Educate me about Saison

[Honk]

It's not a beer I had tried before but because it gets so many mentions on homebrew forums i thought I would have a try at one, so I ordered a recipe pack (as per Greg Hughes recipe).
Just after ordering the pack i was out in a brewdog pub and tried a Saison they had on Draught, it was ok but I decided I wasn't a big fan of Saisons but as I had the ingredients decided to brew it anyway,
I added some bitter orange at end of boil and kept the fermentation temperatures towards the lower end of recommended range to try to subdue some of the 'saisony' flavours. Yeast was a dried saison yeast not sure which one, I may look it up later.
At about 5 weeks (Greg Hughes ready to drink suggestion) it wasn't too bad, I definitely preferred it to the brewdog version i had tried but as it aged i went off it and decided I definitely wasn't a fan of saison yeast flavours and it has been sat out in my garage in a corny keg for about 6 months now.
So I sampled it earlier today and it is much improved. The yeast flavour has subdued and the beer has a sharpness to it that I really like.

I know traditionally saisons were brewed in the off season and aged till the summer, what are other people's experience? I liked it young and like it again now, it was the bit in between i wasnt keen on and which could of led to a drain pour if i had needed the keg.

 

[Clint]

I too followed the GH for my first AG Saison having only previously done the Young's kit which I liked.
Mines been bottled a couple of months and has definitely turned the corner...I wasn't sure to start but it's now very drinkable.

 

[Glitchy]

I was the same, a little intrigued by how it would turn out, tried a silly saison which tasted great, problem is that one saison can taste dramatically different from another. I've just brewed the tellicherry saison from the homebrew company, I'm guessing it should taste peppery by the name but first taste was more like a white wine. I tried it on Friday and it had cleared nicely and tasted great, no pepper though!

 

[Cwrw666]

My only commercial saison was a pint of `smoked farmhouse saison' at Pipes brewery in Cardiff. I really liked it so I have made several in the last couple of years. First was the Biere de Garde recipe out of GH - very nice. Then I did a smokey version - also very nice. Since then I've done several darker versions and also changed the hops. To be honest, the dominant flavour comes from the yeast - slightly spicey (cloves) with a strong banana flavour coming through. I wouldn't want to drink it every day but do like it occasionally.
Yeasts I've used is a Wyeast French saison smack-pack, and dried Safale BE-134 Belgian Saison. They both taste the same.

 

[brewhaha]

I find that lower ABV saisons are more mellow. My last 2 homebrewed have been 3 & 2.6% & I find they aren't as "in your face" as say a Saison Dupont.

Yeast wise I've used Wyeast French Saison & CML Lille Saison (dry) that have been quite mellow & Lallemand Belle Saison (dry) that gave a lot of phenolic flavour (although I did brew that one at around 27C).

It's definitely a style I enjoy though & one I always want a stock of. The yeast profile adds depth to lower ABV beers as well which means I can still have a couple of good tasting beers without worrying about if the kiddo wakes me up in the night!

 

[Grealish]

Brew James Morton”s recipe. Probably my favourite beer.

 

[Thos]

Like all Belgian beers, never drink it by the pint. A 33cl glass brings out the aroma and shows the colour. And always pour in the yeast.

 

[Hoddy]

The best French Saison yeast to use is 3711 from wyeast. If you can avoid the dried yeast, they can be terribly cardboard like in their flavour profile and I’ve never found one that gives a true flavour or aroma profile.

A great Belgian Saison to use is wlp565 but you need to match the grain bill to the style otherwise it just doesn’t work.

Whereas the 3711 works with anything from a pure Pilsner malt bill to something way more complicated.

I personally love a farmhouse Saison with no orange peel and cardamon or anything crazy like that.

But a healthy whirlpool and dry hop with a aromatic American hop. Say a 3711 with a MO base and a nugget or a Columbus/CTZ hop profile of 20 IBU’s and a 50g dry hop in a 20L batch.

 

[Oneflewover]

It's a style that I brew again and again. Totally agree with Hoddy about use of a liquid yeast Vs dried, and how good Wyeast 3711 is (strange Steve put me onto that :thumba:). I also have often paired with an American hop in the main, Citra generally, but am planning to use Nelson Sauvin for aroma next time.

 

[AdeDunn]

Only commercial one I've tried is probably not the best example of the style, been Brewdog Electric India. Used to be delicious though, dry and fruity. Had one the other day though, and boy has it changed! It's now a bit sweet, and tastes of hot break and gooseberries.... Only just drinkable....

It's one of the main styles I brew in the warmer months. So far I've tried Belle Saison, Mangrove Jack's M29 French Saison, CML Saison De Lille and Fermentis BE-134. The one brewed with BE-134 was nasty, even after months of conditioning, it went down the drain. I used too much Jester to hop it for one, which gave a strong onion flavour, and not a fan of the flavours from that particular yeast either. The CML yeast was ok, but didn't attenuate as well as I expected, probably needed to be fermented a lot warmer. Belle Saison ferments like a beast, giving a very dry Saison but with a good mouth feel still, but didn't seem to give much in the way of esters or phenols... M29 WAS my favourite of the lot, attenuating well, and giving a nice honey and lemon flavour, especially when you use a good quality honey in the last 5 minutes of the boil (Scottish heather honey for the win there!). I say was, as my plans for the future will be to use liquid yeasts, most especially Kveik strains. Dried yeasts just don't do it for me any more. Only liquid yeast I've used so far is Yeast Bay Sigmund's Voss Kveik, across multiple brews, and every single one has come out spot on.

