Okay, thanks! I read some more commentary elsewhere and the general consensus seems to agree with you—add once initial fermentation is done (2 weeks or so?), and leave in for another 2 or so.
Did some more thinking and decided to go the saison route. Got a slap-pack of Wyeast 3711 and I’m gonna add some coriander and orange peel in secondary.
Maybe dry hop it a bit, too? Any suggestions for which hops to use?
Also, should I add more sugar? Maybe honey?
Thanks again for all the help, guys.
With spices added to secondary, I’d probably stick to a traditional hop choice. Styrian goldings or a noble hop. Maybe strisselspalt. Honey’s a nice addition to a light-colored saison, but it might vanish in an amber. 3711 is an aggressive yeast and should dry it out quite a bit on its own, but some added sugar will help maintain a lighter body. Do you prefer your saison bone dry or on the sweeter side?
Generally drier would be my preference, but if I can get the ABV up a bit and keep it dry that’d be nice.
Adding sugar or honey will up your ABV and dry the beer. With WY 3711 I would definitely add some sugar or honey to reduce the malt flavor. BTW honey is fully fermentable and adds almost nothing to the taste of the beer.
Great. And sorry for the total noob question, but the honey would be added during the boil, right? Any guidance on volume? I’m working with a 5gal recipe.
Five gallons?? I thought the block party was one gallon. I brew the five gallon American Amber Ale. Not boring at all. Pretty close to an IPA with a little more color. If you’ve had the block party before and thought it was boring, take a look at the American Amber recipe. Maybe you just need some other hops.
Honey should go in at flameout, or while you’re chilling, otherwise the aromatics pretty much disappear. Dupont’s biere de miel has a great honey character, but I’d guess that a good percentage of the fermentables come from honey. It has a very distinctive flavor of fermented honey. But it’s also a very light beer.
I like to add anywhere from 8-16 oz cane sugar in a saison. Not sure what the OG of this kit is, but for a lower OG (~1.04-1.05) I would add sugar in the 8oz range, and a higher OG (1.07-1.08) would be in the 16-oz range. More malt calls for more sugar to lighten the body. You can substitute honey for sugar, they are pretty much equivalent for this purpose.
That one is lacking hop character.
Yep, hence my dry hopping idea.
Be prepared if you have some brewing experience but none with honey additions:
Fermentation on beers including honey can take a couple more days to complete fermentation. The first time I used honey I thought for sure I had an infected batch as it fermented for 2 weeks.
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To update:
Today was brew day. No major mistakes, I think: Sanitization was good, hit target O.G…
I ended up making the following alterations:
- Used Wyeast 3711 as described above. Didn’t add any extra sugar because I wasn’t sure if that would mean I needed to add more yeast. Felt it was better to just leave that aspect alone.
- Added .4oz crushed coriander seed 5min before end of boil.
- Added 1.5oz clementine peel at flameout. Removed both with a strainer around time the wort hit 100F in its ice bath.
- I’m planning to dry hop once primary fermentation is done, using 1oz of whole leaf Chinook hops I found at the farmer’s market today.
Probably messed something up, but hey, that’s learning! Thanks for all the tips, everyone, will keep updated as to progress.
You shouldn’t think you did something wrong. Just brew and enjoy, then look to tweak it if you feel it needs it! Don’t be afraid to think you got one right! Perhaps it is good, now, go to the next one… RDWHAHB Sneezles61
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Well, I had no airlock activity after two days, so I cracked it open to have a look. Seems like there’s at least some krausen and it smells like beer. Just gonna leave it alone for 2 weeks and check gravity then.
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Took a gravity reading just now (1 week in). 1.004, with a starting gravity of 1.042. So 5%? And that’s pretty dry, right?
It tastes good. A little fruity, but pretty clean. No off flavors. Body is pretty thin.
Gonna add some Chinook for a few days and then bottle, I guess!
Take another SG reading in two or three days. Your beer may have a couple more points to drop before the fermentation is finished. Was your SG sample cloudy? Bottling too soon will put extra sediment and yeast into the bottles. Less clear beer to pour out. My 5 gallon beers are usually in the primary for three weeks unless I use a yeast that drops out quickly.
Oh, I’m definitely not bottling for another week or so. Sorry if that wasn’t clear in the original message. (Planning on next Saturday.) And yeah, it was cloudy.
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What was the temperature of your wort during fermentation? That’s 90% apparent attenuation. Pretty high even for that yeast.
The first few days the temp was more or less unknown; my house thermostat was set to 70F but I don’t feel like it was actually that warm. There wasn’t much airlock activity to speak of.
I was worried it wasn’t warm enough, so I moved it to a water bath that I’m controlling with my sous vide wand. Started at 68F and I’ve been raising it by 1F per day since. There was a lot of airlock activity around 69-71F. It’s currently at 73F, and my plan is to take it to 75F and park it there until bottling.
