Formulating Brown Saison recipe

[Prionburger]

Throwing a Brown Saison together. Grain bill is inspired by some Dubbel recipes I've seen, but toned down to account for the dryness of Saison yeast strains. I want it to have a slight raisiny flavor from the special B, Saison yeastiness, and a slight roasty aroma when you exhale after a sip (like some American brown ales). Here's what I have so far:

6 gallons:

Expected OG: 1.052 expected FG: ~1.008-1.010???

11 SRM

10.5 Lb Belgian pilsner
1.25 Lb wheat malt
0.25 Lb Caramunich
0.25 Lb special B
1 oz domestic chocolate malt

Mashing at 148f for 1.5 hours

~20 Ibus of Saaz (Czech) 2/3 bittering 1/3 flavor. Maybe I should go for less Ibus?

Wyeast 3725 Biere de Garde (sourced from Fantome) Going to start fermenting at 70f and maybe end at 80f

Any suggestions? I have almost no idea what I'm doing.

 

[Oldsock]

Sounds like a good one to me. If you want to taste the roast I'd probably go with a bit more chocolate malt. Browns usually have .25-.5 lbs, not sure if you want to go that high, but 2-3 oz will give you some roasted hints. Otherwise it looks solid to me.

A friend and I recetly did a collaborative batch with the brewers at McKenzie's outside of Philly. Here's the grain/sugar bill:

74.0% - German Pilsener
10.6% - Maris Otter
5.3% - German Munich Malt
1.9% - CaraMunich Malt

5.3% - Pale Candi Sugar
2.9% - D2 Candi Sugar Syrup

 

[brodie113]

Maybe a pinch of debittered black malt would add to the (slight) roast & darken it up a bit.

 

[Prionburger]

Thanks for the input! And your blog rules, Oldsock! I've learned a ton from it.

I brewed my first iteration yesterday. My efficiency was a bit high so I boosted the ibus rather than diluting the wort. OG was 1.055, ibus 22.

Good points on the chocolate and debittered black. I actually bought a little powdered Carafa II Special in case the color wasn't brown enough. The wort came out a nice orange-amber-brown though. It'll be brown in the class; somewhat like an orange-tinted Newcastle.

On the chocolate malt: I've had really nice subtle roasty aromas come from just 2-4oz chocolate malt in 5 gallons of american amber ale, and I thought I'd try the same here. This one won't have huge residual sugar and crystal malts to balance the roast (in my speculation), so I thought I'd keep it very restrained. Hopefully it doesn't clash with the yeast.

If it turns out good, I may go for a sour funky version. I had an awesome amber sour from Telegraph brewing (Santa Barbara CA). It had a slight roasty nose, which went really nice.

 

[Oldsock]

Cool, let us know how it turns out.

 

[Prionburger]

Will do!

Just an observation for those searching about the 3725 yeast in fermentation: The effort I made to rig a blow off tube was in vain. This yeast made an easy half-inch krausen. It looks like the california ale krausen, rather than the cow-barf krausen that 3711 makes.

Smells like prunes from the airlock, and a bit like the banana that california ale yeast gives off.

Weird that these Saison yeasts eat so voraciously but don't need a blow-off tube.


:rockin:

 

[Prionburger]

Update: I kegged the beer just now. The final gravity was 1.006, giving me a 6.5% ABV beer.

The sample I took out of the fermenter tasted very dry. Yeast flavor is subtle; if someone told me this was fermented with California Ale yeast, I'd be inclined to believe them. In other words, very little esters and no phenols detectable, despite being fermented at 68-75f. It's a murky mix of subtle flavors, but nutty notes poke through the most. Raisiny flavors from the special B are extremely subtle. There is no roast flavor at all. The color came out amber.

I'll give a more detailed description and hopefully pictures once it's carbonated.

In the next iteration, I'm thinking of switching to French Saison yeast and/or the dupont strain for more yeast character, and boosting the special b and chocolate malts.

 

[Prionburger]

Update: I just killed the keg of this last night.

It didn't seem like much of a Saison... more like a dry brown ale with a weird fermentation character--slightly tart, with a nice bready resiny aroma and a slight chocolate finish. Mouth feel was hugely slick, very chewy despite its drying out to 1.006. It felt like a beer made with 3711.

I thought it had an aspartame-like sweetness, perhaps from the caramunich and special B. It was also a bit too chewy for my taste. Also, the Fantome strain isn't out anymore, so I think I'll switch to 3711.

So for the next iteration:

More roast, less caramel sweetness, less malt altogether.

9.75 Lb Belgian pilsner
1.25 Lb wheat malt
0.5 Lb Aromatic
0.25 Lb special B
2.5 oz domestic chocolate malt

25 ibus, and more aroma hops.

I'll also ferment with a mix of 3724 and 3711 I have. Let's see how it goes.

 

[BrewNow]

Hi Prionburger - Any news on this revised recipe?

 

[Prionburger]

Hey! I've continued with this line of recipes here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/red-brown-saison-experiment-240353/

I switched to just the two flavors I wanted: roasty and yeasty. My conclusion is that they didn't work together alone. I think they need either a lot of hops, bitterness, or sourness to work.

If I were to do this again, I'd go for a bigger, more bitter beer, infected with a bright sour culture like Jolly Pumpkin dregs.