Honey Rosemary Saison

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eulipion2

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My friends are getting married at the end of April, and they've asked me to brew the beer. I picked four of the five brews based on their preferences, but the fifth one is completely up to me. I don't often dabble in mushy/cheesy type things, but I figured I'd give a go at traditional/symbolic ingredients for my "brewmaster's choice". As such, I want to do a traditional saison with honey and rosemary. Honey has the traditional "honeymoon" connotations, while Wikipedia says of rosemary:

In the Middle Ages, rosemary was associated with wedding ceremonies - the bride would wear a rosemary headpiece and the groom and wedding guests would all wear a sprig of rosemary, and from this association with weddings, rosemary evolved into a love charm. Newlywed couples would plant a branch of rosemary on their wedding day. If the branch grew, it was a good omen for the union and family. In ‘A Modern Herbal’, Mrs Grieves says “A rosemary branch, richly gilded and tied with silken ribands of all colours, was also presented to wedding guests, as a symbol of love and loyalty.” If a young person would tap another with a rosemary sprig and if the sprig contained an open flower, it was said that the couple would fall in love.

On to the recipe:

BREW-IN-A-BAG, NO-CHILL, efficiency 75%+

6 lb. Belgian Pilsner
4 lb. German Wheat Malt
.5 lb. Aromatic Malt
1 lb. Honey
1.5 oz. Cascade FWH (calculated as a 30 min addition)
1 sprig of rosemary, leaves only (flameout)
Saison yeast (not sure which one)

OG: 1.066
FG: 1.010
ABV: 6.7%
IBU: 21.7
SRM: 6.7

Three questions: 1.) FWH contributes flavor, but will it be enough grapefruit from the cascades to help balance the pine from the rosemary? 2.) More, less, or just right rosemary? 3.) Will the honey flavor come through, do I need more, or do I need something like honey malt?

Thanks in advance for your feedback!
 
I made a Rosemary Rye Saison this past spring that came out very well. I used 4 grams of rosemary along with Sorachi ace hops, awesome.

The honey may not come through, If you ferment at a hight temp you should get enough esters to balance the pine. I personally did not get much pine from the rosemary, I think it came off more floral when coupled with the Sorachi (which have a lemony floral flavor).

*Edit* Remember to mash on the low side to get a fermentable wort!
 
Thanks for the input. I've brewed a similar basic saison recipe with turbinado sugar instead of honey, mashed at 153 and had it finish at 1.010. A little sweet, but could it help bring out the honey character, our will the yeast clear that out? Should I reduce the malt, raise the honey, kind of like a braggot?

I think a grapefruit-like hop flavor would work very well, but I could see how lemon would also be a good pairing. It'll be interesting to see if my LHBS can get Sorachi Ace.

Thanks for the input. Keep it coming.
 
Okay, revision time:

7 lb Belgian Pilsner
4 lb German Wheat
.5 lb Belgian Aromatic
.5 lb Honey
.25 lb Honey Malt

1 oz Cascade, 6.6% AA, FWH (calculated as a 30 min addition)
1 oz Cascade, 6.6% AA, 60 min (40 min for No-Chill)

1 sprig rosemary, leaves only, in the no-chill cube

Wyeast 3711 French Saison

According to BrewTarget, I get this:
OG: 1.063
FG: 1.014 (should dry out more than this)
ABV: 6.4
IBU: 31.7
SRM: 7.3
BU/GU: .51

I think the 3711 will dry it out a bit lower with a low mash, and I may cut back the hops a bit to hit the low 20s IBU. I really want the honey and rosemary to come through without being over the top. Balanced but quaffable.
 
I'm not sure you need the aromatic. I love that malt but it's pretty potent and might do things you don't want. Otherwise I think it looks great
 
This looks amazing. I may try it out... Subscribed to see your thoughts/results!

Only thing I can add is that IME, calculating FWH as 30-min addition will NOT accurately predict your IBUs or flavor!!!

FWH actually yields MORE bittering than 60 min additions in BrewMaster, and despite the official line, does NOT add flavor like later hop additions. I'm a relative new-comer here, but there's a recent thread where Yooper and some others agree with my experience. Not trying to derail you, I'm just really excited about your recipe and I think FWH & 60-min additions = one bitter beer w/ almost no hop flavor.

EDIT: my software puts 6.6% AA Cascade additions of 60 mins & FWH at around 47 IBU. I've not done BIAB or no-chill, however, so if that changes things, please ignore this post :)

"All your home brew are belong to us!"
 
