Christmas already?! Dark saison festive beer.

[sven945]

I made a Christmas brew last year that was a bit rubbish due to my lack of experience (it was called Bad Santa from BYO magazine, but I subbed in different hops with a much lower AA rating, but I didn't add more to compensate, so it was just very sweet with nothing to balance it out). I quite fancy making a dark saison this year, although it may be more a cross between a saison and a dubbel.

Here's what I've got so far:

12 litres
2.5kg lager malt (77%)
250g wheat malt (7.7%)
350g homemade dark candi syrup (10.8%)
150g DRC malt (4.6%).

30g hallertau hersbrucker @ 90 minutes
20g hallertau hersbrucker @ 20 minutes

33 IBUs, aiming for 1063 OG, BeerSmith estimates 1007 FG, and I'd probably mash high because I've not had a saison yeast that hasn't given me more than 1002, and this might benefit from being slightly sweeter than that!

Any thoughts on this?

 

[Zephyr259]

Looks good from the standpoint of being a dubbel, I've not any brewing experience of saison yet. Your recipe is not very far off my Belgian brunette which was 67% Lager, 22% Wheat, 11% homemade candi syrup, bittered to 32 IBUs with Styrian Goldings. Biggest difference is I hit 1.082 OG and used Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes as I was aiming for what is essentially a dark strong ale.

Mine's only been fermenting a week so it's going to be a while before I know how it's turned out but the wort tasted amazing. I could see the spicey saison character going well with this wort.

Have you used homemade syrup before? What method do you use and have you had any issues with it being unfermentable?

 

[sven945]

Cheers, it's similar to a dubbel that I made (although I didn't use the DRC malt in that. I'm in two minds about whether to include that, but I'd have to up the candi syrup to 15% to make up for that, which would be fine for a dubbel but might be too much for a saison).

I used homemade syrup in my dubbel and it was pretty fermentable. WLP530 brought it down to 1008, and I mashed at 68.5ºC. I followed the instructions here, cooked for 90 minutes. Though I might try cooking it for 2 hours if I can bear to stand in the kitchen staring at a thermometer for that long.

 

[sven945]

Oh, I missed something important, I'll be fermenting it with WLP566 Belgian Saison II yeast, because I've got it in the fridge.

 

[Zephyr259]

Ah cool so your syrup is the straight caramelised invert sugar, I use some DAP (yeast nutrient) in mine which makes it colour a lot faster due to maillard reactions, I'm not sure I have the patience to sit and boil sugar for 2 hrs adding a tablespoon of water every 5 mins.

I've was reading Farmhouse Ales last night on the brewing saison section and this seems pretty fair malt and hop wise, the crystal and sugar are unusual but the whole point is you want a dark saison (sounds yummy), what were you thinking with regards to a mash temp? The usual lower temp so the beer drys out?

 

[sven945]

I'll make sure I pick a day when there's cricket on and I'll be fine stirring for a few hours!

My last saison with this yeast was mashed slightly too high at 68ºC and ended up at 1002 so I'll probably do the same with this one. I suspect the dark malt (and perhaps the dark candi sugar?) might have some unfermentables so it might end up a touch higher than that, which would probably be beneficial for the Christmas style.

I might add some orange peel to the boil, maybe (if I'm feeling daring) a tiny hint of ginger too, but that might be going a bit too far when I'm experimenting with the fermentables too.

 

[Zephyr259]

Sounds tasty with the orange and ginger as long as they are subtle. Farmhouse Ales recommends 0.5 - 1.2 grams per 19L batch for ginger and 5 - 10 g/19L for sweet oranage; these ranges are from barely detectable to noticeable.

That's an aggressive yeast, I know saison yeasts get really low but doing that with a high mash temp is impressive. How long did it take to get that low last time?

 

[sven945]

Sounds tasty with the orange and ginger as long as they are subtle. Farmhouse Ales recommends 0.5 - 1.2 grams per 19L batch for ginger and 5 - 10 g/19L for sweet oranage; these ranges are from barely detectable to noticeable.

That's an aggressive yeast, I know saison yeasts get really low but doing that with a high mash temp is impressive. How long did it take to get that low last time?

I should have another skim read of that book before I decide exactly what to do. Thanks for the recommendations on quantities of the spices.

It took 12 days to ferment that low, it was down to 1004 after a week!

 

[Zephyr259]

That's pretty quick for a saison yeast as far as I've heard. Ah cool, you have a copy of the book too, I've been reading my way through it so all the info is fresh in my mind and to hand. :-) Good book, easily as good as brew like a monk, i'm just starting wild brews now.