Saison Experiment

If you can get 3726 (which should still be around), use it. I've never had it attenuate as well as 3711 or 3724, but you shouldn't have to worry about attenuation with your grain bill. It has nice fruity esters that compliment American hops (especially amarillo) and a peppery finish. Other than that, I'd say maybe go a little bit less on the munich, or switch it out for vienna, just my personal preference.

 

agree with less munich.
toss a few peppercorns into the carboy for fun.

i'd do a 60 min hop addition for the bittering (but not tonnes) and then i'd do flame-out and dry hop. amarillo's such a beautiful hop that i'd rather have it fresher

 

personally I like your recipe, Munich and all. looks a lot like several saisons I have brewed, minus the sugar. i have even gone 1:1:1 plisner:munich:wheat and love it. With that mash temp and sugar, 3711 is going to take it all the way down to 1.000.
In that sense, i like the use of late bittering as would give you a more "soft" bittering, which is good considering the low final gravity and likely low sweetness.
In fact that may be my only concern here, that is going to be to dry and some how unbalanced. maybe loose the sugar? any way, saisons and citrusy american hops works very well.

 

Don't forget that 3711 will finish near 1.000. OG 1.072 will most likely make for 8-9% ABV beer.

Maybe not a problem, just sayin'.

 

It's the Murica' version!

 

9.5% ABV in fact if it gets to 1.000, yikes! Personally I’d back down on the OG to keep it more drinkable. If you want it to be thin, I’d dilute the protein with some corn instead of the wheat.

I just kegged a split batch with fermented Saison 2 and Saison 3. It was pils, flaked spelt, and a touch of corn. Much smaller beer, and easier on the hops though.

 

Definitely agree with this. I just made an all Amarillo/ 3711 Saison with OG of 1.065 and even its a little bit much alcohol warmth for good balance. It finished at 1.000. Good luck with your Saison...

 

I'd lower the OG and do a 90 minute boil to drive off potential DMS. I'd also move your 10 minute hop additions to either 5 minutes or for maximum aromatics, add them to the kettle after flame out once you've chilled your wort down considerably already (say to 120F)

 

Out of curiosity what is the purpose of using invert sugar as opposed to regular table sugar?

 

Can't speak for the OP but I believe the idea behind invert sugar is that it is a more simple sugar that is easier for yeast (especially tired yeast) to ferment. Now if I was going to elect to use invert sugar over table sugar, I'd add it to the fermenter after the beer was 80+ percent fermented already. If I was going to add it to towards the end of the boil, I'd just use table sugar or corn sugar myself.

 

Corn sugar is actually a more simple sugar than invert sugar. Table sugar is 100% sucrose, invert sugar is a mixture of sucrose, glucose, and fructose, whereas corn sugar is the simplest of them all, 100% glucose.

That said, I've often heard this repeated but have never seen any real evidence that yeast actually have a more difficult
time with table sugar than with invert or corn. They're all 100% fermentable.

 

Thanks for the FYI on corn sugar. Totally forgot that it was just glucose. Do you subscribe to the idea that yeast are "notoriously lazy eaters that attack the simplest sugars first", so when possible you should allow them to ferment the maltose out of your wort prior to adding more simple sugars? This is what has been explained to me in the past and why I suggested waiting until the beer is about 80+ percent done with primary fermentation to pitch it. Although I have to admit that in my own direct experiences adding corn sugar to the end of the boil, I don't recall my yeast ever failing to complete fermentation......

 

Yeast do use the simplest sugars first, so in that sense I guess they are lazy. But in another sense they are smart. When you dump them into your wort, they figure out what sugars are present in the wort and crank up production of the appropriate enzymes (different combination for each sugar). So while they will eat glucose before maltose for example, they don't ignore the maltose.

I think the idea that the yeast will ignore higher sugars may be anecdotal, at least for the wort compositions typically used in brewing. Though I would love to read any studies on this if someone has them.

 

There's some misconception about how this works. The sugar composition of your typical beer wort looks something like this:

45% Maltose
14% Maltotriose
8% Glucose
6% Sucrose
2% Fructose
25% Unfermentable dextrins

Now while it's true that yeast do prefer to use glucose and fructose over maltose, it's not like when you dump them into the wort they go around metabolizing only the glucose and fructose molecules and completely ignore the 45% maltose until the other sugars are gone. No, the yeast are consuming every type of sugar present that they can consume, the rates of consumption may be different, but they're not say, eating the glucose first, and then the fructose, and then the sucrose, and only then moving on to the maltose. Furthermore, adding a lb or two of table or invert sugar into the mix may change the ratio of sugars present slightly, but the overall theme is still the same, and a bit of extra glucose or sucrose isn't really going to phase the little critters.