Saison Recipe - My first one, please critique

[Brulosopher]

My club is having a quarterly competition and the final of four beers is Saison, a style I certainly enjoy but have never got around to making. Below is what I came up with, though I'm certainly open to suggestions. Cheers!

Say You, Say Me, Saison

Recipe Type: All Grain
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.5
Est OG: 1.055
Est FG: 1.005
Est ABV: 6.5%
IBU: 24
Boiling Time (Minutes): 75
Color: 4.4
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 3 days @ 67F, 8 days @ 72F

Grain Bill
8.75 lbs Pilsner Malt
1.00 lbs White Wheat Malt
0.63 lbs Munich Malt Light (10L)
0.25 lbs Honey Malt
0.50 lbs Table Sugar (added last 5 minutes of boil)

Hop Schedule
13 g Magnum (11.6%) - 60 min
22 g Saaz (4.0%) - 1 min

Yeast
Wyeast 3711 French Saison

Mash 148F for 60 minutes
Boil for 75 minutes
Pitch yeast at 65F, let rise to 67F over 2 days, then let it free rise up to 72F to clean up for another 10 days; transfer to keg and carbonate.

 

[Brulosopher]

I'm also considering swapping the Saaz out for EKG...

 

[phenry]

Looks really good, though I've never used Honey Malt in a Saison (or ever for that matter) so I can't really guess as to how that will work in the grand scheme of things. Also, what's the reasoning behind the table sugar? If it's to dry out the finished beer, 3711 will do that plenty fine on its own with an all malt grist.

 

[Brulosopher]

Looks really good, though I've never used Honey Malt in a Saison (or ever for that matter) so I can't really guess as to how that will work in the grand scheme of things. Also, what's the reasoning behind the table sugar? If it's to dry out the finished beer, 3711 will do that plenty fine on its own with an all malt grist.

Awesome, thanks! The sugar was there just for dryness, but I'll remove it, didn't want robust it anyway

 

[nolabrew85]

I have similar extract/partial grain recipe that I am about to transfer to secondary. I used 7 lbs of pilsner dme and 3 lbs of white wheat malt. I used the same French saison yeast, but for hops I used 1 oz Amarillo for 60 minutes and 1 oz Amarillo for 10 minutes. I used the same fermentation temps. My airlock bubbled for 8 days though. It was a 5 gallon batch.

 

[TNGabe]

Grain bill looks good to me. I might mash lower if you're dropping the sugar, maybe 146 or 144. I wouldn't bitter with Magnum, think it might be out of place. I'd rather use EKG or Saaz to bitter and then again at 30 and/or 15 to get the same IBUS.

I've had better luck just letting saison yeast go temp wise than holding and ramping, but I've not used 3711.

 

[stpug]

If I were making this recipe, these are some minor things I would change for myself:
90 minute boil
drop honey malt
up wheat to 1.5 lb
use low alpha for bittering (styrian goldings)
use nice medium hoppy for 20min and 5min (strisslespalt, 1/2oz at each time)
keep the table sugar for crispness
mash 147

...but probably the only major thing would be to drop off the honey malt. Your recipe looks good!

 

[sweetcell]

you could go warmer than 72 if you want extra saison'ess. 3711 can go much higher, last one i did hit 80*F and it was delicious.

i agree on dropping the honey malt. crystals aren't in style.

I wouldn't bitter with Magnum, think it might be out of place. I'd rather use EKG or Saaz to bitter.

you're going to get virtually no flavor contribution from the bittering hops, anything they bring will be completely covered up by the saison esters & phenols, and the late hops. i would feel free to stick with magnum.

 

[Turner5]

you could go warmer than 72 if you want extra saison'ess. 3711 can go much higher, last one i did hit 80*F and it was delicious.

This is what I was thinking.

 

[LoloMT7]

If your worried about being "in style" then you could drop the honey malt (I made a tripel with a touch of honey malt and it's awesome). Pils, and wheat are fine but you could add some vienna for sweetness if you wanted also. TNGabe gave me a really good idea for what to do for my first Saison (it's been in bottles about 2.5 weeks and I will be cracking the first one open and trying it tonight)
I ended up going with WLP565 for mine and it finished at 1.006 but from the reading i've done lately it sounds like 3711 is an excellent choice.

First time I've brewed this and I will tweak it a little next time. I also use locally grown & malted grains for the most part. But...

I'd do something like 40% Vienna, 30% pale, pils, or 2 row, 20% malted wheat, and 10% flaked grain of your choice. The flaked grain would be a tweak from this version, replacing 10% of the pale/pils and hopefully giving it better head retention. 10% turbinado sugar by extract, 1.062 OG, 1.004 FG. I used ECY03, wyeast 3726 or 3725 would be good choices, too IMO. Bittered with 1/2 oz Citra at 60, almost 1/2 oz ea nelson/citra at 15 and again at flameout. Dry hopped with oz of nelson for two weeks. I'd probably move first hop addition to 30 or 20 and dry hop with both. I also brewed a version with rye instead of wheat and citra dry hop. Rye/wheat might be better than all one or the other.

Here is another saison thread i follow and i really need to brew sometime https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f71/cottage-house-saison-254684/

Cheers

 

[Schemy]

I say leave the grain bill where its at. I did a Saison wiht 35% honey malt this last summer, and it was awesome. The 2% you have in there isn't going to hurt you, it'll add a depth of flavor. I say definately keep the sugar, this will help you to dry out this beer without sacrificing depth from mashing lower. If it were me I would change out the hops, but who knows it could work. 3711 is a beast, let it be a beast. I fermented my saisons in my garage with ambient temps in the low 80's. Saison is a "style" that can be played with, have fun with it. Don't let the style police mess with you.

 

[TNGabe]

Saison is a "style" that can be played with, have fun with it. Don't let the style police mess with you.

As long as it is dry and yeast forward, it's a saison. You could brew a black saison with vienna malt and carafa III and it would still be a saison in my book. Phantome only brews saisons and none of them taste like Dupont....

 

[jeremy0209]

I use table sugar in all my saisons...usually 1 lb. I also use 3711. Trust me, you'll be just fine with that.

 

[nolabrew85]

What about using a pound of rice syrup solids to help with dryness?

 

[sweetcell]

What about using a pound of rice syrup solids to help with dryness?

that would work, but sugar is probably cheaper and easier to get. no real advantage to using rice solids that i know of. in both cases they will ferment out completely.

 

[nolabrew85]

Thanks. Any other yeasts or ale styles that can ferment in mid to upper 70s with no undesirable results? Would be good beers to brew in the summer months down here in Louisiana.

 

[sweetcell]

saisons and certain other belgians are the only styles i know of that can tolerate that temp range. those beers get their character from all the esters and phenols, which the yeast produce a lot of at those temps.

 

[Brulosopher]

Thank you all so much! I will certainly heed the advice... please keep it coming!