Saison Recipe

Does anyone have any recipe suggestions for a saison with WPL 568 yeast? To hand I have pilsner malt, wheat malt, vienna malt and I have saaz and styrian golding hops. Ideally I'd start with something tried and tested but I'm happy to mix and match a bit with the hops if I had a grain bill that would work with the yeast. Never brewed a saison before I just bought that yeast. I was thinking of using this recipe with the WPL yeast but I don't know whether it would work or not? http://homebrewacademy.com/summer-saison/

 

That's a pretty standard saison recipe, and it would be a great starting point.

 

yea I thought that - but I have no idea whether it would work with my yeast and I don't want to waste a batch - would you think it would work with it. I mean - for a saison would you adjust the grain bill for the yeast a bit or could I take the grain bill from one beer and use the yeast from another. I know I'd have to consider the OG and FG but I mean from a flavour point of view are there combinations of grain and yeast that would be likely to clash

 

Yes, saison recipies are very flexible. I made one last year with that yeast and rye flakes in the grain bill perl and STRISSELSPALT hops and a small addition of rosemary and thyme... It has developed a lemony flavor very refreshing.

 

thanks I'll just go brew it then and see what happens

 

Saisons are, in my book, the easiest to tinker with. You can't mess it up (unless you really try). What you have is a really good base Saison that you could add almost anything you want to try. I have added citrus peel at flameout, green tea, different fruits or scrapping the noble hops and going with something like Citra. Have fun, it is a great style to experiment.

 

I came up with a recipe but I couldn't get the FG down where I wanted it with that yeast. Then I hit on the idea of adding some honey. I put 10% honey into beersmith and that gives me an FG of 1.007. The only thing that concerns me is the ageing. I don't want to wait around for a month for the honey to age out ( the BYO page says that honey beers take about a month to age - https://byo.com/mead/item/322-brewing-with-honey ) - would a 10% honey addition make that much difference or really need the ageing ? I'd really like to carb this up over a week or two and drink it ... would that be OK or would I be better off just leaving it with a higher FG. I think it was 1.010 before I added the honey.

 

I don't think that you're really making a honey beer. You're just using the honey to dry out/thin the beer. I bottle condition, so most of my beers (including saison) spend at least three weeks in the bottle before drinking. I also typically just use cane sugar to dry out a saison at about 5%.

I wouldn't worry about your FG finishing as high as Beersmith says. Granted, I've never used that particular strain, but in the three strains I have used (Belle Saison, WY3711, and IOY B64), the FG is usually at or below 1.002. I find that the calculators err on the high side.