apple pie saison ?

I would go with good local apple cider and blend it with the saison wort pre-ferment. Pasteurized is fine, but if you want it to be clear I'd hit it with some pectic enzyme 12 hours before fermenting to prevent haze. Just make sure there are no preservatives (potassium metasulphite, or any sulphate for that matter) I've considered trying this before but never carried through with it. Keep in mind that sacch will chew through fruit sugars completely, so expect a ton of attenuation of the cider. For a good beer/cider hybrid I'd try 1/3 cider, and the other 2/3 beer wort. In my experience with apple must, you'll probably get more dry white wine/champagne flavors from this than Apple or 'apple pie'. Depends on if you're planning on using any spices (I wouldn't) and if you're going to backsweeten/keg. It will make a tasty beer/cider hybrid, but i doubt apple pie will be the theme for this one. Good luck, let us know how it goes!

 

No problem. I would let the wort chill to pitching temp first, then add your cider, and pitch the yeast.

 

I don't know that saison would be my choice for a style of beer to showcase apple pie flavors. Saisons are usually very dry and pie is sweet. Maybe go with a pale mild?

 

I thought the same thing, but I think if he goes the route he's planning on, it will be a tasty one. Since cider's ferment so dry already, and have some tartness to them it could do well with saison yeast/wort. It's definitely not gonna be 'apple pie', but that's a good thing!

 

If homeboy uses an English basemalt to get that toasty character, and then overdoes it on the crystal/caramalt, maybe with a touch of biscuit, it might turn out. However, I've gotten more of a sweet apple ester with British yeast than with anything Belgian.

 

I agree that you should add unpasteurized cider cold to the pre-fermented beer in the carboy/bucket. As to how much, the more you add the more body you'll lose. Cider is typically ~1.045 and all of that sugar will disappear, which can lead to very low gravity if you don't account for it in the wort.

I've found that letting cider completely ferment out (alone or in a beer) will require ~6 months in bottles/keg to reach peak flavors.

For a benchmark, last November I made an apple ale that I'm just about to start drinking now. I made a huge brown ale with lots of caramel malt, mashed for low fermentability, and then diluted the beer with 3 gallons of cider. British Ale yeast. At this point, I don't taste much "apple pie" in my beer. Its less apple, and more dry cider flavors mixed with a brown ale. Its nice, but not what I was looking for. My current plan is to add further cider to the keg to amp up the apple flavor.

If someone can show the secrets to make an apple ale like New Glarus I would forever be in your debt.