Like Oneflewover, I'm also a fan of using US and also New World hops in my Saisons. Some of my best were made with Amarillo and/or Mosaic. I've used Citra and Nelson Sauvin with good results too. I've never actually brewed one in the "traditional" way to be honest, with Saaz or EKG or the like.

As to grain bill, I've found you can get really good results with a good Belgian pilsner malt, a bit of pale (I do this to darken the colour a bit more), bit of wheat malt (I've had to use torrefied wheat a few times has had no wheat malt, and that worked ok too) and a nice bit of Munich (I put Munich in pretty much everything I brew to give complexity, without adding too much sweetness...). I've found that it's all about the hops, and the temperature I ferment at, rather than the grist.

 

[Covrich]

I am normally a big advocate for liquid yeasts for this style, taht being said I found belle saison pretty good dry alternative.. I did a lemon drop saison and brewed it at 28-30 and it was lovely.

I think the style is a little marmite

 

[MickDundee]

I used the MJ one in the summer and loved it, as did my homebrew-skeptic friend who lived in Belgium for 2 years so should know his beer.

I entered it in the Welsh Homebrew compared but only scored 25 - I got maximum marks for appearance (the yeast dropped well and head retention was superb) but was marked down because they said the yeast was stressed (I thought that was the whole point of a Saison?) so I maybe should have rehydrated (which I always do now anyway) or started the temp low and ramped it up. They also marked down because it wasn’t “Crisp” enough but I think that was probably the grain bill rather than the yeast.

 

[divrack]

I have to say one of the best Beers in the world is Saison Dupont. Simple and elegant. I think they use 100 percent pilsner, but possibly not.
As stated above you can make a great one with new world hops. Particularly for me centennial with Nelson goes great with Belgian Saison 1.
If you want to go more adventurous any of the diastaticus strains go well with herbs and the like, such as french Saison.

Essentially though it's a farmhouse style so by definition you can play pretty loose.
A bit of wheat doesn't hurt

 

[Ajhutch]

Do folks harvest and repitch the Saison strains? I read that this shouldnt be done with a hefeweizen strain as the yeast character wouldn’t present itself properly in a repitch. Knowing that Saison is a yeast-forward style prompts my question.

I’ve just set a cold crash on my first ever “Saison yeast fermented beer” which is a small batch with a non traditional grain bill and honey, so not really possible to call it a Saison. I used the MJ yeast and it definitely has all the right characteristics.

 

[Oneflewover]

Do folks harvest and repitch the Saison strains? I read that this shouldnt be done with a hefeweizen strain as the yeast character wouldn’t present itself properly in a repitch. Knowing that Saison is a yeast-forward style prompts my question.

I’ve just set a cold crash on my first ever “Saison yeast fermented beer” which is a small batch with a non traditional grain bill and honey, so not really possible to call it a Saison. I used the MJ yeast and it definitely has all the right characteristics.

I've repitched WY3711 and made a fine beer. I used a more complex grain bill, and fermented at the lower end of the temp range so it was less 'saison-y' than the first beer. You can tell it's fermented with 3711 though.

 

[Hoddy]

Do folks harvest and repitch the Saison strains? I read that this shouldnt be done with a hefeweizen strain as the yeast character wouldn’t present itself properly in a repitch. Knowing that Saison is a yeast-forward style prompts my question.

I’ve just set a cold crash on my first ever “Saison yeast fermented beer” which is a small batch with a non traditional grain bill and honey, so not really possible to call it a Saison. I used the MJ yeast and it definitely has all the right characteristics.

I always save, wash and make a starter with reused 3711 yeast. I’ve gone 7 or 8 generation of it. As long as you follow good practises there is no reason why you couldn’t do the same.

 

[dad_of_jon]

I brew my saisons at around 28 and they are funky - a bit hard going for the first few months but after 6+ months are delicious. The MJ yeast gets my vote ( I've tried all the dried saison yeasts) the lallemand yeast was more peppery but still acceptable.

 

[Cwrw666]

I've re-used trub from BE-134 for a second batch and it's always turned out as good as the first.
I rather like the banana funky flavours. If you don't have them I can't see much point in saison. Might as well just make an ordinary pale ale...

 

[Zephyr259]

My saison was based on the recipe from Farmhouse Ales, Pale malt with 12% Munich II and 6% Malted Wheat, bittered with EKG then combo of EKG and Saaz for flavour and aroma, fermented with Wyeast 3726 Farmhouse Ale (Blaugies strain), 6.3% abv, 25 IBU.

Young it has a great floral/herbal hop character and a really fruity yeast flavour (pineapple), then after 4 months the hops faded and the yeast went really spicy, bit like a tripel. Maybe it was warming spring temperature or a slow burn on the diastaticus component of the yeast but it suddenly carbonated a lot more at the 4 - 6 month mark, to the point of gushing if I didn't cool it right down before pouring and even then I had to be careful and over the sink. The high carb worked great though, the original 2.5 vol was good but more was better.

I've just brewed with this yeast again so we'll see how it turns out, might need a bit more ageing as this one should end up in the 8 - 9% range.

 

[Metacomet]

I love a good Saison but have only tried to brew 1 so far, it didn't turn out brilliantly so I'm going to leave the few bottles I have left to condition. I'll use a liquid yeast next time.

Get yourself a bottle of Saison Dupont if you wan to try the best example of this style. It's very easily found on websites and bottle shops or in a good pub.
Despite being a huge fan of cask ales, I would probably call Dupont one of my favourite beers; if not THE favourite, which if you'd told me would be the case a year ago before I had tried it, I would have laughed at you.