critque my watermelon saison recipe

i'm a total noob to brewing and this is only my third beer, but here are my thoughts. i'm getting the base recipe out of "brewing classic styles", but changing it up a bit..... (i should be doing a full boil on this as i'm getting a bayou classic and a 10 gallon pot before brewing it.)

extracts

9 lbs pilsner lme
1 lb cane sugar
1 lb wheat lme
.5 lb munich lme

steeping grains

2 oz caramunich

hops

2 oz hallertau (60 min.)
1 oz warrior (20 min.)
1 oz hallertau (flameout)

yeast

wyeast 3724 belgian saison x 3 (or appropriate starter)
california ale or dry champagne yeast (in secondary)

secondary

3 -4 cups of watermellon juice (strained)


how does this sound?

how much water should i start out with doing a full boil?

should i use liquid or dry malt extract? would the number of pounds be equal regarless of which?

how many days would you recommend in primary? secondary?

which yeast should i use in secondary? i'm leaning toward the champagne yeast.


any thoughts or criticisms are welcomed and appreciated.

thanks in advance.

peace
jason

so, maybe i should scrap this one.

The thing that is really going to make this tricky, IMO, is the fact that a Saison is meant to be extremely dry (single digits if possible 1.00x)... but, you are adding sugars, in the form of watermelon juice, back after fermentation is complete.

One way you might attempt it is to ferment in primary as usual (~85F after the first couple of days) then you can:
1. move into secondary and add your watermelon juice and a neutral ale yeast
2. Add the juice to primary when the yeast is trying to slow down, a repitch still may be necessary.

To answer a question, I used Nottingham yeast and it took me down to 1.004, so that should be fine IMO.

nealf said:

One way you might attempt it is to ferment in primary as usual (~85F after the first couple of days) then you can:
1. move into secondary and add your watermelon juice and a neutral ale yeast
2. Add the juice to primary when the yeast is trying to slow down, a repitch still may be necessary.

Click to expand...

i was planning on pitching either california ale or dry champagne yeast in the secondary.

do you think the flavors will play off each other poorly?


also, thanks for your time!

I can't imagine the flavors together honestly... however, I think either a cal ale or champagne yeast would both do just fine. If you were at all nervous about the flavors... you could rack a part of it into a 1 gallon carboy just to try it out if you didn't want to fully commit... Let me know how it turns out, I am curious now.

nealf said:

I can't imagine the flavors together honestly... however, I think either a cal ale or champagne yeast would both do just fine. If you were at all nervous about the flavors... you could rack a part of it into a 1 gallon carboy just to try it out if you didn't want to fully commit... Let me know how it turns out, I am curious now.

Click to expand...

i think i will separate out a gallon to try it (maybe). i know it sounds like an odd combination, but i was drinking a port brewing brother levonian saison the other night and then at a piece of watermelon and i haven't been able to get it out of my mind since. nobody thinks it's a good idea, so it's probably a horrible one. i'd really hate to mess up a good beer, but i'm trying to think outside the box.

I will be doing an AG watermelon Ale based on Dudes recipe (link is below). The only changes I am making to the recipe is using US-05 yeast. I am planning to use this to give it a cleaner taste to allow the watermelon to shine through more. I can't say much about the extract portion of your recipe as I only did 2 extract recipes before starting AG. So on that I can't help you on that. I can say that most recommendations I found suggest using 2-3 cups of watermelon and you seem to be around that. I'm not entirely sure why you are choosing to pitch additional yeast to the secondary. That should not be necessary if you are worried about the primary yeast not being up for the additional watermelon juice fermentation. But, I'm not sure what you are going for so you know better than I. Let me know if that helps.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/watermelon-ale-58721/

i think i know what i'm going for, but i'm pretty sure i don't know how to get there and when i get there, i'll likely wish i hadn't ever left were i was.