Simple Saison

[jimjohson]

that is so cool

[mashani]

That's awesome, but how are you going to drink all that LOL? I thought I was going nuts when I had 5 LBKs going at once last year.

[monsteroyd]

Yeah I know, but I want to make a Saison as one of my signature beers. I need to do a bunch of different recipes with various malts and hops in order to understand what makes the beer taste the way it does. And if someone has to drink a bunch of beer to get that done, well, I am more than ready to do my part.

[monsteroyd]

OK I bottled up Simple Saison 3c Sorachi Red Rye last night. FG was 1.003 so that gives about 5% ABV which is perfect. And it turned out rather red-ish maybe a little to the brown side. This had 2 oz choc malt steeped and Munich and rye malt. The sample tasted interesting, you could just get a hint of roasted, but still a saison. We'll see in a month how it carbs out.

Monty

[Brewbirds]

Whew We! When I hadn't seen a post for a few days I was getting worried. Keep on keeping on big guy.

[monsteroyd]

Jeez it was just Fri. Everybody is a critic.

Trying the orange and white grape saisons tonight. Whew this stuff is way too abv like 11% , but they taste great.

Monty

[BeerRust]

Jeez it was just Fri. Everybody is a critic.

Trying the orange and white grape saisons tonight. Whew this stuff is way too abv like 11% , but they taste great.

Monty

Sounds great! Siason is next up for me and my RCE partner this round.

[monsteroyd]

Yeah, those were really too good tasting. I did not mean or need to get a little bombed last night. I am paying today.

I really liked the white grape juice one over the orange. The orange was good, but the white grape was better. And these I did just by tossing in a can of Kroger brand 100% juice concentrate. Now I need to drop some of the extract from that to get the abv down to reasonable. That will probably make the juice even more noticeable. I might dry hop with some orange zest next time too.

Recipe for white grape/orange:
1 gal water
1lb Breiss Golden Light DME for hop boil
1 oz Tettnanger 15 minutes (24 IBU)
2 drops Fermcap S
At flame out:
1 lb wheat DME
1 lb munich LME (reduce to 3/4 lb for reasonable ABV)
1 lb Pale LME (leave out for normal ABV)
8 oz sugar (leave out for normal ABV)
toss in frozen can of juice concentrate (no preservatives) to help cool wort. I figured this was about 36 grams of sugar, I think, based on the carbs per serving listed on the can. That's what I put into BeerSmith and the OG was near to what it estimated, so it is about right.
After letting wort cool, pour onto 1 gal of refrigerated water already in LBK
add water to 9 qts total.
Lallemand Belle Saison yeast re-hydrated. Of course aerate etc, and I add 1 tsp of food grade urea (yeast nutrient) when I pitch.

The problem (or feature) of Belle saison yeast is that it attenuates like crazy, so you have to keep the OG below 1.050 to even have a chance to get 5% ABV. I shoot for .040-045. You can EASILY make a 10% beer with this yeast. And still be just slightly out of style. Why I love Saisons (they also taste good) is you can use anything in the grain bill, add spice, adjuncts, fruit, flowers, etc. and still be close to style.

I think I have a raspberry lemonade one coming ready this week. Maybe I'll get a picture this time. And try to only drink one SMALL glass.

Monty

[monsteroyd]

Labelpeelers has a 25% off sale today. Get Belle Saison for 3.65 a pack.

Monty

[BlackDuck]

Jeez it was just Fri. Everybody is a critic.

Trying the orange and white grape saisons tonight. Whew this stuff is way too abv like 11% , but they taste great.

Monty

Sounds great! Siason is next up for me and my RCE partner this round.

jimjohnson and I are tossing around the Saison idea for our RCE also.

[monsteroyd]

OK bottled up 4 batches over the weekend. The most spectacular was the hibiscus. What a weird pinkish red color, but the taste of the sample was awesome. This may come in at a higher ABV than I was shooting for, like 5.8%, there must be a little sugar in the hibiscus flowers, but the taste was really good. I am thinking that a bit of hibiscus (like an oz or 2) might be a nice flavor addition. It really goes well with the Saison yeast. The other ones were another Smash with Belma hops, also very interesting and harmonious to the Saison flavor. The sample really tasted good, too. It was Pilsner and Belma, light and very tasty. The last 2 were a Saaz and a Hallertau smash. Samples tasted good on those too. So I got 32L of Saison added to the pipe. And all at a better drinkable ABV.

Those sample tastes are leading me to a hibiscus belma pilsner smash. Can't wait to try them in a month.

Monty

EDIT: I used 3 oz in this 2.25gallon batch, so I think maybe 1 oz as a flavor additive would be good, unless you want the color.
Here'e the hibiscus saison sample for color:

hibiscusSaisonsmall.jpg (235.62 KiB) Viewed 1139 times

[Brewbirds]

That is a very pretty color, can't wait for the first pour/review on it.
Keep up the good work Monty.

[philm00x]

wow, that looks nice!

[monsteroyd]

I was home sick Monday, and then worked from home yesterday because I still wasn't at 100%. My wife thinks that I caught a 48 hr bug that was going around her school, but I don't know. Anyway being sick, I didn't have a beer since Sat night. Not a long time, but last night I tried one of my Saisons from the high ABV set (SS2A if your actually keeping track). I think this one was about 10% ABV. I had tried this before and thought the taste was nice and Saisony, but I had to stop at one. Well last night I had one, and I couldn't finish it because all I could taste was the alcohol. It was terrible. I wonder if me being sick has reset my tastes etc and I was finally able to taste the high alcohol content or something. I am definitely NOT making more high gravity beer, 10-12% is just insane. And I guess they don't taste good either. I actually drank a Miller Lite last night, and thought it was bland, but thirst quenching. It is a 4.17% beer, and that made me think that I want to aim even lower in ABV. Maybe 4.5% as an ideal ABV.

What are the borg's thoughts? I know you guys ALWAYS said to chase flavor not ABV, and I, of course, had to have my experimental phase, but what ABV do you all generally shoot for? 5%? 4%? 8%? or is it all style driven?

Monty

[BigPapaG]

4.5-7.5 is pretty common for me.

If you do end up with a higher gravity than anticipated or desired, just top off with water before pitching yeast to hit the gravity you want. (Be sure to stir after adding some water and before taking another gravity reading as the heavier gravity wort will stratify and lay on the bottom with the water laying up near the top)

If they are already in the bottle (like SS2A) then just let them condition longer.

Above all, RDWHAHB!