Recipe help for imperial saison please!

[Kzang]

I want to do a clone of the abita select French connection, but an imperial style of it.

It calls for their recipe (they wouldn't send me grain bill) for French Vienna, wheat, and caramel. They hop and dry hop with French aramis, French strisselspalt, and French triskel. (I Abe the strisselspalt and triskel with 2 oz of both. I am going to sub the French aramis for domestic hallertau)
Their IBU is 35 and 6.8%.

Mine as the recipe below is 34.35 IBU, 10.8% ABV.

3.3 lbs each of light lme, wheat lme, and Pilsen lme. French strisselspalt, French triskel, and hallertau hops. 2 lbs of light Belgian candi sugar and 2 lbs of dextrose corn sugar.

1.5 oz hallertau at 30 mins and later dry hop 0.5 hallertau. 20 mins in 2 oz strisselspalt. 10 mins in 2 oz of triskel.


Any suggestions and etc?

 

[slarkin712]

If you're increasing the starting gravity and thus the ABV you might want to increase the IBUs to keep the general balance of the beer. Just move your 30 minute addition to 60 minutes. Also, 4 lbs of sugar is quite high for most beer recipes. Your beer should be dry enough with half that much sugar. What yeast are you using? Having never tasted the commercial version I would go with Wyeast French Saison 3711, because it is easy to work with and will produce a low final gravity.

 

[Kzang]

I am going to try to use that exact yeast. Do you suggest I add more malt to up the ABV then? I want to try to get at least 10% ABV.

I was wondering if a higher gravity would affect the level of bitterness you taste.

 

[slarkin712]

Having never made a beer with more than 20% of the fermentables being sugar I really don't know what all that sugar would do other than make the finish even drier. Other than some very extreme recipes such as a clone of 120 minute IPA, which has an ABV near 20%, the top end for amount of sugar in a recipe is around 25%. I would use 2 lbs of candi sugar and then get your gravity to where you want it with pilsen extract.
In general, the higher the ABV, the more malt/alcohol sweetness will be prevalent,which will make the beer seem less bitter. That is why higher ABV beers generally have higher levels of bitterness. It makes the beer more balanced and digestable, and less cloyingly sweet.

 

[Kzang]

Ok. I think I will do that 60 min hallertau book time. I think I will do 2 lbs of table sugar as a sub for the light Belgian candi sugar. (Which seems to basically do the same thing) and 2 lbs of corn sugar. They say if you use more than 20% of table sugar and etc, you can get a cidery taste.

Unless I did my math wrong, it'd need 2.73 lbs of table sugar to meet that cider taste threshold.

 

[slarkin712]

I don't buy into the cidery taste thing. I think it's just a myth. Here's some math for you:

If you want the batch to be 10.8% ABV I'll make some estimates and say that the OG should be 1.093 and the FG would be 1.010. I don't know if you can get that low of a FG with LME, but 3711 is a beast so I'll go with that. So the target is 1.093. If this is a 5.5 gallon batch here is how you could figure how much sugar to add given the other amounts of fermentables.

OG = 93 points = extract points/ 5.5 gallons
extract points = 511.5

LME points + sugar points = 511.5
LME: 9.9 lbs * 37 ppg = 366.3
Sugar: x lbs * 46ppg = 145.2
sugar = 3.15 lbs
% sugar = 145.2/511.5 = 28.4%

So for a 5.5 gallon batch you would need 3.15 lbs of table sugar to get the OG of 1.093, which makes the recipe fermentables 28.4% sugar. If it were a 5 gallon batch you would need 2.14 lbs sugar and the recipe would be 21.2% sugar.

 

[Calder]

The cider taste myth is bull! I've gone well over that in sone Belgians with no issues.

Limit your self to 3 lbs of sugar. That should be close to 30%. Remember, % should be measured as gravity contribution, and not weight ........ though recipe calculators do it that way.