Only thing I can add is that IME, calculating FWH as 30-min addition will NOT accurately predict your IBUs or flavor!!!

FWH actually yields MORE bittering than 60 min additions in BrewMaster, and despite the official line, does NOT add flavor like later hop additions. I'm a relative new-comer here, but there's a recent thread where Yooper and some others agree with my experience. Not trying to derail you, I'm just really excited about your recipe and I think FWH & 60-min additions = one bitter beer w/ almost no hop flavor.

I started calculating my FWH as a 30 min addition when I started no-chill brewing. The Pol came up with a chart that worked for him to adjust additions for the extended heat. It's done me pretty well. My IPA with 1.25 oz of Bravo (14.2%) FWH, 1.25 oz Bravo in the cube, and 2 oz Bravo dry hop, turned out beautifully smooth, hop forward, and very drinkable, even to the malt heads in my homebrew club.

I'll be brewing this the week after Thanksgiving, so I'll be able to adjust before the wedding (end of April). That said, I think I'm changing the hops to Sorachi Ace as recommended above -- rosemary and lemon are a very traditional combination, and honey lemon is my favorite cough drop! :mug:
 
I started calculating my FWH as a 30 min addition when I started no-chill brewing. The Pol came up with a chart that worked for him to adjust additions for the extended heat. It's done me pretty well.

Thanks for the clarification. That's really interesting... one of the reasons I love this forum and brewing in general is the vast amout of experience and difference!

If it's ok to steal your idea, I'm going to attempt this over the holidays but with Cascade and Rosemary and leave out the honey. I want to emphasize the citrus/rosemary play rather than the sweetness. If you have any thoughts on that decision or info from your experiment, I'd love to hear them!

:mug:
 
Piratwolf said:
If it's ok to steal your idea, I'm going to attempt this over the holidays but with Cascade and Rosemary and leave out the honey. I want to emphasize the citrus/rosemary play rather than the sweetness. If you have any thoughts on that decision or info from your experiment, I'd love to hear them!

Apparently the honey will completely ferment out, leaving behind little to no flavor. It will, however help boost gravity and dry out the beer. The honey malt should leave a honey-like flavor, so you could probably leave that out.

I'll brew this one (hopefully) next week and report back.
 
Honey will add flavor if you have enough in it, and if you have good quality honey. True, the sugars will all ferment out if you let them, but the taste of honey without the sweetness can be mildly present. I've only tried three batches with honey, but in two of them it was noticeable even though they were fermented as dry as they would go.
 
Honey will add flavor if you have enough in it, and if you have good quality honey. True, the sugars will all ferment out if you let them, but the taste of honey without the sweetness can be mildly present. I've only tried three batches with honey, but in two of them it was noticeable even though they were fermented as dry as they would go.

How much honey did you use to be able to still taste it? Will 1 lb be enough?
 
It depends on the style, the honey etc. etc...but the batches where the honey was detectable was 12 oz. in a 3 gallon batch. 12/3=4, so about 4 oz./gallon. Maybe I was fooling myself too, but if you've ever tasted completely dry mead you'll have an idea...but of course that taste is in with a beer, so there are so many variables!
 
I enjoy adding honey to some of my beers, and also make some meads. IMHO, adding honey post-boil when the wort is below 125-F will preserve the delicate aromatics of the honey... and you should use pure honey, not some of the supermarket honey which is part corn sugar, etc.

When you do that, the 1# in 5-gallons should be subtle yet present. 1.5# - 2# will be good & noticable. 3#-5# and you should have a bold honey character.

If it were me (and i love the honey/rosemary idea here), I would be using 1.5#- 2# honey... I've never used honey malt, so cannot comment on that. Never needed it...

Just my 2 cents ... :)
--LexusChris
 
I'd probably add the rosemary after primary fermentation ends so you don't lose the aromatics during the boil and primary fermentation.

I was suspicious of the idea of rosemary in a beer but I recently purchased a plant since I am a big fan of the flavor in food. I chewed up a leaf and took a swig of a brett brown beer. It was actually very tasty. So I'm a convert although I would see it as something I would want to drink sparingly rather than all the time.
 
