Double Fermenting a Saisonger! Tell me if I'm crazy!

[Wrendelar]

I am brewing a Saison this weekend and I had a crazy idea that upon some research might just work. I would like to get the thoughts of the community and see if my thinking is just way off or maybe, just maybe this might just work.

The Saisonger Plan:

Mash (148 degrees - 60min)
5.5 lbs Pilsner
2.75 lbs Vienna Malt
.75 lbs Tariffed Wheat

Hops:
1 oz East Kent Goldings (6.20%) - 60 Min
1/4 oz Sorachi Ace (10%) - 10 min
1/4 oz Saaz (2.30%) - 10 min
1/4 oz Styrian Goldings (3.00%) - 10 min
3/4 oz Sorachi Ace (10%) - 2 min
3/4 oz Saaz (2.30%) - 2 min
3/4 oz Styrian Goldings (3.00%) - 2 min

First Pitch: Safale BE-134 and ferment relatively cool mid 60's (Although I may just let this ferments how it wants too my apartment runs low to mid 70's)

1st Crash: As low as I can get it mid 40's

Rack to Secondary

Second Pitch: add in 5oz of Dextrose to kick off refermentation with Saflager W-34/70 or Saflager S-189 ( I have both) and ferment at 55-56 degrees for another week

Lager: 1-2 weeks

Bottle

What I am looking for is a cold crisp refreshing drink able beer that is somewhere between 4-5% ABV. Starting Gravity is at about 1.048 with a final as dry as I can get it with in reason.

Caveat all the ingredients are what I have on hand and need to use up. I have tossed around the idea of adding lemon zest, black pepper and possibly 1lb honey at 5 min left in the boil. The lemon may accentuate the Sorachi Ace and the black pepper may add some additional spice with out the Saison esters being too pronounced. The honey may take the abv over the top for this experiment.

With all that said, fire away with the "this will never work", "you're a mad lad" or what ever else you can conjure up.

Looking forward to the feedback
Best, Wren

 

[VikeMan]

If you want to add honey or sugar to bump up the ABV while keeping the beer dry, that's fine (and not uncommon). But I can't think of any reason to add the second yeast strain or to cold crash before adding the sugar or honey. Is there some reason you have in mind?

 

[Wrendelar]

If you want to add honey or sugar to bump up the ABV while keeping the beer dry, that's fine (and not uncommon). But I can't think of any reason to add the second yeast strain or to cold crash before adding the sugar or honey. Is there some reason you have in mind?

Honestly I had this crazy idea while sleeping of all times.. it was like a dream but not. Did some research to see if it was a thing or not and came across an article where a brewery actually does something like this with a Rice beer. So I know it's been done.

I don't know I guess I wanted to try something out of them norm, and get crazy with it and see what happens.

I also figured this is a brew that is being made up of scraps around the brewhouse. So why not give it an experimentation.

Just found the article for reference (Rice Saison Lager - Scott Janish), my grain bill and hop additions are no where near what this brewer did, I was more interested in the yeast pitching concepts. They also Keg I don't have that ability currently im an apartment dwelling bottler.

 

[VikeMan]

From the article:

"A lagered saison is something Fonta Flora had been thinking about for awhile, Jeremy explained to me that combining what they love from the two styles could be fun to experiment with. Particularly, they are after the dryness of a saison with restrained esters and phenols from a cold ferment and the clean crispness of a lager with very little typical lager yeast characteristics. To do this, they ferment the saison slightly cool and the re-ferment with lager yeast again at a cool temperature."

and

"Once the beer is up to temperature, they pitch their house Czech lager strain with some priming sugar for a secondary fermentation/carbonation. Re-fermentation takes place over the course of a week holding at 48°F (9°C) before being crashed back to 32°F (0°C) for two weeks (six-week grain to glass time)."

Cold fermentation with a saison yeast will certainly result in less phenols and esters than warm fermentation, which would make the beer more "lager-like" (less saison-like) than usual. And lagering (i.e. cold aging) a saison can certainly make it more "crisp," as yeast and other particulates drop out of suspension. And the rice also would have helped with "crisp."

But the idea that using a lager strain for carbonation would make the beer more "crisp?" I'm not buying it.

Another snippet: "The aroma of their beer confuses me, which is party why we had to look into it further. The nose is not full on saison, it doesn’t have strong Belgian flavors, nor does it scream lager. It’s like a halfway-saison that finishes super crisp."

That sounds like what I'd expect from a cold fermented, rice adjuncted, lagered saison. I'd be surprised if the lager yeast used to carbonate the beer had much (if any) influence.

 

[Wrendelar]

interesting ... Thank You for your take on the article. I'll have to think about this a bit more.

If I just pitch the saison yeast let it roll and then cold crash it "lager" it. I might get the same result in less time. Adding the honey maybe during a high krauzen state of fermenting to give it the push to go dryer. Then I just might end up with what im looking for.

I doubt I would get what im looking for brewing it like a saison with the additional lemon and pepper and fermenting with a lager yeast will give me nothing but a flavorful lager.

Thanks for the input .. appreciate you!

 

[Wrendelar]

Brewed this up this past weekend. Hit an OG of 1.046 and pitched the BE-189 and holding the ferment at 54 degrees .. it’s been quite active for about 3 days.

Will let it roll til it tells me it’s done then I’ll proceed with the crash.

And then rack on the honey and pitch the 34/70.

So far so good … fingers crossed it keeps rolling like this.

 

[Wrendelar]

Crashed the beer 3 days ago and racked it this morning. Gravity reading of 1.008. The taste was clean with that slight Belgian estery taste and quite dry.

Added the honey to the secondary racked on top of it and pitched the W-34/70 and have it set at a 52-degree fermentation temp.

The plan is for 7 days from here and then start raising the temp for the D-rest.

Plan on kegging in 10-14 days and then lager it for a minimum of 2-4 weeks.

Stay Tuned.

 

[pvtpublic]

Why not just mash for 90 minutes instead? You'll get a great conversion this way, and a dry finish.

 

[Wrendelar]

Why not just mash for 90 minutes instead? You'll get a great conversion this way, and a dry finish.

That was an option ... but the ingredients for this recipe were found and were about 2 years old.

I wanted to do something different fermenting a saison cold to suppress some of the esters that normally follow a Saison. I also wanted to see if I could coax out a bright crisp lager finish as opposed to just a dry Saison finish.

it's basically just 1 big experiment and whether success or failure it was fun to attempt.

 

[Wrendelar]

Racked into a keg last friday, FG 1.001 for a 6% ABV. so the second pitch on the honey dropped the gravity by 7 points. so far the flat taste was nice, the phenolics had the slight Belgian notes.

Very interested in seeing what this tastes like after lagering it for a few weeks.

 

[Wrendelar]

Entered this experiment in a competition and it won a silver medal in the 34B mixed style category. If anyone is interested I’ll post the revised recipe.

Lagered Saison is a thing!