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Brewing Method: Partial Mash – Stovetop Method
Batch Size: 5.5 gallons
7lbs LME (3.5lbs 60 minutes, 3.5lbs 15 minutes late addition)
2lbs German Pilsen
.75lbs Munich
.5lbs Flaked Red Wheat
1lb table sugar (added after primary fermentation)
1.5oz Saaz 3.9% 60 minutes
1oz Saaz 3.9% 15 minutes
.5oz Saaz 3.9% 5 minutes
.4oz Sweet Orange Peel 5 minutes
2gm crushed Grains of Paradise 5 minutes
1/4 tablet Whirlfloc 5 minutes
1/2tsp Wyeast Yeast Nutrient 5 minutes
Yeast: Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison
Estimated OG: 1.066 (including table sugar)
Estimated FG: This can vary a lot, but you want to get as close to 1.000 as you can. Since I’m using extract I expect to get to 1.005-1.008.
Estimated ABV after bottle conditioning: 7.9%
Bring 4qt of water to 161F. Combine Pilsen, Munich and Flaked Wheat in grain bag and add to water bringing it to 150F. Hold grain at 150F for 60 minutes. This is a lower mash temp, but you want this beer to dry out as much as possible. Bring a couple gallons of water up to 170F in your brew kettle. After 60 minutes drain grain and then dunk grain bag in brew kettle water to rinse. Soak for 5-10 minutes then discard grain. Add wort from mash kettle and brew as normal. Since I’m doing a partial boil I like to add half the LME at the beginning and the rest with 15 minutes on the boil. This keeps the color lighter and keeps hop utilization higher. I make 5.5 gallon batches so I can get a clean 5 gallons of beer off the trub for a full two case batch. When I make 5 gallon batches I find myself digging down into the trub to try to get every last ounce of beer and I end up getting too much trub in my bottling bucket. Saison is typically a smaller beer and you can get plenty of flavor from the yeast alone. Since this is a pretty big Saison I added orange peel and grains of paradise to pump the flavor up a little bit. I used modest amounts of both so I hope they only add slight background flavor and the yeast is still center stage.
Ferment at room temp 74F-78F When primary fermentation slows in 4-5 days add 1lb table sugar. Use just enough boiled water to dissolve the sugar. You want to add the table sugar late in fermentation because if sucrose (table sugar) is available early in fermentation then the yeast will eat that first. When this happens the yeast modify themselves and are unable to eat the more complex sugars from the malt.
I’m on a tight schedule with this Saison because I want to enter it in a local homebrew competition with a September 11 deadline for entries. This will give me 4 weeks in primary and 3 weeks in the bottle. This yeast can go dormant if the temps aren’t high enough. If it doesn’t dry out enough I may add some wine yeast after two weeks.
One final note, you could easily tailor this recipe to a lighter beer by backing off the LME and lightening the hop schedule a bit.
Hopefully this turns out well enough and I can submit it to my first homebrew competition!
Update 8/21/10
I bottled today so I could get three weeks of bottle conditioning before the competition. I used 5oz of dextrose in exactly 5 gallons of beer so it will be bubbly like a Saison should be. Final gravity is 1.008 for a final ABV of 8.25% after the bottling sugar. This is one big beer, but the sample doesn’t taste of strong alcohol. I’m kind of happy it didn’t get any drier so I can have a little bit of malt to balance out the alcohol. I’m going to guess this one will sneak up on you in a big way. 3 weeks until I can tell if it’s a good recipe, can’t wait!
