Saison with Honey, original recipe seeking feedback

[tbrown4]

Just moved this to secondary. Smells amazing. Light citrus, honey earthy sweet. Initial tastes are good as well. A tad boozy up front, but the middle and finish are dry, crisp with light honey impressions and citrus aromas. Honestly....it may not need too much more time to rest. Going to let it clarify a little bit then go to bottles. Looks like it hit 9.5% abv.

 

[ChessRockwell]

A tad boozy up front, but the middle and finish are dry, crisp with light honey impressions and citrus aromas. Honestly....it may not need too much more time to rest. Going to let it clarify a little bit then go to bottles. Looks like it hit 9.5% abv.

Ah, the wonderful thing about 3711 - you can hit 9.5% and seem only a tad boozy

First 7.9% beer I've had be completely drinkable and amazing at 2.5 weeks in the bottle.

 

[tbrown4]

Ah, the wonderful thing about 3711 - you can hit 9.5% and seem only a tad boozy

Is this the case with the yeast strain?

 

[beergolf]

Is this the case with the yeast strain?

Yes. 3711 is an amazing yeast. It always finishes low, yet somehow maintains a nice mouthfeel. When using this yeast most brew software does not predict FG very well. You have to assume it will finish very low so uou can calculate the ABV.

 

[sb68]

I am very interested in honey flavored beers, have a honey brown in the fermenter right now but added the honey at the end of the boil as opposed to after fermentation started. Now I want to try your recipe, popped it into BeerSmith 2 and boggled as it showed estimated ABV well above 9%. Tweaked the dry extract down by 1lb and 1lb less on the honey and think I have the numbers where I like them. For the honey I will use Tupelo as that is my favorite!

I think this will be my next brew or maybe I will convert and do it as my first all grain BIAB. Thanks for sharing your recipe.

Honey Saison
Type: Extract
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 2.30 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
End of Boil Volume 2.08 gal
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 4.75 gal

Ingredients
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 1 11.8 %
8.0 oz Honey Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 2 5.9 %
5 lbs Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 3 58.8 %
0.50 oz Galaxy [14.00 %] - Boil 45.0 min Hop 4 15.7 IBUs
0.50 oz Galaxy [14.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 5 8.5 IBUs
0.25 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 6 -
1.0 pkg French Saison (Wyeast Labs #3711) [50.28 ml] Yeast 7 -
2 lbs Honey (1.0 SRM) Sugar 8 23.5 %

Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.059 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.006 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 7.0 %
Bitterness: 24.3 IBUs
Calories: 151.6 kcal/12oz
Est Color: 6.2 SRM

 

[Chris2470]

Hello all.......new to the site......brewing a honey hefenweizen next week. I've primarily only brewed only ipas so I'm interested to see how it goes. I'm using raw honey......and I've read that I should probably add it with 5 to 10 minutes left in the boil......to get just a little aroma/ flavor...........

 

[gigs17]

I just brewed a saison and added one lb of honey at flame out and lb of corn sugar into primary after fermentation. About 9 abv, crisp beer light in color.

 

[smokinj]

Hello all.......new to the site......brewing a honey hefenweizen next week. I've primarily only brewed only ipas so I'm interested to see how it goes. I'm using raw honey......and I've read that I should probably add it with 5 to 10 minutes left in the boil......to get just a little aroma/ flavor...........

The later you add the honey the more flavor/aroma you'll save. If you want to add it in the kettle, I'd do it at flameout.

 

[tbrown4]

Wanted to post another follow up. Just opened a bottle to check carb progress. It's carbed quite well, but I will add dextrine to the next batch to and some decent head retention.

Very tart and citrusy up front, decent peppery tart middle and a long slow orangey sweet finish. It's a sipper right now as its got greater than average booziness. I think this could age nicely.

 

[smokinj]

Glad to hear it turned out well! Did you end up adding brett to any?

 

[tbrown4]

Glad to hear it turned out well! Did you end up adding brett to any?

I did no more additions. I dont think it needs it. A few more weeks in the bottle and I think it'll be fantastic.

 

[63belair]

This looks awesome, I think I will be brewing this sometime soon. One question though, what would you recommend for a dry yeast substitute? I'm currently in Canada and I frankly don't trust their postal system with a liquid yeast (even with a cold pack + insulated box - they're that slow).

Cheers!

 

[smokinj]

There is no dry saison yeast available that I know of. Something you could try is culturing some from a bottle of commercial saison.

 

[tbrown4]

Wanted to follow up on this. I've been sipping on one of these a night for the last few weeks. I like where I've started with this, but I would like to refine it and get it under control. I'm definitely on to something with this recipe and I'd like to tweak it.

The aroma is huge, very aggressive. Honey is obvious, somewhat boozy. The citrus notes are pretty decent. I'd like to develop the malt character a bit more to give it some depth. I did not use dextrine at all, kicking myself. The body is not quite as full as I'd like and head retention is below average at best. Should I add (or replace something with) dextrine to achieve a fuller body and better head retention? I might want to tweak the hops and schedule a little bit. I think it's a bit bigger than the calculated 9.5%, as there have been several nights that just one of these has gotten me a great buzz.

The bigger saisons that I've enjoyed that were kind of the inspiration for this are Cigar City/Bruery Dos Costas, Hill Farmstead Anna, Cigar City Cucumber Saison and several of the Stillwater Artisanal offerings.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.