I would keep the honey up at at least a pound. My recommendation would be to either add it to slightly chilled wort (once it drops into the 150 range....think of it as a whirlpool addition). I would actually add the rosemary at this point too. You could also add the honey a day or two after fermentation has started. Both ways will eliminate boiling off of the aromatics which is the main component you will get from the honey since it ferments out completely. Also, you can hit it home a little more by getting a really aromatic honey like rosemary honey Amazon.com: rosemary honey: Grocery & Gourmet Food. Dont use a standard orange blossom, wildflower, or clover honey you get at a store. You dont need to spend top dollar, but get a good quality honey. Buckwheat, lavender, and sage honey are also really nice.

mash at 148-149 to get a highly fermentable wort. Id drop the aromatic just because you dont need a malty backbone. Most great saisons are just pilsner malt and maybe a little character base malt like wheat, munich, rye, etc...I think the simpler the malt bill the better the specialty ingredients will be featured.

Overall its a great idea and saison is a perfect platform for this.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions. I think I may keep the honey and drop the honey malt, as suggested. May move the rosemary to flameout or just put it in the fermenter. Have to think on that a bit. I'd like to expose it to some heat to free up some oils (?) but don't want to boil off the rosemary flavor. I use a CFC wort chiller, though, so the wort's down to 68 or so in 10 mins before it hits the FV... Not sure if any flavor will come through at that temp.

"All your home brew are belong to us!"
 
Thanks for the replies. The grain bill is from the Zymurgy saison feature a couple years ago, the recipe called "Springtime in Amarillo." Of course, that was a hop forward beer, so having the maltiness from the aromatic malt helped balance it out a bit. That said, I do want to make sure the malt is present along with the honey and rosemary. So I'll drop the honey malt, possibly up the honey to 1.5-2 lb, but I'm still on the fence with the aromatic.

Also, this will be a BIAB and No-Chill brew, no-chill meaning I won't really get the chance to add honey at a lower temperature, though I could put it directly into the no-chill container and let it mix as I transfer in the hot wort. Since it will be a sealed vessel the the volatile aromatics can't really boil off, but I suppose they could be damaged by the heat. I was considering adding the rosemary to the container as well. It worked great for my brew of BierMuncher's Blue Balls Belgian Wit with the orange peel and coriander, so I thought it might be alright for rosemary, too. Otherwise I'll dry-hop with it.

Not gonna happen this week. Payday's Friday. Next week it is!
 
So I brewed 3gal this with 1# of honey and .5 oz dried rosemary added 5 mins from end of boil. Honey has left a VERY pleasant, light suggestion of sweetness; no rosemary noticeable. Hydro sample tastes amazing, though.

It's approaching FG now after I countered the standard 565 slowdown by ramping the temp almost to 90 over 60 hours. Got some nice funky Saison flavors from that to counter the sweet & citrus notes.

This is my 1st Saison, so I'm not sure how to finish it. Do I bottle at FG or let it sit for an extended period?
 
How long has it been done? I would think you'd be okay to bottle it -soon- after hitting FG, like a few days or so. I left mine for a couple of weeks after it hit FG but that may not be necessary.
 
How long has it been done?

Ha. I just checked my notes (keeping notes is the only thing that keeps me on track!!!) to discover it's only been in fermentation for 10 days. I'm thinking it will finish today or tomorrow. But since I'm not in any particular hurry I may let it ride til next week.

Thanks for the input, lowtones! Any advice on bottle conditioning times? Do I go with standard for my process or are there any tweaks for saisons?
 
Not a problem, but I'm no expert just to let you know. Only have one Saison under my belt, but do love the style and have done lots of research on it! Mine is still pretty young at four weeks in the bottle, but it still tastes quite nice.

I would say use your usual procedures, but the longer the better. Saisons were made to be beers that could be stored, and I've read that Dupont (and possibly some other Belgian breweries) won't even release their Saisons for shipping until they've bottle conditioned 6-8 weeks.
 
Do you have any redwood or spruce trees laying around? Spruce tips are a great touch...A single sprig of rosemary at flame out won't do much.

If you really want to get things interesting get some Orris root powder and add a half tablespoon to the secondary :)
 
lowtones, thanks again. That's sort of what I figured, but it's a good antidote to my impatience.

OldWorld... what's orris root powder?
 
Finally got to brew this today. The recipe was as follows:
BIAB/No-Chill

6 lb 2-row (US)
4 lb Wheat Malt
.5 lb Aromatic
1 lb 9 oz honey (finished off the jar)
.5 oz Sorachi Ace whole leaf (15.1% AA), FWH (calculated as 30 min)
.5 oz Sorachi Ace whole leaf (15.1% AA), 40 min (calculated as 60 to account for No-Chill)
4 grams fresh rosemary (about 1.5 sprigs), bruised with a mortar and pestle

I added the honey and rosemary to the No-Chill vessel and racked the hot wort onto it. Will add yeast tomorrow (assuming my LHBS has 3711 by tomorrow).

