Saison Recipe

[byronyasgur]

Does anyone have any recipe suggestions for a saison with WPL 568 yeast? To hand I have pilsner malt, wheat malt, vienna malt and I have saaz and styrian golding hops. Ideally I'd start with something tried and tested but I'm happy to mix and match a bit with the hops if I had a grain bill that would work with the yeast. Never brewed a saison before I just bought that yeast. I was thinking of using this recipe with the WPL yeast but I don't know whether it would work or not? http://homebrewacademy.com/summer-saison/

 

[bucketnative]

That's a pretty standard saison recipe, and it would be a great starting point.

 

[byronyasgur]

That's a pretty standard saison recipe, and it would be a great starting point.

yea I thought that - but I have no idea whether it would work with my yeast and I don't want to waste a batch - would you think it would work with it. I mean - for a saison would you adjust the grain bill for the yeast a bit or could I take the grain bill from one beer and use the yeast from another. I know I'd have to consider the OG and FG but I mean from a flavour point of view are there combinations of grain and yeast that would be likely to clash

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Yes, saison recipies are very flexible. I made one last year with that yeast and rye flakes in the grain bill perl and STRISSELSPALT hops and a small addition of rosemary and thyme... It has developed a lemony flavor very refreshing.

 

[byronyasgur]

thanks I'll just go brew it then and see what happens

 

[dchmela]

Saisons are, in my book, the easiest to tinker with. You can't mess it up (unless you really try). What you have is a really good base Saison that you could add almost anything you want to try. I have added citrus peel at flameout, green tea, different fruits or scrapping the noble hops and going with something like Citra. Have fun, it is a great style to experiment.

 

[byronyasgur]

I came up with a recipe but I couldn't get the FG down where I wanted it with that yeast. Then I hit on the idea of adding some honey. I put 10% honey into beersmith and that gives me an FG of 1.007. The only thing that concerns me is the ageing. I don't want to wait around for a month for the honey to age out ( the BYO page says that honey beers take about a month to age - https://byo.com/mead/item/322-brewing-with-honey ) - would a 10% honey addition make that much difference or really need the ageing ? I'd really like to carb this up over a week or two and drink it ... would that be OK or would I be better off just leaving it with a higher FG. I think it was 1.010 before I added the honey.

 

[bucketnative]

I don't think that you're really making a honey beer. You're just using the honey to dry out/thin the beer. I bottle condition, so most of my beers (including saison) spend at least three weeks in the bottle before drinking. I also typically just use cane sugar to dry out a saison at about 5%.

I wouldn't worry about your FG finishing as high as Beersmith says. Granted, I've never used that particular strain, but in the three strains I have used (Belle Saison, WY3711, and IOY B64), the FG is usually at or below 1.002. I find that the calculators err on the high side.