Help me refine my belgian rye saison recipe

Hi everybody. I've been home brewing for about 4 years now, mostly focusing on IPAs, Pale Ales and Brown Ales. This will be my first attempt at a belgian-style ale, specifically a saison, which I know can be tough to deal with. This beer is going to showcase Nelson hops since I believe they will be a great addition to the inherently spicy and dry characteristics of a Saison and the rye malts. Any suggestions would be of great help! I plan on brewing this within the next two weeks.

Title Format:
[Nameless] - [Belgian Saison] - [Partial Mash (8.5 oz total: 4 oz DME; 4.5 oz grains)]

Message Format:
[Beer Name] Nameless
[Beer Style] Belgian Saison
[Brew Type] Partial Mash
[Batch Size] 5 US gallons

[Efficiency Target]
Not sure since I have yet to find space to do all grain brewing in my house

[Grain Bill]
4 lbs (64 oz) Pilsen DME 44.44%
2.0 lbs (32 oz) Pilsner Malt (Belgium) 22.22%
2.0 lbs (32 oz) Rye US) 22.22%
0.5 lbs (8 oz) Wheat (US) 5.56%
0.5 lbs (8 oz) Turbinado Sugar @ 25 min addition 5.56%

1.063 OG 1.012 FG 6.8% ABV

[Hop Bill]
0.50 oz Northern Brewer (DE) [8.5 %] - Boil 45.0 min Pellet 12 IBUs
0.50 oz Northern Brewer (DE) [8.5 %] - Boil 10.0 min Pellet 5 IBUs
0.50 oz Nelson Sauvin (NZ) [12.5 %] - Boil 10.0 min Pellet 7 IBUs
0.50 oz Nelson Sauvin (NZ) [12.5 %] - Boil 5.0 min Pellet 4 IBUs
1.0 oz Nelson Sauvin (NZ) [12.5 %] - Dry Hop 7 days @ 0.25 oz every other day

[Yeast]
White Labs Belgian Saison II WLP566 Yeast (2 packs?)

[Water]
Just started looking at my City's water report to get an idea of what it contains, but still not entirely sure how to manipulate it to enhance my brews. Here is a link of a report from 2013 (Can't find one from last year yet). If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to share. http://www.longbeachny.gov/vertical...6D2A}/uploads/Water_Report_2013_from_2012.pdf

[Process]
Mash at 146-149 for an hour with a water ratio of ~1.11 quarts/pound of grain (5 quarts/4.5 lbs grain). Try to get as much sparge water through your system as you can.

Ferment at 63-65 F and let the yeast raise the temperature of the beer upwards of 77-79 F.

[Notes]

A few things to consider that I could use some insight to.

(1) I just recently started partial mash brewing (within the last 2 years) and up until now, I have always used a mash size of 5 quarts (5.2 L) and a sparge size of 5 quarts (5.2 L) with a boil in the brew pot of 0.5 gallons (1.6 L). After adding the first and second wort, there is roughly 3.17 gallons of wort in the brewpot. I have recently acquired an 8 gallon brewpot, and was considering raising the boil size (while remaining at roughly a 5 gallon batch). I usually just boiled for 60 mins for IPAs, cooled down the wort in an ice bath (still in the pot; covered) until I added it to the carboy ontop of 2 gallons of cold water. Afterwards, I added 1 more gallon of cold water on top to drop the temperature. I usually yield about 4.5 gallons of beer (due to evaporation). Since I have a larger brew pot now, should I boil at a larger size and not add the cold water to the carboy? I have not noticed any watering-down of my beer with this process, but I was wondering if it would help to have a boil size of say 6 gallons that reduced to roughly 5 gallons with a 20% evaporation rate per hour. If I raise my boil size to 6 gallons, should I raise the mash size or just the initial boil size before the two additions of wort?

(2) I used Beer Calculus to create this recipe seeing as it is my first Saison. The calculator recommended I use 2 packs of liquid yeast for this beer. I usually do dry yeast (1 packet) but I cannot seem to find dry saison yeast in the area. Would 2 packs be too much or just right? Also, I've heard from other brewers that saisons benefit from the addition of another packet of yeast at around 75% fermentation. Should I bother with this for my first time?

(3) I am using wheat in the grain bill because from my experience, wheat helps head retention (something I want for a Saison). Is wheat necessary for this beer or is it just excessive?

(4) Lastly, my SRM is about 4 which seems really low but if I add any Caramel/Crystal malts (20L or 40L) my OG raises and throws off all my calculations.

Thanks for the help everybody!

 

Thanks for the tip. I didn't want to remove any Pilsner or Rye malts since they were perfectly balanced, but maybe I could reduce each of them by 0.1 lb and add 0.2 lbs of Munich. Would you recommend Munich 20L?

 

Thanks! I meant balanced in terms of what I've heard from other brewers about not having more than 40% adjunt/non-base malts in a Saison. But considering I want Rye and Pilsner to both be base malts, reducing them a bit will not affect anything.

Thanks again.

Edit: Reduced Pilsner malt by 0.4 lb (6.4 oz) and added 0.4 lb (6.4 oz) of Munich - Dark 20 L (US) to raise the SRM to 6. This was actually my target for my first saison.

 

I've never actually done that, I've usually added them at small increments for over a week (or two) depending on the beer. I've never actually looked into this before. It actually makes sense to me now that dry hopping at all once would benefit the beer.

Thanks for the recommendation.

 

Now my biggest concerns are:

The size of the boil and mash as raised in my first question. Do I increase the boil size to 6.6 or stick to adding roughly 3 gallons of cold water to the carboy and mixing it with the wort?

Also, I've never used more than one pack of dry yeast but the recipe calls for 2 packs of liquid yeast. Does this sound right?

 

OG is 1.063 and shooting for a FG of 1.012. I'll probably go the route of using a starter. I've never used liquid yeast before as most of my past beers have been american ales with dry safale yeast.

Would you recommend two vials or starter?

 

Thanks for your input. I browsed through the polls yesterday. I will definitely take a closer look tonight.

Loving all the input. Keep it coming!

 

Ok so I've taken a good look at the Averagely perfect Saison threads and they have added some nice insight to refining my current recipe.

I'm still looking for some insight into my boil size. I am not sure if any of you do partial mash brewing. Judging by the "aps" threads, most of you do all-grain.

I am aiming for a 5 gallon batch. Currently, I have a boil size of 3.17 gallons when I collect the two mash cycles and add them to 0.5 gallons of boiling water in my brewpot. This forces me to add roughly 3 gallons of cold water to the carboy (2 gallons before adding wort and one after) to attain the 5 gallons after boiling (counting for evaporation). I have never had a problem with this in terms of my beer seeming/tasting watered down. However, since I now have a larger brewpot (8 gallons), I believe I could possibly raise my boil size to around 6 gallons which would fall to about 5 gallons after my 90 min boil and the subsequent evaporation.

I guess my question is: For you home brewers that have replied with this valuable information, for a gallon size do you have a ~6 gallon boil size or do you add water to the carboy to help reduce temperature after the boil?

Thanks again everbody! Much appreciated.

 

Again, something else I did not know. This thread has been full of valuable information. I have never used a high quantity of rye in a beer before (I used a little in an IPA I brewed last year). At this point, I would probably be using rye in the adjunct form UNLESS I can find malted rye in one of the stores near me.

Therefore, I might have to edit my recipe since I'm sure they have different impacts on the OG?