Brewday: Brown Saison

Every once in a while, I get a hankering for something a little bit different than I might normally brew. But, then again, I wouldn't exactly describe my taste in homebrews as "normal." So, my mood of the moment spans two very different styles: low-gravity, sessionable, English-style, milds and bitters; and, Belgian, farmhouse saisons. I will, likely, cover the former in another post, but today I review a brown saison I brewed this past Sunday.

I won't get into the history of the style in great detail, but suffice it to say that, in general, saisons originated in the Wallonian, French-speaking, region of southern Belgium as a fortifying beverage brewed for and consumed by farm workers. It was brewed with a variety of grains and adjuncts, including sugar, and is traditionally a dry, low-alcohol beer with considerable yeast character. Today, although most iterations fall within the 5.5% - 6.5% ABV range, commercial saisons extend from 3.5% all the way up to 9% ABV. The version in the recipe below falls in the 5.0 - 6.0% range. You may be wondering (if you've read ahead) how a 1.070 OG wort will only yield a beer in the 5-6% ABV range. That's a great question. Here's the answer: When I split the batch, rather than pitching only the solid yeast at the bottom of my Mason jars, I pitched everything liquid and all. This diluted my wort some, but I also added an additional quart of juice (which is mostly water) to one half of the batch. These actions reduced the OG's to 1.058 (no juice) and 1.055 (w/ juice) respectively. Oh well, moving on...

Although saisons are not usually my favorite beers, I have had some that were quite enjoyable. I often find them more enjoyable when they are drier and focus more on the peppery yeast character than some of the other fruity esthers or spicy (clove) phenolics. What I did to try to achieve this goal was to grow up yeast from the bottle dregs of two different commercial saisons that I enjoy: Upright Brewing Company's Flora Rustica Saison, and Revolution Brewing Company's Coup d'Etat Saison. This technique can be accomplished fairly easily by making a yeast starter from malt extract. I put mine on a homemade stir plate that continuously aerates the starter for optimum yeast health. Because this beer is currently fermenting and I have not yet tasted it, I do not know exactly what my saison blend will lend to the finished beer. Tasting notes will likely be the subject of a future post. Anyway, here's the recipe and pictures from the brewday.

Brown Saison - all-grain (based on 75% extract efficiency):
Batch size: 5.0 gallons
OG: 1.070
IBUs: 29.4

Grist:
5.25# Pale Malt (Ger.)  40%
4.75# White Wheat Malt  37%
1.00# Old-fashioned Rolled Oats  ~8%
0.75# Cara-pils  ~6%
0.75# Special B Malt ~6%
0.50# Acidulated Malt  ~4%

Hops:
60 min - 1.50 oz. Styrian Goldings (5.40%)
15 min - 0.50 oz. Styrian Goldings (5.40%)
I had originally planned a dry-hopping addition (1 oz. Styrian Goldings 5.4%, 7 days), but have since decided against it so as not to overpower the malt. I was going for a more malty beer with this saison, as demonstrated by my relatively high mash temperature. But, as always, be fermentive!

Yeast:
My Saison blend yeast culture (or any belgian/saison yeast you prefer; here is some info: Wyeast Labs, White Labs, Lallemand Danstar)

Procedure:
Mash at 153F for 45 minutes. Mashout at 168F for 10 minutes. If I had it to do over again, I might have mashed a bit cooler (~150F) to encourage a drier beer. But, as I said, I've not tasted this yet, so it might be fabulous. YMMV (your mileage may vary). I also might not have done a mashout step so as not to limit the fermentability of the wort prematurely.

Pics:

Vorlauf

Vorlauf, cont.

Saison yeast blend

"And we're mashing...and we're mashing." -Jeremy King, BrewingTV

Wort collection

Lovely, clear wort

An absolutely gorgeous day for brewing

Rolling boil

Enjoyed a double IPA

Cooling the wort. I never use a thermometer during this step anymore because 10 minutes is always more than enough time using this IWC. However, my need to do things differently led me to this design. Btw, Don O., of donosborn and BrewingTV fame, is a great repository of homebrewing knowledge. Go there, learn, be fermentive!

...still cooling

My rotund silhouette with a hat on. It was sunny and I'm not getting skin cancer if I can help it.

I split the batch and added this to half

Notice the color difference between no juice (left) and juice (right), and the weird coagulation happening. I'm sure it's fine. I've seen worse and tasted better.

No juice, close-up

With juice, close-up

Test jar sample of w/ juice. Hey, there's me in the reflection!

I hope you've enjoyed these pictures, but I hope even more that you try my recipe and let me know what you think, what changes you made, and how it goes. And, as always, Be Fermentive!