BeerBorg

because my OG was a little off and to add another dimension, I was thinking of adding about a half pound of raw honey to the fermenter once fermentation slowed. I have a standard airlock in the lid with a rubber gasket in the hole. I would like to boil about a quart of water , stir in the honey to thin, cool it , and remove the airlock. using a sanitized funnel, I'd pour the honey into the fermenter...sanitize the airlock and hook it back up.

would splashing cause a problem? there should be co2 in the fermenter still so I don't think it would cause oxidation... and the volume would be small. opening the fermenter for an addition might compromise the batch with airborne cooties... or would it?


incidentally this saison has been crazy with activity. within hours it took off... by hour 8 I had 4 inches of krausen. by day 2 krausen dropped significantly though airlock is still popping one per second. surface temp on side of bucket is hovering around 71-72f ... without added heat. I was planning on adding the honey when fermentation started to slow and temp began to drop on its own. week 3 I was planning on using a water bath + aquarium heater to crank the temp up a little... to make it finish extra dry.

You can add sugar adjuncts of any kind to a saison. The question is do you really want to.

IE if you used French Saison/Bella Saison yeast you may get 97%+ attenuation. Without sugar. I've had every batch I've made with it, extract or not that was 1.06 or < go down to the 1.003 to 0.997 range.

So a low OG still equals highish ABV levels and very dry beer.

So have you checked your current OG?

If using Belgian Saison then the sugar might help push it down into those ranges or keep it fermenting when it gets lazy which would be good.

That said, if you want to add raw honey, I would mix it with a bit of water and heat it to pasteurization temperature and keep it there for 20 minutes, then cool it and add it. Raw honey contains wild yeast, bug parts, other stuff. The only thing holding the bugs in it at bay is that it's highly concentrated. It can spontaneously ferment when diluted. Depending on what is in it and how lucky you are, how ABV/PH tolerant the bugs in it are, you could introduce another element (Brett, who knows) into your fermentation if you just add it straight up.

Unless your house has airborne Brett like mine does at certain times of the year, I wouldn't worry too much about opening your fermenter for a brief moment to add it. Just don't stick your nose/hair/sweaty t-shirt over it and scratch and sniff.

Oxidation is not a problem, I feed sugar solutions to Belgians all the time during fermentation. I just don't see the need when using French Saison/Bella Saison yeast and brewing in the 1.06 or < range. Which is as high as I will go with that yeast, because of how much it attenuates. I just personally have alcohol limits I try to stay within, except for very special beers.

bottled today...

2lbs lme pilsen, 1 lb lme munich , 1 lb lme wheat...1/4 lb steep carafoam. tettnanger /spalt / saaz hops... danstar bella saison yeast 1 full pack used for 3 gallons wort. after week one, added half pound raw honey that was added to boiled water and allowed to cool overnight to pasturize. fermented hot around 74-76f.

the yeast were monsters... ate through everything with a fg of 1.002

color srm 10-14 nicely hazy due to low floc yeast
smells like a very nice wheat beer
grav sample... clean.. bitter around 25 ibus if I had to guess.. not overly bitter with a good hoppy smell.. a tiny hint of honey scent. tastes like a very good wheat beer even though wheat was not the majority malt.

knock wood this will be a very fine beer though I missed out on some of the saison yeast funkiness possibly due to overpitching. I had huge krausen in almost no time... and when I added the honey i had airlock activity in less than 20 mins!!!

thanks for the help mashani... i think saisons are my new fav beer followed by wheats.

Glad you like it.

I make tons of Saison in the summer when it's hot. You can brew with that yeast in the 70s-80s and it's fine. You can brew with Belgian Saison liquid yeast in the 90s.

Although traditional saisons are about the yeast, you can throw a ton of late hops (not bittering hops) into it and get a really hoppy beer if you like that tastes great. You don't want a lot of bittering hops because of how much the yeast attenuates. 70 IBUs at 1.002 is a hella lot of bitter.

BTW you can use standard wheat beer base and that yeast and it makes an excellent "wheat saison". I made one of those with Wai-Iti hops and it's one of my favorite beers I've made all year. So if you like wheat beers you might want to give that a try.

I'm drinking a saison I made with that yeast, some pils, some munich, some rye, some dark candi syrup, and juniper berries late the boil, and it's awesome stuff. It will not last long, it's too good.

starting to move away from hop bombs.. used to like ips but am branching out.

if I ever come into some spare change I'd like to make that patersbier / homer fruit salad of yours. my wife thinks she'd like the fruity hops and they sound like a welcome change from the traditional 'grapefruit' or 'pine' hops you see in so many commercial beers.

cant wait to try that rye 'stout' ive got aging...

anyway.. much obliged for all the help over the years.