What yeast? I assume you are harvesting some. Find out what yeast it is, and how it likes to ferment. Some of those Belgians like (need) it warm. If not treated right, it may leave you with a very under attenuated beer.

 

[desabat]

If your making a saison then use spices such as corinder cumin or bitter or sweet orange but based on the description of that beer its more like a "bier de garde" which is another type of farmhouse ale which is french not belgian. In that case i would recommend secondary cold crashing for a couple of weeks. Yeast should have a clean profile.

A grain bill for this style with wheat malt could be
pilsner 50%
munich 14.8%
wheat 35%
black kiln .2%

 

[Kzang]

It doesn't say if they add any additives. I want to try to use the wyeast 3711 saison yeast.

It might be worth to do that and add extra Pilsen malt, try to make that inverted table sugar with 2 lbs, then add 1 lb of dextrose. (I bought dextrose as a part of my workout stuff, and didn't really use it so I have about 10 lbs of dextrose lol)

I just want to try to hit 10% ABV with it. That yeast strain can go up 12%.

I've never done a yeast starter either.

 

[Kzang]

So they only carry white lab wlp565 and wlp568. I don't want to try the wlp565 dye it bend finicky and can stall for 2 weeks. They have the wlp568, but it's use before date was oct 23rd. They also have a dry yeast, lallemand belle saison.

 

[slarkin712]

I think you should just get 2 packets of the belle saison. I've made a saison with it before and it came out very good. It's closer to 3711 than either wl 565 or 568. It gives a nice dry finish and ferments quickly much like 3711. And with two packets there is no need for a starter.

 

[Kzang]

What do you think of using that belle saison, 6.6 lbs of Pilsen malt extract, 2-3 lb of inverted cane sugar, 1-2 lbs of corn sugar (4 pounds total of sugar), with 1 lb each steeping grains of caramunich and flaked wheat?

I'm not sure about the caramunich though. I know my local store has it. I want something to give a little caramel flavor to it.

It gives roughly 10.04% and 40.55 IBU.


Edit: Scratch the flaked wheat and etc. It seems it needs to be mashed before steeping, which I can't do.

 

[slarkin712]

Caramunich is no different than any other caramel malt. If you can't find caramunich just find a caramel malt that matches the color. I would not use too much caramel malt in a saison though. A saison should finish pretty dry and the sweetness will come from the yeast derived flavors. Also, pilsen DME has some caramel malt in it already, probably carapils. I think .5 lb would be the most caramel malt I would use, but I'm not keen on caramel in a saison. Why do you want caramel flavors? Does French Connection have this flavor? If you've had any other saisons what did you like about them? If you want something with some malt sweetness maybe you would prefer a biere de garde. Do a little research and think about what complete flavor profile you would like.

Also, steeping flaked wheat will only get starches into your beer. It does not contain enzymes to convert the starches to sugars. You could steep it with some 2-row and then it would convert. If you just want some "wheatiness", you could steep some wheat malt in a mini-mash. Seeing as you already have wheat DME just use that.

 

[Kzang]

Well, it uses caramel, French Vienna, and wheat malt. Instead of 2 cans of Pilsen, I might do 3.3 lb of wheat and 3.3 lb of Pilsen, and some other steeping grains?

 

[slarkin712]

Then you should steep some caramel malt and you'll be good. It's difficult to get vienna in extract, so just go with what you have. After you make it you can tweak the recipe and try again. Either way, you'll have beer that should be enjoyable to drink.

 

[Kzang]

I just made some inverted sugar that will shortly become Belgian candu sugar. I did cook it a bit longer so it is darker than I'd like but that's okay

 

[Calder]

Vienna just provides some malt flavor. Use a maltier extract than Pils if you want to get close. Either the Golden light, or the Munich. The Munich would be closest to Vienna flavor.

4 lbs of sugar seems way too much. Getting close to 50%. Probably at least 40% of fermentables.

 

[Kzang]

Yeah, it's just hard to hit 10% ABV with just malt alone and without other stuff that I don't need to mash.