First Partial Mash Recipe : Saison

[RayZab]

Hey everyone,

I'm going to be trying my first partial mash coming up and am looking to try a Saison. Below is the recipe I put together and had a few questions. Please feel free to leave any additional comments if you think the recipe might be off a little, I'm trying to learn as much as I can.

Recipe Type: Partial Mash
Yeast: WLP565 (Belgian Saison I)
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.050
Final Gravity: 1.013 (hoping to drive it lower)
IBU: 24.0
ABV: 4.9%
Boiling Time (Minutes): 90 or 60?
Color: 3.8
Partial Mash @ 148 F
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 3 weeks or until 565 finishes, inoculating at 66F and letting free-rise into the 80s


3 lb Pilsen Light DME (42.9%)
1.75 lb Pilsner malt (25%)
1 lb Vienna Malt (14.3%)
0.75 lb White Wheat Malt (10.7%)
0.5 lb Dextrose (7.1%)
0.7 oz Sterling, 60 min (15.8 IBU)
1 oz Sterling, 10 min (8.2 IBU)
1 oz Sterling, 0 min (0 IBU)

So my couple of questions:
1) Is a 90 min boil necessary if the grain bill is only 25% pilsner malt? Or am I okay with a 60 min boil?
2) Since I'm doing partial mash and DME with WLP565 is 0.5 lb Dextrose enough to help dryout the beer? I'm also going to warm the yeast to help drive attenuation, but wasn't sure if the DME will affect that more
3) Should I switch to a more traditional hop like Styrian Goldings or is Sterling/Saaz pretty good with WLP565?

Thanks!
Ray

 

[hopbrad]

Sterling be good.
you can probably get away with a 60 min boil but 90 to be safe.
letting it free rise to 80 should help get the FG lower.
if anything id take the lb of vienna out and do another .5lb of pils and sugar.
should be great.

 

[beergolf]

Recipe looks pretty good. Saisons can be very simple and the yeast just makes the flavor. You can get by with a 60 minute boil. Brew software always underestimates attenuation with saisons. If you pitch at 66 and then ramp up the temp you should be good. I like to pitch mid 60's and then after a day start ramping the temp up. That yeast likes heat so don't be shy about getting it very warm. Even up to and beyond 90. I use a big cooler and an aquarium heater to keep my saisons warm.

Back when I was doing partial mashes I could still get a partial mash to finish in the 1.004 range. Make a starter and get the temps up and you should be able to get it that low.

As far as hops go I have not used Sterling hops so I cannot give you advice about them. But saisons work well with a wide range of hops. The noble hops are more traditional. I really like Strisselspalt hops a lot. Saaz works well. You can even go newer hops like Nelson Sauvin and get good results.

Brew it up.

 

[RayZab]

Thanks for the advice. I'll leave the recipe as is then, since it sounds like I should be able to get the final gravity pretty low with the partial mash.