Wheat Saison Recipe Critique

[rjstew]

I'm getting married in April and will be brewing 15 gallons of a saison and IPA for the wedding. I'll post another thread about the IPA, as that's a completely different animal.

I'm looking for a dry easy drinking saison. Little bit of floral from American hops. Something nice for Spring.

Thoughts on the recipe below? This is only a 5 gallon test batch. I'm going to scale up for the 15 gallons. Obviously I won't have enough time to do the test batch, let it ferment out (3724 takes a long time) and condition, so I'll just have to take my chances and brew the full batch next week.

Fermentation temp schedule: Start at 72 F, ramp to 83 F over the course of 5 days, and let it go for about 3 weeks before bringing it back down to 72 F. Total of 30 days in the fermenter.

1.056OG
1.012FG
30IBU
2SRM
5.7%ABV
0.54Balance


Fermentables

Amount Fermentable Maltster Use PPG Color
6.0 lb Pilsner (DE) Any Mash 38 1 °L
2.0 lb Wheat Malt (DE) Any Boil 37 2 °L
1.25 lb Vienna (DE) Any Mash 37 4 °L
1.0 lb Dextrose (Corn Sugar) Any Boil 46 0 °L
Hops

Amount Hop Time Use Form AA
0.35 oz Centennial (US) 60 min Boil Pellet 10.5%
0.5 oz Amarillo (US) 20 min Boil Pellet 9.3%
0.5 oz Centennial (US) 20 min Boil Pellet 10.5%
0.5 oz Ahtanum (US) 0 min Boil Pellet 6.0%
0.5 oz Amarillo (US) 0 min Boil Pellet 9.3%
0.5 oz Centennial (US) 0 min Boil Pellet 10.5%
Yeasts

Name Lab/Product Attenuation
Belgian Saison Yeast Wyeast 3724 78.0%
Stats

Batch & Boil

Batch Size
5.5 gal
Boil Time
60 min

Mash

Efficiency
75.0%

 

[Weezy]

The hops are very unconventional. I'd stick to moderate hopping of Styrian Golding and Saaz, and let the yeast phenolics and Esters do the talking, personally.

I'm a big fan of oats instead of wheat in saisons too, but that's very personal preference.

I'd boil the pils longer too


Good luck with the party prep!

 

[beergolf]

Ask ten brewers a question and you will get 12 answers.

My take. Drop the Vienna. Does not really fit with a saison. Just pils and wheat with some sugar works just fine. Your hop schedule will overwhelm the yeast flavor that is a big part of a saison. If you want to go with those hops cut them way back. Using .3711 would go better with those hops, since it has a slight citrus note.

I would do the pils, wheat (spelt is even better) and some sugar. I agree with weezy about using noble hops, but my favorite saison hops are Strisslesspalt. Those with the 3724 work great. Keep it simple.

The other thing to consider is that brew software always under estimates the FG that saison yeast produce. Take that into account. Most Saison yeasts will drop the FG into the low single digits, so take that into account or you may end up with a high ABV saison.

I have a spelt saison in my drop down that is great. If you cannot get the spelt in time just replace that with wheat and it is a very nice, simple saison.

 

[saltymirv]

Nothing wrong with what you have. Its nontraditional for sure, but that doesn't mean that it won't work. Look to this tried and true recipe for inspiration: https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/toad-spit-stout/

Note that the IBU there is 65

 

[rjstew]

Sorry, forgot to change the boil time to 90 minutes.

Yes, the hops are very unconventional, but that's what I'm going for. An "American Saison". That being said, I'm going to cut the aroma hops in half so they're really more background notes and the yeast is dominant. I'm also going to remove the Amarillo. I definitely want something to contrast with my hop-bomb-East-coast juice IPA.

In that line, I'm doing oats in my IPA, so I'm looking avoid that in the saison.

I currently have the wheat so I'll stick with that for now. Thank you for the spelt suggestion though.

Finally, good tip on the FG. I'm going to drop the Vienna but not add pils back, so that should get me to a more accurate FG. Last thing I need is people drinking six 7.5% saison's at the wedding when they're used to drinking Yuenglings (lots of PA guests...).