First saison recipe

Nicks90 · Oct 18, 2020

I've never done a saison before, in fact I've only ever tried commercial saisons a couple of times and I'm not hugely convinced... But that's not stopping me having a go at one.

Before I put grain to water, can those in the know advise me if this will 'work' and make a sort of saison type ale?
15l brew
Grain
2kg pilsner malt
1kg wheat malt
Hops
Huell melon for early and late hops
Yeast
11g Danstar belle saison

I'm aiming for 5% session beer and will be looking at pitching at a moderately high 20c and then letting the yeast get on with it and free climb to whatever it reaches. Once at its peak, I'll wrap the fv up nice and snug so that the temp fall is very slow and gradual to prevent it sticking and fully attenuate.

Criticism happily accepted, as I know saison is a wide church with many variables!

Edited to add, if covid doesn't ruin my week away in the caravan, this will be getting approx 3 weeks in the fv to try and fully attenuate down to 1.000 or thereabouts.

dwhite60 · Oct 19, 2020

I've never had Belle Saison "stick". Apparently there are some saison strains that ARE prone to sticking but not Belle Saison.

Also, I've had this go below 1.000 before in less than two weeks. It's a beast.

MickDundee · Oct 19, 2020

What’s your efficiency like? Unless you are sub-65% you’re likely to have a beer a fair bit stronger than 5%ABV in 15L. Belle Saison is a beast.

Nicks90 · Oct 19, 2020

I'm usually running about 70%, so I may up the volume to do a 17 or 18l batch then, just to keep it at a sensible abv.
So does the recipe and hop combo sound ok?

Zephyr259 · Oct 19, 2020

Grist and hops look good, never used Belle Saison but I believe it ferments well and tastes decent.

I prefer to pitch my saisons and belgians low and let them rise slowly, 20c is probably fine but I wouldn't let it ramp too soon. I keep mine 18 - 20c for 3 days then rise to about 22 - 24c at about 1c per day, if it's a high gravity saison then I might pitch down at 16c to make sure I don't get fusels. This is a practice that I got from Drew Beecham of Experiemental Brewing.

If your curious about the style here's a link to Drew's article where he discusses it a bit and gives some recipes. It's a bit older now but still an interesting read. Just have to watch as most of his beers are over 7% due to saison strains attenuating so highly.

strange-steve · Oct 19, 2020

Zephyr259 said:
I prefer to pitch my saisons and belgians low and let them rise slowly, 20c is probably fine but I wouldn't let it ramp too soon

This 100%. Some people seem to think you need to ferment saison in an oven rather than a fridge, but a cool, controlled fermentation will give much better flavours.

Regarding the yeast, I recently used Belle Saison for the first time and am very impressed with it. But beware it hit 97% attenuation, 1.060 to 1.002!