Saison Hi Nelson! Nelson Hopped Saison w/Hibiscus

Yakima 728
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Sorry for all the questions...

Sometimes saisons can come across with a banana-ish flavor from the yeast. Does this belle saison give that flavor? I'm really trying to avoid it...
 
No worries, gotta get it right, especially for a baby shower!

This link shows the "flavor and aroma" profile: http://www.lallemandbrewing.com/en/canada/product-details/belle-saison-beer-yeast/

Others can chime in as well but I find the Belles Saison yeast gives more of a spicy-type saison flavor rather than the more fruity or banana type flavor. It should be noted I don't temperate control my saison yeasts I just put them in a warm room and let them rip. That is why for this I branched out to try a new saison yeast for this brew, I figured this recipe would lend itself to maybe a more fruit-forward type.
 
Andrew Hodgson said:
No worries, gotta get it right, especially for a baby shower!

This link shows the "flavor and aroma" profile: http://www.lallemandbrewing.com/en/canada/product-details/belle-saison-beer-yeast/

Others can chime in as well but I find the Belles Saison yeast gives more of a spicy-type saison flavor rather than the more fruity or banana type flavor. It should be noted I don't temperate control my saison yeasts I just put them in a warm room and let them rip. That is why for this I branched out to try a new saison yeast for this brew, I figured this recipe would lend itself to maybe a more fruit-forward type.
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That's good info! Thanks man. I have temp control so I'll probably keep it upward of 75-80*F during fermentation and see how it comes out.
 
Abrayton said:
Edit - I forgot the OP used Belles Saison. I used 3711 to ferment to 1.000.
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I prefer 3711 or Imperial Napoleon for saison. It will go very dry, easily down to 1.005 or lower if you ferment it warm. The yeast esters are much lower than the Belgian saison strains. For my higher ABV saisons - 8%+ - I like to add .5lb of lactose to keep them from going to dry.
 
This is five days after bottling.
image.jpg
 
Nah lighting is awful in the house might be able to get one with daylight tomorrow or Saturday. Backlight is the only way you’d be able to see the real tint. Definitely needs to condition a bit. I used 4oz in 4 cups of water. Definitely not deep pink.
image.jpg
 
Andrew Hodgson said:
Nah lighting is awful in the house might be able to get one with daylight tomorrow or Saturday. Backlight is the only way you’d be able to see the real tint. Definitely needs to condition a bit. I used 4oz in 4 cups of water. Definitely not deep pink.
View attachment 615247
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That might be more of what I'm looking for though. The idea was to do a pink ish beer and a blue beer. We nixed the blue beer for now and was just going to do something with blueberries.

But this might be more the color we were hoping for!

If you don't mind i wouldn't mind seeing this in better lighting
 
Andrew Hodgson said:
Nah lighting is awful in the house might be able to get one with daylight tomorrow or Saturday. Backlight is the only way you’d be able to see the real tint. Definitely needs to condition a bit. I used 4oz in 4 cups of water. Definitely not deep pink.
View attachment 615247
Click to expand...
Also interested in the flavor from the hibiscus with 4oz. Still noticeable?
 
Hard to say at this point. I did a 2oz dry hop of the Nelson which right now overwhelms any contribution of the hibiscus. Maybe a touch of floral bitterness in there.
 
If you are looking for pink and OP's recipe appealed to you in all but the ABV I would just use that recipe and reduce the fermentables according to the ABV you are looking for. I always kind of branch out on my own and it is my first attempt as well as opposed to other folks in this thread who seem to have this beer down and repeatable.
 
Andrew Hodgson said:
If you are looking for pink and OP's recipe appealed to you in all but the ABV I would just use that recipe and reduce the fermentables according to the ABV you are looking for. I always kind of branch out on my own and it is my first attempt as well as opposed to other folks in this thread who seem to have this beer down and repeatable.
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Yeah that's what I did. I toned this recipe down to about 7-7.4%, depending on FG. Just trying to figure out what I want to do with the flowers. I got my 1lb of hibiscus flowers in the mail yesterday so just need to decide how I want to proceed. I may go 5oz of flowers and drop the dry hop to 1-1.25oz and see how that goes.

Got my recipe sheet all put together, getting supplies tonight and we'll be brewing this tomorrow morning!
 

Attachments

  • Hibiscus Saison.pdf
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FWIW I add 1oz hibiscus to last ten minutes of the boil then add tea of 2oz hibiscus and 2c water at kegging. The flavor is spot on for me.
 
Rob2010SS said:
Also, seen so many different flower/water ratios for this tea. Is there a general rule of thumb for that?
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There might be but I don’t know what it is. I just went with 2c water because I didn’t want to dilute my beer to much.
 
Abrayton said:
There might be but I don’t know what it is. I just went with 2c water because I didn’t want to dilute my beer to much.
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Yeah that is kinda what I'm worried about... if anyone knows the proper ratio, let me know please. Otherwise i'll see about doing some research to figure it out
 
Anyone added the tea to the fermenter and then transferred to the keg?

I want to avoid diluting the beer too much. My logic is...

I have 5.5-6 gallons in the fermenter. Probably closer to 5.5 gallons. If I add the tea to that and then transfer to the keg, I'm diluting the beer less than I would be if I added the tea to the keg and then transferred on top of that.

That make sense or am I crazy?

If I go 4 cups of tea and add that to the keg, I'll only be able to add 4.75 gallons of beer to the keg.

If I go 4 cups of tea and add that to the fermenter, then I'm getting more "beer" into the keg.

I feel like that makes sense...?
 
Beer is in the keg with the hibiscus. I did end up adding the hibiscus tea to the fermenter and then transferring out of the fermenter to the keg. I tamed this down a bit so the final ABV is 7.6%. For all of you who said Belle Saison is a beast, you weren't kidding! 1.002 was the final gravity on this.

Lessons learned on this:
1. Holy sh**, the hibiscus flowers hold a lot of water! I did 6oz of flowers with 4 cups of water. I think I might have only had 2 cups of tea go into the fermenter. Next time, it's OK to use 6 cups water... I was too worried about dilution.

2. If adding tea to fermenter, make sure to swirl the fermenter a bit to get it mixed in. The tea did not mix very well and I left some valuable color/flavor in the fermenter with what didn't fit in the keg. (Did make for a cool color in the transfer line!)

3. Do not fill keg so full that beer is coming out of the purge valve, and then expect to be able to purge the keg when it's hooked up to CO2! That makes a mess!

With that said, here's what we have so far!


Dried Hib.jpg
Hydro Sample.jpg
Transfer.jpg
Sample.jpg
 
So I finally made this with some tweeks. Subbed vienna for the munich to lighten the beer to bring the pink color out more and still have the maltiness and upped the nelson hops:

11lbs pilsner
1lb vienna
.5lb oats
.5lb wheat
1lb dextrose

.5oz 60mins
.75oz 15mins
.75oz 5mins
1oz 0mins
2oz dry hop (5 days)

Belle saison yeast
 

Attachments

  • 15917263437505740723362673100816.jpg
    15917263437505740723362673100816.jpg
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