Challenger in a Saison?

[WatsonBrau]

Hey all,

I was thinking about doing a SMaSH Saison with Pilsner and Sorachi Ace to make a nice summer beer.

I've got a bunch of Challenger left over from my last Milk Stout and I was wondering if adding it as a bittering hop would give me better results?

Cheers!

 

[Scrattajack]

How long's the boil?

 

[Oneflewover]

Challenger is a hop that is very much underrated in my opinion for English ales. Think it'll be fine for bittering in a saison. Personally I use magnum as it's cheap and gives a clean smooth bittering that I like in a saison, but I'm not convinced that the bittering hops make that much difference anyway

 

[WatsonBrau]

How long's the boil?

60 mins

 

[Scrattajack]

Yeah, it'll be good.

Often wondered about bittering hops and why not go with the highest AA content to get the job done with the lowest outlay. Some stuff about the harshness and all that but why use Saaz for bittering? Sounds odd. And expensive. There's a guy on a podcast, might be By The Mash Tun, who only uses one hop for bittering. Admiral, I think.

 

[Oneflewover]

Yeah, it'll be good.

Often wondered about bittering hops and why not go with the highest AA content to get the job done with the lowest outlay. Some stuff about the harshness and all that but why use Saaz for bittering? Sounds odd. And expensive. There's a guy on a podcast, might be By The Mash Tun, who only uses one hop for bittering. Admiral, I think.

I use either magnum or challenger for bittering pretty much everything.

 

[Brew_DD2]

Yeah, it'll be good.

Often wondered about bittering hops and why not go with the highest AA content to get the job done with the lowest outlay. Some stuff about the harshness and all that but why use Saaz for bittering? Sounds odd. And expensive. There's a guy on a podcast, might be By The Mash Tun, who only uses one hop for bittering. Admiral, I think.

There's some good stuff in the book "The New IPA" that challenges the assertion that bittering hops don't lend flavour. Really quite interesting.

 

[chthon]

Belgian saisons were brewed with anything available, so you can do your worst :-p

 

[chthon]

There's some good stuff in the book "The New IPA" that challenges the assertion that bittering hopes don't lend flavour. Really quite interesting.

I see this book is from 2019. Jacques from the Dutch homebrew forum has asserted this for far longer.

 

[Brew_DD2]

I see this book is from 2019. Jacques from the Dutch homebrew forum has asserted this for far longer.

There's some really good data on it in the book. Worth a read if that's your thing.

 

[Hanglow]

You can hop a pilsner at 50minutes say with just one hop and get appreciable levels of hop flavour and aroma. Early additions can certainly get drowned out by later ones though

 

[WatsonBrau]

Challenger is a hop that is very much underrated in my opinion for English ales. Think it'll be fine for bittering in a saison. Personally I use magnum as it's cheap and gives a clean smooth bittering that I like in a saison, but I'm not convinced that the bittering hops make that much difference anyway

Yeah I use challenger and EKG in my stout and it comes out really well. I'll use it and see what happens.