New Saison Recipe [input requested]

Okay, it will not come out green, probably black.

I am looking for feedback on this recipe and the process - thanks for the help!

Goal is 5 gallons of brew:

Statistics:
OG: 1.065
FG: 1.016 [I am going to pitch extra yeast in hopes it gets the FG down to 1.012 or lower, but if not, anyone have any recommendations for a secondary pitching yeast - which is recommended for the Saison yeast?]

ABV: 6.4%
IBU: 25.5

Recipe:
5.5 gallons spring water (high calcium)
Steep 1 hr @170F: 1 lb Caramunich

Boil 65 min: [steeped fluids and]
6.6 lb Pale Liquid
1 lb Light DME
6 g Northern Brewer Hops (pellets 8.1%)

@15 min remaining:
1 lb light Belgian candi sugar
30 g Willamette Hops (leaf 4.5%)

@10 min remaining:
25 g Cascade Hops (leaf 6.0%)

@5 min remaining:
19 g Perle Hops (leaf 7.2%)

Pitch:
White Labs WLP565 Belgian Saison I [use a starter to double the smack pack amount]

Primary Dry Hop [2 weeks]:
9 g Fuggle Hops (pellets 4.0%)
150 quartered green walnuts [put in a nylon bag]

Secondary Dry Hop [2 weeks]: [remove Fuggle when racking]
15 g Hallertau Hops (pellets 3.0%)
Take the 150 quartered green walnuts from the primary and put them in the secondary. [thank you nylon bag]

Bottling: Prime with 125 g corn sugar.




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Other Spicing: I am tempted to throw some walnut leaves, maybe orange and lemon leaves, possibly a bit of zest, and maybe some cloves or vanilla in, but I haven't decided ... I really am tempted to just keep it simple in terms of spicing, but those are very traditional ingredients that are included with green walnuts.

Finally, for a Saison, I see a lot of recommendations for adding gypsum - why? Thoughts?


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More info on Green Walnuts:

Background: Green Walnuts kick ass, but are not used in the U.S. enough. In Europe they are quite popular in liqueurs, which include vin de noix, nocino, and orahovac. They are extremely delicious and very unique. They are created by steeping green walnuts in the beer.

Idea: Green Walnut Beer! Add two pounds of green walnuts [minty/sagey smell, but a flavor totally unique to its own] to the secondary.

Secondary Idea: Toss the green walnuts into the mash or boil kettle. Not sure what that would do to the flavor, I am going to try boiling a bunch of green walnuts to see what happens in terms of flavor.

Issues: Green Walnuts become bitter if picked too late. The ideal time is usually around June 24, plus or minus up to a month depending on your climate. Picking time is just before the shells have started to harden (the shell is what is bitter). Liqueur recipes usually call for 30 days to 6 months of soaking the green walnuts in at least 60 proof alcohol).

Questions: Any recommendations on what type of base beer to add them to? And, any ideas from other nut beers in terms of how much volume to add? Everything I have read usually adds a half pound to five gallons in the secondary of roasted nuts.



And the wild card: My house is going to be 80F-95F throughout July and 100+ in August. I do not have a cool spot. So, I am planning on doing a Saison for July. A Saison with a bit of IPA influence. I have a bunch of left over hops from my last few batches, I am thinking of using them at varying stages depending on their type. I have whole leaf: Perle 7.2% 19g; Willamette 4.5% 30g; Cascade 6.0% 25g -- and pellets: Fuggles 4.0% 9g; Northern Brewer 8.1% 6g; Hallertau 3% 15g. I was thinking, 60min NB, 20min Willamette, 10min Cascade, 5min Fuggles, primary Perle & secondary Hallertau. Now, mind you, I have roughly a quarter ounce of each of those, so while it sounds like a lot of hops it's not much. So, what I am heading toward here is a hoppy, green walnut, saison. Thoughts? [but I still want to know other base beer ideas, in case I change my mind]. And, because I have not started doing all mash brews yet, it will be extract with a soak.


-- Thanks!

Interesting..... be careful of home much oil the nuts will impart that will kill you head retention. Also if your looking to get the beer to finish lower, beef up the ammt of simple sugars. for example, use 1.5 lbs of cane/beet sugar instead of the candi sugar(expensive), and add 1/2 lb about 5-7 days into fermentation.

make it a big ole starter prob 2 liters.

just my opinion, but that looks like too much caramunich, too much hops, and too many spices for a saison! two separate dry hops? really?

and... "walnut leaves, maybe orange and lemon leaves, possibly a bit of zest, and maybe some cloves or vanilla in" -- that just sounds like overkill...

