit of spice to accent the natural spiciness of the yeast. I use 1/2 oz. of coriander, 1/4 oz. each of pink peppercorns and chamomile, and whatever citrus zest looks good. My current batch has blood orange zest because I couldn't find kumquats as I was originally planning.

As for hops, saaz used to be my favorite for this style until I made an amazing discovery. If you can get it, motueka is fantastic! It's a New Zealand grown saaz hybrid that has the saaz spiciness along with lemon-lime citrus notes and tropical fruit. Very exotic, and blends nicely with the saison yeast profile. I know others have also had great success with another NZ hop called Nelson Sauvin, but I haven't found any yet this year.

Hope this helps.

-Shawn

Wow. A whole lot of really helpful info! Thanks Shawn. I'll go with the French Saison. I was actually aiming to pitch at 68ish and let it sit there for a couple days, then let it rise to 80 for the rest. Definitely sounds like a beast.

I think I'll be able to skip the spices this time by doing that, also it will give me an idea of what spices i could add in the future.

I was leaning towards a pound of turbinado and a really low partial mash. I think I might toss in about 8oz of wheat malt for a little protein (since saison is both refreshing and hearty...weird). Or I could just leave it where it is.

I'll see if I have access to those hops you mentioned, I'm up for trying new stuff.

Sounds like a great plan, including the wheat. I mashed my saison at 148 and got about 78% efficiency, and from the look of things, a very fermentable wort. That should work well for a Vienna / wheat partial mash, too.

If you are mail ordering your ingredients, Seven Bridges Organic has motueka whole hops (along with a whole host of other interesting options!) and Austin Homebrew has them in pellet form. I got mine from the former. They are a bit pricy, but I got a good deal because I was also ordering hops for an IPA and I ended up buying a pound total.

-Shawn

I'd skip the spices and fruit if I were me. The whole point of a saison is to get spicy and fruity character from the yeast. If you're going to put spices and fruit in to cover up anything the yeast give you, why not just us a plain yeast?

Thanks for the name of that organic site, I'm totally interested in seeing what they have. I've got gift certificates for an HBS that I'm using for this batch so I'm limited to what they have. But if I remember right, they do have 30 varieties of hops.... fingers crossed! Hope your current saison turns out awesome! Excited to make my own!

Hey Shawn if you're there, will the French Saison yeast produce more esters and phenolic notes if it ferments in the 80s (after 48 hrs of course) or will it just produce more fusel alcohols?

Turns out, the place I'm going for my ingredients only carries White Labs. I have gift certificates there and am broke otherwise, or I'd look elsewhere.
I think I'm gonna take the plunge and go for 565. I can leave it in primary for up to 5 weeks if need be, I'll have to figure out what I can use to keep the ferm temps up. I just want to have at least 3 weeks for it to carbonate in bottles before I serve it at the tasting.

If you do get a chance to use it some time, the French Saison strain will produce a lot more phenolics in the 80's, but it doesn't seem to produce as much in the way esters. It's pretty spicy, but not as fruity and citrusy as saisons I've tasted brewed with other strains.

The easiest way I can think of besides blankets to keep the temp up is to put your carboy in a closet with a space heater. You can probably find one cheap on craigslist. It's getting hot here in Michigan, so I'm just leaving the window open in the room I've got my carboys in and letting nature do the heating for me. I put my IPA carboy in a water bath so it doesn't heat up along with the saison. (This is a neat trick: big water tub + box fan = cheap and easy fermentation chiller.)

I look forward to trying 3711 as well, and other saison yeast strains

Funny, I just filled up my "fermenting tub" with water to keep the temp of my IPA down. Great minds think alike
I'll look for a space heater, or maybe just the cord for my electric blanket...

So here's what I'm going with:
WLP565
4# x-light DME
3# Vienna
8oz Wheat malt
2oz Belgian Caramunich

1oz Czech Saaz (FWH)
1oz EKG (25 min)
1oz St. Goldings/Fuggle (10 min)

OG 1.054
FG <1.010 (yeast allowing)
IBU ~25-30

Mash around 148 for 45 min

Yeast nutrient and irish moss in boil...

Hoping the yeast gods give me beginner's luck with this yeast and it doesn't drastically slow at 1.020. Excited! Brewing tomorrow.

Looks good to me. Glad to see you're letting the yeast do it's job and not throwing in spices and fruit.

After getting surprisingly higher on my OG (1.063 vs 1.054; discussed in a different thread), the wort has been happily bubbling away for 2.5 days. 75 degrees at pitch, 75 thru high krausen, slapped a heating pad on it yest. evening (approx 48 hrs after pitch), and it was at 82 and wrapped in blankets when I left for work this morning. No signs of the dreaded slowdown yet!

Besides being almost a full 1% higher abv than I calculated, everything looks good!

Awesome! My saison is just now starting to slow down 12 days into fermentation. Last time I checked I was at 1.009 down from 1.060. This one's gonna be boozy. I'm thinking of tossing some more turbinado into the secondary to see how low it can go. 1.000?

Haha it's almost like a "brewer's challenge" to see where they can get their saisons to! I'll be happy if it's <1.010, but it sure would be interesting to see the difference if it made it all the way to triple-aught.

Yeah, mine is theoretically gonna end up about 7% abv if I *don't* toss in any turbinado or anything. Definitely a big saison, but not quite a Grande/Special/Imperial.

6 days into fermentation, measures 1.014. Almost there! A little while longer! Smells like apricot, tastes fruity/spicy/sweet/tart. AWESOME.

So the 565 is being 565... one week ago it was 1.012, and yesterday when I was thinking about bottling it, it was 1.010.... slow, yes, but I don't know how long it will slowly ferment, and I don't want to risk bottle bombs. I need it for a tasting the first Friday of August, so I have at most another 2 weeks to let it sit...

You're already at 84% attenuation with a yeast strain that isn't suppose to do more than 75%! I would say if it drops a point or less in the next week you're probably safe to bottle. Unfortunately, though, I've found that attenuation information is not always correct. It turns out, for instance, that under the right conditions Wyeast 1968, which is supposed to be a low attenuator, will get close to 80%! That was the one time I ever had bottle bombs, and what convinced me a I needed to switch to kegging.

FWIW, I brewed a low-gravity Saison with Pilsen, some oats, and some table sugar. I wanted it to finish dry. Using exclusively 565, pitched at 68, let it rise naturally, then I added heat until we got to about 85 after a week or so. Went from 1.035 to 1.002. What kind of temperature are you fermenting at?

Edit: Forgot to mention, pitched straight out of the vial, no starter. I wanted it to stress a bit to make those spicy notes. Worked like a charm.

tim404 said:

FWIW, I brewed a low-gravity Saison with Pilsen, some oats, and some table sugar. I wanted it to finish dry. Using exclusively 565, pitched at 68, let it rise naturally, then I added heat until we got to about 85 after a week or so. Went from 1.035 to 1.002. What kind of temperature are you fermenting at?

Edit: Forgot to mention, pitched straight out of the vial, no starter. I wanted it to stress a bit to make those spicy notes. Worked like a charm.

Click to expand...

I pitched at 70, kept it there for 2 days, then slapped a heating pad on it and kept it at 83-85 for a week and a half. GREAT esters. I think, with approx 84% attenuation as mentioned by the post before yours, I'll bottle it this week. Prb one final grav check before I do... if it's the same, I'll go for it.

Been in bottle for a couple months now, tasting awesome! Bottled at 1.010.

Would like to ferment a little warner from the get-go next time. Wouldn't mind more year flavor.

FW saaz gave a delicious flavor to this one.