Cucumber Saison w/Sorachi Ace

Regarding Sorachi; Blech. But that's just one guy's opinion. OK, that is one hop with a lot of hate. Many people despise that vile weed. Of course it's your beer. Anyway...

Adding water at packaging is ok so long as you do what you can to reduce oxygen to a minimum. This requires boiling the water. If you add tap water to finished beer you are adding oxygen and that is bad.

Cheers.

 

Seems like you wouldn't need the extra water. Just chop the cucumber and add to secondary. Then again I've never added cucumber to beer, so I could be wrong.

 

Why not peel them and blend them and add it to flameout???

 

I have a friend that makes a cucumber wheat beer that is totally killer.

He's pretty tight lipped with the recipe but I know that he he uses cucumber puree in towards the end of primary. The cucumber adds an awesome "fresh from the garden" type component to the beer that makes it easy to crush in the summer. Not sure if he peels the cukes or just puree's them whole, but its a fantastic beer. If your ever in Pittsburgh be sure to stop by and try it at The Brew Gentlemen beer Co. Its a seasonal that I believe just made it back onto draft.

I personally would probably include the skin since i personally prefer cucumbers with the skins on.

 

I have brewed a cucumber saison before that turned out very well. I would say that cucumber is something that I perceive as having a mild flavor, but when added to the secondary, it very quickly infuses flavor. Adding to secondary worked very well for me and I wouldn't introduce additional water most likely, but I assume that would work just fine as well.

As for the Sorachi Ace, I say go for it. As a lemon fan, I have enjoyed it in beers I've brewed before, though I've only tried it in pales and have not tried with saisons.

I might also consider Belgian saison yeast rather than French if you want it to have more of a saison-y character that holds up to the cucumber. I like French because it is less fickle, but it also has a little less character IMHO.

 

Sounds like the beer that Cigar City did, reach out to them in an email and see what advice they have as for how the hops were handled along with the cucumber additions. For what it is worth I am in the pro Sorachi Ace camp in certain styles, saison's being one of them. Good Luck

 

I think this is a great recipe idea. I love Sorachi Ace even though it does taste exactly like dill (not so much lemon as dill). If you like dill then it is impossible to use too much. For the cucumber, try maybe 1 lb per gallon chopped in secondary. I wouldn't blend with Citra as it would overpower the awesomeness that is already there.

 

Why not just give the cucmbers a soak in some vodka to sanitize? that way you won't have to dilute the beer with a bunch of cucumber water, and you'll be guaranteed sanitation. A lot of that cucumber flavor will be infused into the vodka so you could just pour the whole mixture into the keg before racking. I don't think you'd need a lot of vodka either so you wouldn't have to worry about the abv ramping up or anything either. Just an idea...

 

I actually have a test batch of this fermenting right now. I soured 2 gallons of 100% wheat dme wort with lacto plantarum and boiled for 10 minutes with mosaic hops. I then pitched wlp 565. It smells and tastes really citrusy right now. Almost like lemonade. I will be bottling some of it with a tincture i made from black pepper, vodka, and cucumber. Mosaic goes really well with the phenols from saison yeast

 

Shit... I just left Pittsburgh... GO PENS

 

Oh, I've also read that boiling cucumber can make a completely different almost watermelon flavor. Try boiling some and tasting the liquid before doing this.

 

I cut up a cucumber and put it in a jar with enough vodka to cover it. This is a small test batch before I do a 5 gallon batch. I will use a medical syringe to add different amounts to some bottles and will record what I did so that I can figure an amount per gallon later on.

 

A cucumber is a fruit.