@phished880 - Ooh! good point. Then again, I am having a real hard time with consistent carbonation, so head retention hasn't been the issue since the head either is way too much or nonexistent *sigh*.

When green walnuts are added to wine, you add around 10 walnuts per liter. For five gallons of fluid that is about 189 walnuts. I reduced from there to get the 150.

So, head retention would be the biggest problem with those oils, but that wouldn't prevent it from being carbonated? It would just make it not pour with much of a head and what little head shows up would disappear fast? Hmm, I might reduce to 50-75 walnuts then.

phished: Thanks for the tip on the starter size!

@RBlagojevich: I agree on the spices, those are traditional ingredients in things with green walnuts, but I think I am going to leave them out for the first time. Definitely overkill. I might add the walnut leaves, just for the novelty of it, but I will have to think about that.

How much Caramunich would you recommend Blago? Or would you recommend a different grain?

As for the hops, those are the stray hops laying around from my last several batches. They are vacuum sealed in the freezer, but I do not want to keep them too much longer. Whatever I do not use will go to waste. Also, this will be my last brew until late September. So, I tossed them all in. However, you may have a good point on the hops.

Blago, when you say too much hops, are you referring to too many types of hops or too much in terms of amount of hops and thus bitterness? The IBU for this comes out to 25.5 and the guidelines I have for a saison is between 20 and 35 IBU.

Thanks for the tips and help! I am trying to iron this recipe out before I try it.

maztec said:

Blago, when you say too much hops, are you referring to too many types of hops or too much in terms of amount of hops and thus bitterness? The IBU for this comes out to 25.5 and the guidelines I have for a saison is between 20 and 35 IBU.

Click to expand...

well... your IBU's seem about right. but saisons don't generally have an over-the-top hop flavor/aroma. dry-hopping your saison could be an interesting thing to try out, but I was just surprised to see that you were going to dry hop it *twice*!

Oh: a very important thing in a saison is the temperature! make sure that you ramp the fermentation temperature up to about 80*F after the first couple of days of fermentation. That'll help the yeast produce those typical saison phenols and esters, and eliminate the need for spices.

the caramunich this is mainly for color... I got a nice orangey-yellow color with 2 oz of Caramunich. With a whole pound, I think it'll come out too dark.

Blago: Good point. On the double dry hopping, I was thinking in terms of companion flavors. That, and I live in the pacific northwest and all of my friends keep bitching that my beers are "weak" and "not hoppy enough". Albeit, I like wheat beers and they keep coming out good.

My other understanding is that dry hopping in the primary - or adding anything to the primary - usually doesn't get much flavor because the yeast attaches to the surface and keeps the oils from coming out.

However, I do think based on your advice I will tweak the recipe a bit. I am just going to have to think about how I want to tweak it. I want to get the benefits of the phenols and esters without overwhelming them in other flavors ... but manage a bit of hoppiness [without being big bitter] to satisfy friends and to try it out myself ... and take advantage of the fact that my house will be 80F-100F all of July and August, so too hot to brew anything else ... and I am making a ton of liqueurs with green walnuts so may as well use them for the brew also .

Oooh, thanks for the tip on the caramunich. I had flipped through a bunch of saison recipes and saw that many of them used a lot, so went with it. However, you have a good point on being too dark. I will have to play with the numbers.


Thanks!

I started this recipe two weeks ago Saturday. So far it is coming along nicely and tastes great. The only bummer is after an unseasonably hot June, July has been surprisingly cool. It is odd, the temperatures hit almost 90F for about 4 days, then it drops back down to 60-70F for a few days.

The frustrating part is that the beer appears to stop fermenting when the temperature drops and my friends brewbelt won't heat it to above 75F. So, I just have to be patient. It takes about a day of 80-85F temperatures for the beer to start fermenting again.

The SG when I tested it yesterday was 1.026, down from my starting gravity of 1.056. I have not added the Belgian candi sugar yet. I will add it with the secondary yeast. My secondary yeast is built up to a half gallon now and quickly approaching a gallon.

I am hoping that it warms up over the weekend so I can pitch the secondary yeast and the Belgian candi sugar. I am going to refrigerate the secondary yeast so it settles, then boil up the candi sugar in about 1 pound to a quart of water. Then, once it is cooled, I skim off the secondary yeast into the sugar water, give it a good shake, and pour it into the primary for the last stage of fermenting.

What I need to figure out is how much I should aerate, or not, the secondary yeast and candi sugar. I understand I shouldn't aerate the primary, but I want to give a little bubble for the yeast to work with ... without messing up my brew. Any thoughts on that would be appreciated.

