Help with a peach saison

I have made a lot of Saison beers but never a fruited Saison.

Some comments:

Wyeast 3711 is a very highly attenuating yeast. It is a good thing IMO to not add any sugar to your list of fermentables.

Your grain list looks good to me. I personally use Pilsner malt as my base malt but Belgian Two Row should work too. I would not recommend using any of the other malts or sugar that you listed.

“I'm wondering if I am using too many late addition hops or not.” I use two 0.5 ounce additions in my Saison beers (Styrian Goldings for 15 minutes and end of boil). I think your three Saaz additions look OK.

As to the peach addition, the challenge of fruit amounts is challenging since it is highly dependent on the qualities of the fruit. A baking analogy is how much sugar to add to fruit pies given the variability of fruit?

Below is from a BYO article:

“The amount of fruit to add to a beer depends on many variables — the type of fruit, the amount of fruit flavor desired, the beer style and many others — and so there is no simple answer to this question. As a first approximation, add one half of a pound of fruit per gallon of beer for strongly flavored fruits such as raspberries. So, for a five-gallon batch of raspberry wheat, you would add 2.5 pounds of raspberries. For lighter-flavored fruits, such as cherries or peaches, you may need to add up to two pounds of fruit per gallon of beer. Your peach ale would thus need 10 pounds of fruit. Processed fruit is usually more concentrated, so you need to add less of it. Sometimes, the label will give some indication of how concentrated the fruit is. If not, add a small amount of processed fruit to a finished beer and estimate an appropriate rate of addition.”

Maybe split the difference and add 1.5 lbs. of peaches per gallon of beer?
https://byo.com/stories/item/679-fruit-brew-part-2-techniques
Good luck with your Peach Saison; it reads tasty!

Cheers!

P.S. Here is the link to the BYO article: https://byo.com/stories/item/679-fruit-brew-part-2-techniques

 

“Thanks for the feedback. I wonder if I should even mash a little higher than 150. My last saison I made with 3711 landed at 1.002 with a 148 degree mash and candi sugar. With that yeast though I wonder if it really cares, it would probably just eat everything either way.” I suspect you might be right here. There seems to be very little that 3711 won’t ‘eat’.

“I would have liked to try a different saison yeast but it was all LHBS had except for a brett blend.” As I have already mentioned I have never brewed a fruited Saison but I highly suspect that 3711 is a good choice for you Peach Saison. Every batch of Saiosn that I brewed with 3711 has been somewhat one dimensional: mostly spicy (phenols) with little fruit (esters). I suspect that 3711 will let the peach flavors ‘shine’ in this beer.

“I'll post a follow up with my results as there are currently only a handful of peach saison threads going around right now.” Please do!

Cheers!

 

I'm not sure if mashing higher will help, but you can try, and you can also try to mash shorter as well.

3711 will be fine, but a fruity, or even a blend with some brett could lend more citrusy fruit along with the peaches.

I'd shoot for the 1 pound a gallon myself. You don't want peach juice, but just a layer in the saison.

 

How'd this turn out?

 

Id cheat a bit and maybe add peach schnapps. Peach is a hard fruit to come thru especially with the saison yeast. I did a peach weiss beer and it was almost nothing after peeling and adding like 7 pounds of fruit.

 

Thanks, have been reading that. Sounds like apricots are the way to go if you don't want to "cheat," too hard to get peach flavors to come through in the final product? Gonna try this soon, thinking I'll just add some peach nectar before bottling. Powell & Mahoney Bellini mix sounds like it might work well too.

 

Just go to 156 F and make a thick mash 1qt/lb

 

Hey. Saisons are supposed to be dry. The FG of a Saison according to BJCP guidelines is 1.002 - 1.008.

Also, Saisons are not supposed to have a heavy fruit presence because it would cover up the Belgiany flavors of the yeast.

I would mash at 147° for 90 minutes. And add about 4lbs of sanitized peach mash or peach puree in the secondary after you've gotten your FG down to around 1.008 or 1.010.

Just my two cents.

 

I do a peach saison yearly, and have good success with approximately 1lbs of peaches per gallon. I'll cut them, freeze them overnight, and rack onto them when you transfer to secondary. From there, just taste periodically to get the desired amount of peach flavor. Have yet to "overdo" the peach flavor with this method, and you can get a nice peach presence in the background after 3-5 days.

 

How do you all usually sanitize peaches and other fruit? Vodka?

 

I will just cut and freeze them overnight, then put them in the secondary vessel using sanitized equipment. I have really good success going this route.

 

Fruit is a great breeding ground and collection vessel for wild yeasts. I'm sure you don't need to worry all the time, but I pitched some dregs with Sacc, Brett, Lacto and some bugs from JK, rare barrel, and a local saison brett into this last batch, so I'd prefer to not keeping adding to it

 

It sure is. This topic was discussed in this thread: https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/wild-yeast-capture-questions.433149/

Cheers!

 

<inexplicably getting sucked into a zombie thread>
Many, many people have made saisons with fruit. Sometimes with lots of it. IMO saison is one of the better platforms for fruit. But if it's the BJCP style guidelines you're concerned about, fruited saisons can be perfectly to style. Style 29A: Fruit Beer.

OTOH, this guy wouldn't cotton to that.