Saison Recipe - please critique

I recently did a SMaSH saison

• 12 lbs pilsner malt
• 1 oz fuggles at 60
• 1 oz fuggles at 15
• 1 oz fuggles at 5
• 1 oz fuggles at 0
• 2 oz fuggles dry hop

WY3711 was the yeast. NOTE: this was fermented at 64-66F.

It came out fantastic. Everyone who tried it loved it. I would happily brew it again.

I see little reason why your recipe wouldn't come out just fine.

What's the AA% on your styrian? I used fuggles 4.2% with two late additions. That wasn't too much hops. I thought it came out just fine, but could have even used a bit more late hops. However, I am not too familiar with styrian so...

 

Color is fine, Dupont uses straight Pils malt and Saaz hops. I would up the finishing hops some. Maybe 1oz at 15, 1.5oz at flameout (steep for 10 minutes maybe), and a bittering addition to get back to 30 IBUs.

 

I think the recipe looks great as is.

Good luck with your Sasion(s). Remember to be patient with the Wyeast Belgian Saison (3724) since that yeast can take a while to finish. If you can get that batch warmer (let it rise into the 80's) that can help this yeast finish without stalling. The 3711 will likely complete fermentation in one week with no concerns about that strain stalling.

Cheers!

 

I would be tempted to move the 5 minute addition to flameout, but I think this will be delicious either way. As mentioned, patience is key with 3724. I have never had it actually stall, but I have sure had it go slowly, with the transition from full speed ahead to slow being rather abrupt.

 

With caveat n=1, I can vouch for WY3711 being very good at eating sugars, even at 64F. Two weeks and I was at 1.006.

 

This looks very close to the saison I made last summer. I believe I had a half pound of sugar and a couple oz of cara 20 malt in mine, to reach about the same OG you cited. I too used styrian goldings. I think I may have had a little more late hopping. I used 3724, got the gravity down below 1.010, wanna say 1.007. This was my best result in my limited experience brewing 4 different batches of saison.

 

Peter’s post reminded me of another comment I wanted to make. You can expect that the 3711 batch will be dryer than the 3724 batch. On two Saisons that I brewed using the same ingredients (but brewed on separate occasions):

· 3711 Saison: OG = 1.060, FG = 1.001
· 3724 Saison: OG = 1.060, FG = 1.004

Both of the above batches included 1 lb. of table sugar.

Cheers!

 

Are you aiming to finish at 1.008? I'm not sure what I'd do to get there, especially with the French strain. I just did a saison fermented at 68* starting at 1.050 with a more complex grain bill and a 156 mash temp that is going to end closer to 1.004. The good news is the glycerol(is that right?) production in these strains add so much to the body that they never taste thin.

Should be awesome - looks like a tasty recipe.

 

My one batch with 3711 had some flaked rye in it, probably 10%, and maybe some demerara. By the numbers, it looked pretty much like Jack's. That yeast didn't know when to quit. But I preferred the flavor profile of 3724. And I'll need to try to get White Labs Platinum Belgian Saison III (WLP585) when it comes out July-Aug - Jack says it's awesome.

 

Wait a second, I just realized, this is beer advocate DOT COM!!!

Judging by the beer ratings, you'll need to use MOAR HOPS!!! I figure about a pound and a half of high alpha hops should do it. Either that or use 27 pounds of black barley.

 

Judging from the comments and FG's, I wonder if my 3711 was even done at 1.006 and 64F. Those were pretty damn carbonated beers (was the yeast not done yet?). They got drank fast, so I'll never know. Next time I will pay more attention to the FG.

 

Not sure if it'll ever make it out of the tasting room, but White Labs had a saison made with WLP 564 (Saison Yeast Blend of some sort) in the tasting room and it was outstanding. Nice bit of pepper and spice, but very citrusy and incredibly fresh. I'm not a super big saison guy, but I thought it was incredible.

 

What was your OG? And you didn't use any sugar (100% fermentable) , as many do in Saisons. A mistake a lot of people make is stating something like "3711 will get you down to 1.002 FG" without the context of the OG or the fermentability of the wort.

 

Pure pilsner malt, no sugar. SMaSH with fuggles. 64-66F fermentation temp.

So maybe it was done, I dunno. I know saisons tend to be heavily carbonated anyway, so who will ever know. I admit I didn't do successive gravitometer tests, I just bottled it after 16 days or so. Next time I will tho.

 

Seems kinda of low, but I dunno.

But I think you'll need MOAR HOPS for sure if you're using those.

 

I've seen them as low as 3.2%, so although 2.6% isn't typical, I wouldn't necessarily doubt it either.

 

“I just bottled it after 16 days or so.” I am 99.999% sure your beer completed fermentation. I have used 3711 many times and it has consistently finished in less than 7 days. I do let the beer condition for an additional week so bottling time for me is around 14 days.

A final gravity of 1.006 is reasonable given that your grist was all malt (i.e., no sugars added). Your mash temperature will determine how fermentable your wort will be.

Cheers!

 

What OG?