-M

Make a starter with some pils DME and WLP 550. Pitch that once it get's a krausen and don't worry about re-oxygenating the wort or beer. You should be around 1.010 within a week if you keep the temp over 70 depending on the extract you used. You won't get as low as if you mashed your own grains below 148*F. Again, if you make a good starter you don't need to aerate the beer. You might ruin it if you do by oxygenating it.

I've got a saison going now and I usually listen to the Jaimil show for whatever style I do before the brew. He says if you get stuck short, throw a package of dry champagne yeast in to finish it off.

I was actually wondering about aerating the starter before pitching it :\. I don't plan on aerating the whole batch of beer again, that seems like a bad idea.

Thanks for the tips guys. I don't think I am stuck yet, it just pauses for a few days at a time before moving again once things start to heat up. I had planned to toss the second yeast in either way to get some earth tones added to the floral notes from the first yeast. But, I hadn't planned on the weather dipping down and cooling off, argh. Looks like it will warm back up for the weekend though!

I boiled up 1/2 cup DME, 1 pound Belgian candi sugar, in 4 cups water. Tossed my yeast in it, which I had already created a nice big starter for but had racked the top off of. Let it sit until it started bubbling heavily, then pitched it into the primary. The thing is bubbling like there is no tomorrow now! Yay!

I am noticing a similar trend with my Saison. Pitched at 65F on Saturday and slowly rose the temp to mid 70s overnight. By mid-day Sunday I took the temp up to ~82F and the airlock started bubbling vigorously (3-4 bubbles per second).

However with no real means of controlling the temp, it dropped to around 78F in the evening and the airlock settled down to about 15 seconds between bubbles. I am doing what I can to keep it above 80F now. This yeast (565) really seems to go dormant when it is under 80F.

Goosta: Good to hear that I am not the only one with that problem!

With the heatwave over the last week (hit 100F, yikes), my Saison has been having a great time. I have managed to keep it at around 85F during the hot weather. However, one day it did slip up to 90F, but it didn't seem to affect flavor.

That said, it bubbled non-stop vigorously for most of a week. Now, it has slowed down a bit, but is still going strong. My current SG is 1.016, and there is a large bubble every 10 seconds.

Overall, my Saison has now been fermenting for three weeks in the primary. It looks like I will be able to put it in the secondary next week.

Now I am going to have to figure out what to do about getting a new batch of green walnuts, since the batch I picked for the secondary has finally gone to ooze. *sigh*

Bottled this last Sunday, August 30. Taste so far is great. Some great complex characteristics to it. Interesting floral notes, and surprisingly citrussy. Can't wait to see how this ages in the bottle. I bottled it with 100g sugar in the 5gallon batch for priming.

Tasted!

I pulled a bottle out of the box and put it in the fridge last Friday. Since then, I have tasted several more bottles too, to make sure it was a consistent flavor. I have also had several friends taste it. The response? Overwhelmingly positive! While I have some friends who are serious hops-heads and think anything under 80IBU isn't worth drinking, even they thought this beer was "gosh darn palatable for not having that many hops in it."

Taste: Very earthy with a touch of spice. It has a musky oiliness to its flavor, that does not feel oily but that is the only way I know how to describe it. It is definitely beer and carries the floral notes of the dry hopping quite well, giving it a great nose. It starts fresh, but fills the mouth and nostrils quickly with a full bodied flavor that is like the smell of fresh dirt in the spring (this is a good thing), that then washes back and is replaced by the musk of a fall wood, before leaving the mouth with a clean, fresh feeling with a light trace of summer.

I really do not know how to describe this beer. It tastes somewhere between a brown ale and a saison. The green walnut flavor is perceivable, but not overwhelming. I believe it is what adds to the musky character of the beer. It is malty, but not overwhelmingly sweet, and has a nice hoppy balance to it. It is definitely a unique beer. To quote one of my friends, "This is good! But, when I think about its flavor, I realize I've never tasted a beer quite like it, but damn, it's good!"

Color? It is dark, not quite opaque, but dark. It has a deep brownish-red hue and carries a surprisingly good head for having some walnut oil in it.

I will have to post pictures soon, and get one of my buddies to write up a better description for me so I can explain what this really tastes and smells like.

But, the summary is, it is really good - friends from both the MORE-HOPS! and LESS-HOPS camps both like it. One, maybe two bottles of it is perfect for a relaxing evening. While you could definitely drink more, it is a beer that leaves you satisfied - you feel like you drank something, it was good, and you are refreshed.

Hope that makes some amount of sense.