Saison #1

A while back I decided I would have a bash at making a saison. I can't say I've got a great deal of knowledge on the style, but I've liked the ones I've tried. Not having much of a background to draw on, I found a recipe online and decided to use that.

The recipe can be found here on the wiki for the American Homebrewers Association. It very helpfully pulls together all the prize-winning recipes from their national homebrew competition. It's a great resource because they are proven recipes and so logically, if you don't get great beer it's you, not the recipe! 

However, I decided to use a different yeast, and I altered some of the quantities, which you might say defeats the object! But anyway, here's the recipe I ended up brewing:

Ingredients

Amt Name Type # %/IBU 3.40 kg Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (3.9 EBC) Grain 1 70.8 % 1.15 kg Munich Malt - 10L (19.7 EBC) Grain 2 24.0 % 30.00 g Bobek 2011 [5.17 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 3 20.2 IBUs 1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 4 - 15.00 g Bobek 2011 [5.17 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 5 2.7 IBUs 4.00 g Ginger Root (Boil 5.0 mins) Herb 6 - 15.00 Peppercorns (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 7 - 1.00 tbsp Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 8 - Red Grapefruit peel (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 9 - 20.00 g Willamette [6.30 %] - Aroma Steep 0.0 min Hop 10 0.0 IBUs 1.0 pkg French Saison (Wyeast Labs #3711) [50.28 ml] Yeast 11 - 0.25 kg Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (2.0 EBC) Sugar 12 5.2 %

I wanted to use Wyeast 3711 for another couple of saison recipes I had, so I decided to use it here as well, rather than WLP565. I wanted something a bit fresher and fruitier. I added the sugar in after four days, when the ferment had passed it's peak.

I was initially quite disappointed by how this turned out. There was some yeast character to it, but there was a dry aftertaste and a bit of sharpness to it. The yeast also fermented it down to 1.004, so it's dry as hell, which might account for some of the sharpness. The body is better than you would expect for a beer with such a low S.G. I didn't really get much character from the spices and fruit I put in.

On balance, I think I would be better trying this recipe with the WLP565 strain, as I think it would work better with the flavours. There is a slight cidery-ness to the beer that I think is coming from the sugar addition. I would try this recipe again with that yeast though.

I'm going to leave the beer to condition for a couple of months before I write off this experiment, though, as I have noticed an improvement over the few weeks that it's been bottled. It'll be interesting to see how it ages.

An update on the belgian

Despite my previous concerns about the belgian tripel I decided to stick with it and give it some more time. The general concensus of the people I asked at brew-club, was that the off flavours I didn't like were probably caused by stressed yeast. I think I may have under-pitched or something. If that's the case it could be that the yeast will clean up the beer and it'll taste better in time. Fingers crossed anyway.

So I bottled the beer in the small belgian beer bottles I had and boxed them up ready for storage. With such a strong beer I should probably allow it a good few months to condition properly anyway. I think I was just a bit impatient.

I bottled my American IPA #2 at the same time, which means the kitchen is now full of beer!

The first couple I tried in the first few weeks didn't taste great. Quite a few of what I would call off-flavours. Not very descriptive I know. There was a dry, bitter finish to the beer with some astringency. The worst part though, was the fact it gave me an instant headache! Kind of like sniffing marker pens at school, which I'm guessing is caused by higher alcohols in the beer. This hasn't given me much hope for the future, but it is interesting to see how the conditioning process rounds off the flavours.

Well, it looks nice at least! (Pardon the miller glass)

Happily, the most recent bottle of this that I opened didn't give me an instant headache! It's also carbonated more than the earlier tasters. I think this helps 'lift' the flavour of the beer, making it seem less sweet and stodgy. While I think this still has a little way to go to become a good beer, it is at least heading in that direction.