Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Honey-Rosemary Saison

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

eulipion2

Supporting Member
HBT Supporter
Joined
Sep 4, 2006
Messages
1,807
Reaction score
121
Location
Lakeville, PA
Recipe Type
All Grain
Yeast
Wyeast 3711 French Saison
Yeast Starter
Nope
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter
Nope
Batch Size (Gallons)
5
Original Gravity
1.060
Final Gravity
1.005
Boiling Time (Minutes)
60
IBU
32.5
Color
6.9
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
21 @ 68-72
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
Nope
Tasting Notes
Crisp
Brewed this for my friends' wedding, using "symbolic" ingredients honey and rosemary, as a beery testament to love. I can be mushy sometimes :drunk: . Final version from discussion in THIS THREAD.

THIS RECIPE WAS BREWED VIA BREW-IN-A-BAG AND NO-CHILL METHODS.
6 lb 2-row (US)
4 lb White Wheat malt
1.5 lb honey, wildflower (added to No-Chill cube)
.5 lb Aromatic malt

.5 oz Sorachi Ace (15.1%, leaf) FWH (IBUs calculated as a 30 min addition)
.5 oz Sorachi Ace (15.1%, leaf) 40 min
1 sprig fresh Rosemary, about 4 inches (leaves only, bruised), in the No-Chill vessel

Wyeast 3711 French Saison

Mash @ 150 for 90 min
Mash-out @ 170 for 10 min
Boil for 60 min

This beer is definitely a saison, and the rosemary definitely comes through. The honey, not so much (see note). Very dry, crisp, and drinkable, though the rosemary does add a slightly sticky resiny sensation. All in all, this has been a hit with everyone who's tried it.

A couple notes:
1.) If chilling, some brewers may recommend changing the 40 minute addition to 60 minutes to accommodate the shorter time on the heat. I'd probably agree.

2.) If chilling your wort, make the rosemary maybe a 10-5 minute addition and possibly dry-herb as well. I really like the cube addition, though at first it did taste kind of like cooked rosemary. That's smoothed out a bit.

3.) I added the honey to the cube because I figured I would lose less aromatics than if I added it to the boil. I was wrong. Really don't notice the honey, unless it's playing a supporting roll that I just can't pinpoint. I don't really miss it. If you really want to taste the honey add it to secondary.

4.) I chose 3711 because it fully attenuated in the 65-75 degree range while still giving lovely phenols and esters. 3711 is a beast!!!
 
Update: This brew won Bronze in the Belgian Specialty category at the James River Homebrewers' Dominion Cup this past weekend. Another brewer who used this recipe also got Bronze in the Herb/Spice category.
 
I really like the sound of this recipe, but I'm new to home brewing so I have a few questions:

1) You refer to "the no-chill cube" a couple of times- is this just the vessel you allowed the wort to come down to temp in?
2) FWH = for the whole hour?
3) I'm guessing you used regular honey- Do you think it would make a difference or make the flavor more pronounced if I used spray-dried?
4) You mention adding the honey during the secondary to increase the flavor but you didn't do a secondary, just 3 weeks in primary?
5) Did you use a priming sugar? Do you think honey would be ok to prime with and if so, how much?
6) How much water did you use and how much did it end up yielding?
7) Did you bottle condition at all or just drink it after it carbonated?

Thanks in advance!
 
1) You refer to "the no-chill cube" a couple of times- is this just the vessel you allowed the wort to come down to temp in?
Yup. Look at THIS THREAD for a primer on no-chill brewing.

2) FWH = for the whole hour?
Yup again. Assuming you do BIAB, add the FWH addition as soon as you take your grain bag out to drain. Leave it in throughout the boil.

3) I'm guessing you used regular honey- Do you think it would make a difference or make the flavor more pronounced if I used spray-dried?
Yeah, I used bulk honey from Sam's Club, I think. Any honey will do, but I don't know what "spray-dried" honey is.

4) You mention adding the honey during the secondary to increase the flavor but you didn't do a secondary, just 3 weeks in primary?
I'm suggesting that the honey flavor doesn't come right out as is, but you might get more honey flavor if you added it to secondary instead of to the cube. Of course, the nice part of the cube is the hot wort will dissolve the honey. And after about a year the honey really starts to come out. I did a primary for 3 weeks, then bottled, and it turned out awesome.

5) Did you use a priming sugar? Do you think honey would be ok to prime with and if so, how much?
I did use priming sugar. I've never used honey for priming, so I couldn't give any advice on that.

6) How much water did you use and how much did it end up yielding?
That's going to depend on your efficiency, boil-off, and a bunch of other factors. I use the Brew365 calculator for my brewing. I takes a few batches to lock in all the numbers, so you might need to experiment a little.

7) Did you bottle condition at all or just drink it after it carbonated?
I started drinking at 3 weeks, and have made 3 batches. I have a few bottles that are about 2 years old, and they're still pretty great.

Do you use either BIAB or no-chill? If you're using a chilling method, you can either leave the FWH as is or move them to 20 minutes, move the 40 minute addition to 60 minutes, and add the honey at 5 minutes. I had a friend in my club who made those adjustments and his tasted almost identical to mine.
 
Thanks for all the help! I think I have a game plan now. Spray-dried honey is dry honey in powder form- spray drying is how it is made.
 
Looks like a great beer!
I also use no-chill and BIAB.
Do you often add hops to the no-chill cube instead of 5/10 minutes addition?
If so, is it easy to clean the cube afterwards?
 
Looks like a great beer!
I also use no-chill and BIAB.
Do you often add hops to the no-chill cube instead of 5/10 minutes addition?
If so, is it easy to clean the cube afterwards?

I usually add hops to the cube to mimic 15-20 minute additions. Once you rack your wort into a fermentor, dump as much trub as you can, then just keep rinsing until everything comes out. I usually fill the cube with hot water and OxyClean and let it soak, flipping upside-down for part of the soaking time, then dump and rinse a couple times times.
 
Just my .02c on honey. When I want higher attenuation and a crisper beer I use Honey. when I want the honey flavor to be noticed I use honey malt, bonus is it's also a dextrin malt and adds to the head, a win win.
 
2018 UPDATE!
It's been a few years since I last brewed this, but I finally rebrewed it last fall, and I just wasn't into it; the Sorachi Ace threw a ton of dill and very little lemon, and I went a little heavy on the rosemary, so it was very herby. Today I decided to try again with a slightly modified recipe. The original recipe was written for no-chill brewing, but I live in a place where I can actually chill my wort now so I modified my hop, herb, and honey additions for conventional brewing.

I changed the malt bill to 5 lbs Floor-Malted Bohemian Pilsner, 4 lbs White Wheat malt, and 1.5 lb Weyermann Munich I.

Then I changed the hops to Mandarina Bavaria (60 min/5 min/probably dry hop) hoping for lemon/orange/citrus at best, and some inoffensive, neutral noble character at worst (read as 'no dill!')

And finally, I added 1.5 grams of fresh rosemary (leaves from about 1.25 sprigs from the store), 2 lbs honey, and the fresh peel of one lemon along with the 5 minute hop addition.

The hydro sample tasted great! I got a good bit of lemon and honey, but a little light on rosemary so I might need to dry-herb. That said, the honey will probably fade quite a bit during fermentation, which could bring the rosemary out a little more. The rosemary seems to come out more in drier versions of this beer.

I almost decided on adding the 5 min hops/herbs/honey in a 160°F whirlpool for 20 minutes instead, but we'll see how this goes before I plan my next brew.

Updates coming soon.
 
Back
Top