Strangest thing you've put in a Saison

D-180 syrup. (Insane, I know.) For the most part though, I think Saison is a style that doesn't need to be messed with to be interesting.

 

I agree with this for the most part. When I use spices, which is not too often, I keep them very minimal. My standard saison uses a mix of Sacc. and Brett without any spicing or fruit. When I add fruit, a lot of the times I'm packing saison as a base because it provides a way to get the beer really dry and it does so quickly. Ultimately, it depends on the end goal.

 

Thimbleberries, bilberries, rooibos, pinot noir soaked oak chips.

 

I agree. My go-to recipe is pils, wheat, goldings, and WLP565. Can't go wrong there. If I get a wild hair I add or substitute one ingredient (wheat for rye, goldings for sorachi ace).

 

What did you use the rooibos for? Every time I have rooibos I think that it would be interesting in a beer. I had thought maybe an amber autumn saison with it, sticking with a yeast/fermentation profile that would emphasize slight phenolics and earthiness without many esters.

 

I don't look to saison as a vehicle for strange ingredients. Mostly I look to this style for the interesting yeast. Perhaps that is because I have a deep fondness for Saison DuPont (I recently had Swamp Head Saison du Swamp and thought it was awesome, too). I have always used a mostly 2-row pilsner grist, sometimes with something rustic like rye, or spelt, sometimes with some sugar. I might have used a homemade candi sugar once or twice, and once I used the American farmhouse blend, which has a brett strain -- that beer featured some raw spelt too, which makes it the craziest saison I ever made.

 

I totally agree on that approach, Saison is not the best beer platform form wild ingredients. But that's the beauty in homebrewing you can try any idea.

 

Goat's whey added to the mash of a 60% pils 36% spelt malt 4% melanoidin. lavender, grains of paradise, and coriander added at the end of boil. rose and orange blossom waters added at bottling.

 

I'm kegging up 10 gallons of an all Mosaic hopped Saison fermented with 3711 tomorrow - one keg will be "regular" and one keg will receive a massive dose of freshly juiced blood orange and tangerine juice. I also have a Beaujolais barrel that is currently housing a Saison brewed with Amarillo and Citra that received a decent amount of Meyer lemon and clementine juice and zest during whirlpool.....it's about time to bottle that little lady up with some brett c.

 

I can't speak to your mental health, but what does black walnut extract taste like? I've tried black walnuts before, they are very bitter, an extract would probably be even more bitter.
Aside, why do you have black walnut extract? The only practical thing I've used black walnuts for was to make stain for wood. Other than that I leave them for the squirrels.

 

Black walnuts are great for baking, the bitterness cuts through the sweetness of traditional American desserts. They also have a deeper, more assertive nuttiness. They are a pain to get out of the shell, though.

This beer was ok, the nuttiness wasn't as bold as I had hoped, but then again, it could very easily become too much:
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/25888/75797/

 

Brewed a Kumquat Saison this past weekend. Used solely nelson in the boil and I intend on dry hopping with Nelson as well. Currently fermenting with 3711. I'm pretty excited for it.

 

I'm not a very adventurous brewer but have enjoyed 3711 w/ tropical hops. I haven't enjoyed many uses of 3711 as straight up saisons or with "crazy" additions but I haven't tried it myself yet.

 

Sour patch kids. No lie

 

That sounds like it could be nice. Rooibos is supposedly an herb and not a tea, and I've read that it's supposed to be boiled and not steeped when brewing a tea. I added it post fermentation but thought it was too subtle. If I did it again I would add it toward the end of the boil and then remove it at flameout.

 

how many, was it

 

Did the "sour" in the sugar come through?

 

A Lime Smoked Pumpkin Cranberry Brett Winter Spiced Saison ain't nothing to fuck with!

 

If he used enough of them, it should have. Sour Patch Kids are acidic pH bombs.