Kit Saison brew, herb or citrus zest addition

[HopSong]

Refractometer is good for SG/OG.. but, not very good for any gravities after the yeast is pitched. You probably know that..

 

[pgbrewing]

Just spotted this thread so I'm a little late to it but I brewed 2 batches of this same kit this spring for my daughter's wedding. I added 1 quart of pure tart cherry juice to each batch when the wort cooled to 150. OG was 1.045, FG was 1.011. A slight fruit aroma and a little extra grip in the taste with a nice smooth finish. Perfect summer beer!

This beer was huge hit at the wedding last weekend! All 4 cases gone in one night!

 

[tbrown4]

Just spotted this thread so I'm a little late to it but I brewed 2 batches of this same kit this spring for my daughter's wedding. I added 1 quart of pure tart cherry juice to each batch when the wort cooled to 150. OG was 1.045, FG was 1.011. A slight fruit aroma and a little extra grip in the taste with a nice smooth finish. Perfect summer beer!

This beer was huge hit at the wedding last weekend! All 4 cases gone in one night!

Oh man, that sounds awesome. Where'd you get the juice?

 

[WileECoyote]

Hello, I just did a saison recently and am drinking one of them while typing this, with 2lbs honey, 1oz sweet orange peels, and 1oz coriander, all at 10 min to flame out, the next time I brew this the coriander will be axed completely or I will only be using up to 1/4oz coriander (its way to strong for me) I think my taste is very sensitive to coriander as this is my second brew with it and it is overpowering in both, the honey and sweet orange peels went very well together with the saison yeast taste.

The other brew I did with coriander is NTOLERANCE amber/wheat recipe from this forum and my wife loves it, she said it has a bit of honey, orange, lemon taste. All I get is bitter, astringent, slight lemon taste from it, she dose not like saison brews so that brews taste is up to me. lol

My saison brew makes a great shanty, 1/2 saison beer and 1/2 tonic water, great drink when its hot out.

I would highly recommend to use any herbs sparingly, once they are in, you cant get them out, even when following someone else's tried and true recipe cut them back, until you have an understanding of how they taste to you, I learned this the hard way on two of my brews.

Hope this helps

Oh I went with 2 weeks in primary and 2 weeks in secondary on both of these brews, still bottle conditioning/aging till they are all drank.

Cheers

 

[pgbrewing]

Oh man, that sounds awesome. Where'd you get the juice?

Sorry for the late response. I used R.W Knudson Organic Tart Cherry Juice:
http://www.rwknudsenfamily.com/products/just-juice/organic-just-tart-cherry/

Good stuff!

 

[WileECoyote]

i do spices in the boil, herbs in primary or secondary depending on my mood. For adding everything in secondary, i'd probably make a tea. I generally don't reference specific recipes for style because I prefer Designing Great Beers, which does a good job of bracketing characteristics. You can definitely make the non-sage additions and still be in the ranges and flavor descriptions. The sage in the amounts I mentioned becomes primarily aromatic and marries well to the normal saison funk.

So while I agree that you shouldn't generally make style-altering additions until you're familiar with the base style, this particular kit isn't a very saison-y saison and the flavor profiles we're talking about definitely improve it.

Hello blakelyc, Are you steeping the herbs? and for how long? Im wanting to go all herb on my brews and could use some advice/help from some one with experience using herbs in their brews, Im new to brewing and am having a hard time finding accurate (or very much)information on using herbs, please contact me if you would, any help will be much appreciated.

Thanks
Cheers
WileECoyote

 

[tbrown4]

Thanks for all the replies!

Today I racked this to secondary. 2.5 gallons to carboy as is. 2.5 gallons to carboy with 10g dried orange peel and 6g dried sage.

I'd like to leave them both sit the same length of time in secondary for side by side tasting purposes to help me refine this type of addition. How long should I let them sit? I'm thinking a week, then bottle. Maybe 2 weeks?

 

[WileECoyote]

Hello tbrown4, I read that some herbs you want to steep (hearty herbs) and others you should add to the secondary (delicate flower's) That being said, and not helping much, I would think that 1 week should be long enough to get enough flavor into your brew.

I did a steeping taste test yesterday with mugwort, yarrow, sweet gale, and rosemary, I measured out the herbs to the equivalent of what would be 1oz each herb per 5 gal of brew except for the rosemary (4 pieces only) put each herb in a separate cup, brought water to rolling boil, pored water onto herbs, steeped each herb for 3 min, strained herbs out, then tasted each, then tasted ea. at 4 and 5 min, then mixed each with a other one and tasted.

What we figured out was mugwort and sweet gale are good even after 5 min, but the longer the yarrow (taste good at 3 min) was in the hot water after 3 min the more bitter/astringent it became, the rosemary was just kinda nasty (for the lack of a better word) every time we tasted it, so no rosemary in my brews.

Then I steeped mugwort, yarrow and sweet gale together for 3 min and strained into a cold glass, dropping the temp to 82 deg. and its taste was very good, at 4 and 5 min the taste stay'd the same, so we let it sit for 10 min, same taste.

What I got out of this test is, not to add my herbs to the hot wort, 1 or 2 min of heat can make a big difference in taste/bitterness on some of these herbs, I will be brewing a herb ale today, using what I have learned from this test, I will be steeping my herbs, then adding that herb tea/extract to my cooled wort.

Just thought I would share what I learned yesterday, I think the steeping method would work for a secondary addition too, I know this is not what what you were asking about, but thought it might help you/someone out on another brew.

Ill try to remember to post how this brew comes out in about 6 to 8 weeks

Cheers

 

[tbrown4]

Thanks for the tips an advice. Much appreciated!

 

[tbrown4]

Bottled this today, both versions. Tasted both, no off flavors. Seemed fairly representative of the style. The sage in the treated batch was pretty apparent in the finish, but not over whelming. Both orange and sage are lightly present in the aroma. Can't wait for it to carb up.

 

[WileECoyote]

Bottled this today, both versions. Tasted both, no off flavors. Seemed fairly representative of the style. The sage in the treated batch was pretty apparent in the finish, but not over whelming. Both orange and sage are lightly present in the aroma. Can't wait for it to carb up.

Nice, glad to hear they came out, the sage should mellow a bit with age.

Cheers

 

[tbrown4]

Wanted to give an update. Opened the first bottles of both variations this afternoon. I'm quite pleased. The non treated version is pretty standard, mostly clean and crisp. A slight twang up front...but nothing off. The sage/orange version I am enjoying as well...the sage is more apparent than the orange. I'm going to try and ramp up the orange peel big time in the next batch.