I have never brewed a Saison but would like to. Please offer any feedback for those who have brewed the style. Also- what fermentation temp do you recommend?
2 row Pilsner- 20%
White Wheat- 14%
Caramunich- 5%
Flaked Oats- 5%
Mash at 148 for 60 min.
Extra Light DME- 45%
Honey- (5min)- 10%
Sorachi Ace- FWH- 22ibus
Fuggles- 30 min- 6ibus
Fuggles- 15 min- 7ibus
1.5 tsp- seeds of paradise crushed- 5 min
Wyeast- French Saison.
OG- 1.062
FG- 1.005
Way too big for my tastes, that’ll come in around 7.5%ABV. I find that saisons are best as session beers. Fermentation temp: pitch low, let it rise/ramp as high as it wants.
I feel like you can get by with 2-3oz of caramunich. I did a cransaison for xmas this year, and went up to 3/4 lb of cara, only to balance out the tartness. I bottled a bit of the base beer, and it was good, just not great. I like my saisons real dry.
I think if you dialed this beer back to 6%ish abv it would be very good. Also, 3711 kicks off some great esters/phenols if you pitch in the mid-high 60’s and ramp up slowly and finish in the mid-70’s. Probably don’t need the grains of paradise, unless you REALLY want that flavor and can’t live without it. The great thing about saison yeasts is they give off great ‘suggestions’ of the spices, and IMHO, you don’t need to make actual spice additions.
Also, omit the honey or other simple sugar on brew day. Instead, get your fermentation going, boil up a few cups of water (around day 3 or so), cool it in an ice bath, and as its cooling, add the honey to that water. Once it gets down into the 60’s, add that to your fermenter. This will ensure (1) the yeasts eat the complex sugars first and not get ‘lazy’ and (2) since the yeast will be active, there will be minimal opportunity if any for bugs/wild yeast to take hold from the honey addition.
Recipe looks great to my palette otherwise though. Love the Sorachi FWH idea.