BrewTarget gives me this:
OG: 1.062
FG: 1.014 (3711 will dry this out more)
ABV: 6.3%
IBU: 32.5 (maybe a little too high, but oh well)
SRM: 6.9

I'll have to wait until I rack and pitch to get my OG since I added the honey to the NC container.
 
I'm sure you're on top of this, eulipion, but I'd avoid wlp565 like the devil. Just like all the descriptions, it stuck around 1.030. I managed to ramp up to almost 90 and get restarted then let it slowly come back down to about 70. I'll take a hydro reading when I get home... should be getting lower.

My LHBS didn't have 3711 or the others I wanted, so I'll definitely brew this again when I'm better prepped.

All that being said, the honey aromatics are delicate but wonderful. I think it's going to taste amazing!
 
FWIW... Finished @ 1.002!!! That's about 8.5% buy the alcohol is a gentle warming under light orange & honey plus a full mouth feel! Bottled yesterday & can't wait to try one :)
 
2brew1cup said:
What yeast are we using here? 3711?

From what i'm seeing, 3711 is very much the way to go. I couldn't get it locally and went with WLP565 and the result is great but it does require some temp adjustments.
 
FWIW... Finished @ 1.002!!! That's about 8.5% buy the alcohol is a gentle warming under light orange & honey plus a full mouth feel! Bottled yesterday & can't wait to try one :)

Nice! Dried out more than mine, and I'm sure it'll be great! :mug:
 
Just racked and pitched. OG was 1.060, a little lower than expected, but my post-boil volume was a little high, so that's okay. Hydro sample tasted great! Rosemary and honey are both very noticeable. I will say that the rosemary gave off a cooked aroma in the no-chill cube, but the wort tasted and smelled delicious. Depending on how this turns out I may be willing to up the rosemary a bit, or perhaps dry-hop with it.
 
Oh, and to the person who posted about whether to use Wyeast 3711, I chose that strain because the description said it could ferment in the mid- to upper-60's, meaning I wouldn't have to turn the space heater on my carboy. Also, it seems 3711 dries out very nicely.
 
eulipion2 said:
Just racked and pitched. OG was 1.060, a little lower than expected, but my post-boil volume was a little high, so that's okay. Hydro sample tasted great! Rosemary and honey are both very noticeable. I will say that the rosemary gave off a cooked aroma in the no-chill cube, but the wort tasted and smelled delicious. Depending on how this turns out I may be willing to up the rosemary a bit, or perhaps dry-hop with it.

Nice!

I'll definitely up the rosemary also. In fact, I was thinking about putting a single rosemary "leaf" in each bottle at bottling time just for kicks (after sanitizing, of course).

As for the wlp, I let it ferment in a closet at room temp (about 69 ambient) and free rise as it fermented. Eventually I had to use my space heater to get the temp high enough to finish.
 
Finally bottled today! Gravity sample (including priming sugar) read 1.005. I fermented on the cool side, so my fermentation took about 2 weeks. Finally turned the space heater on just to make sure it was done.

Hydro sample was strong rosemary flavor, though it tasted more cooked than fresh, so I may cut back on my kettle addition and dry-hop with more. Also, I think I'd like a little more lemony hop flavor, so I may do a late addition. I didn't really get much honey, but I'll let it carb up and see.

I will say that the yeast gave a bunch of phenolics that, in the flat hydro sample anyway, seemed to clash. Again, some carbing and aging may help this, but I might have to drop the Belgian yeast in favor of something more neutral. I do love the dryness that 3711 gave the beer though.
 
So, I took this to my homebrew club meeting last night, and I must say, it was a hit! Will be brewing one more time to try out some tweaks, then I'll post the final version in the recipe database. This one's a keeper!
 
eulipion2 said:
So, I took this to my homebrew club meeting last night, and I must say, it was a hit! Will be brewing one more time to try out some tweaks, then I'll post the final version in the recipe database. This one's a keeper!

I've gotten good reviews on my version as well. Will re-brew next month w/ 3711 to emphasize the citrus. It's already very dry & crisp, with great floral notes and a really nice black peppery finish. It finishes with a warming alcohol note as well. Thanks again for this recipe! It's gonna be a house standard for me.
 
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