Tart and Funky Saison

Tired Hand's SaisonHands is, without question, the best Saison I have ever had.  It has a really wonderful mix of spicy, earthy, citrusy, and tart flavors all rolled into a really easy drinking package.  It is a real pleasure to drink in volume.  The beer is pretty much at a Lambic level of complexity.  I don't recall this from my initial tastings of the beer but there seems to be a fairly significant contribution from Brett and possibly some Lactic Acid Bacteria.  This seems to be in line with their current use of Oak Foeders for maturing the beer.  It is a tall order but I've decided to attempt to create a Saison with a similar level of complexity.

The SaisonHands grainbill is a mix of Barley, Wheat, Rye, and Oats according to the brewery.  Apparently they are pretty tight lipped with their recipes so their ratios are an open question.  I decided to go with something similar to this recipe from the Ales of the Riverwards blog.  Ultimately, I think the grainbill is sort of secondary in this beer as the yeast and other critters will really be the star of the show.  I will be shooting for an OG of 1.040 and an FG of 1.004 which should get me in the neighborhood of 4.7% ABV

To try to duplicate the complex fermentation character I am going to primary with both yeast and bugs.  I'm sort of taking a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach with this beer:

• For the primary yeast I'll use Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison which is the Saison Dupont strain.  I believe, with it's spicy and tart character, it is probably a bit closer to the Tired Hands strain than the Wyeast French Saison Yeast (3711) I used for my last Saison.  The downside with using this yeast is that it is reported to be a bit finicky and prone to stalling out.  I will try to hold the fermentation in the 80s to keep things moving along.  I wont just be relying on this strain to do the job though so even if it does stall it wont be the end of the world.
• I picked up a Growler of SaisonHands a couple weeks ago and saved the last bit of beer to try to seed my starter with a bit of Tired Hand's microbes.  It turned out that nothing really came out of suspension during it's time sitting so I may be out of luck but I will pitch this anyway.
• Decided to also throw in a few tablespoons of my Lacto Culture (eighth generation of WLP 672 Lactobacillus Brevis) for good measure.  Hopefully this will help it develop a bit of the tartness found in the original.
• Finally, I have opted to also add some dregs from a Oud Beersel "Oude Geuze Vieille" which has a fairly similar Brett character to what I picked up in SaisonHands.  If the primary yeast stalls out I would expect these microbes to pick up the slack.

I will probably give the beer 2 weeks of temperature control and then move it to ambient basement temps for couple month secondary.  Basement should start warming up in this period.  The original beer is aged in oak but I don't really get much in the way of oak flavor from it so I'm not going to add any cubes.

For the hops,  I will be using cascades like the original beer.  I am going to wait until the end of the boil to minimize bitterness a maximize the flavoring contributions.

I will give this beer as much time as it needs but as a going in position I am thinking two months would be a good amount of time to let the various bugs do their thing.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 6 lb 8 oz Pilsner
• 12 oz White Wheat
• 12 oz Rye
• 8 oz Flaked Oats
• 3 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Cascade (Pellet, 5.5% AA) at 10 min
• 1 oz Cascade (Pellet, 5.5% AA) at 5 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison
• WLP 672 Lactobacillus Brevis (Ninth Generation)
• Tired Hands "SaisonHands" Dregs
• Oud Beersel "Oude Geuze Vieille" Dregs
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 5.75 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 150 F for 60 min (Target 150 F for 60 min)
• Boil:
• 90 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 80 F
• Primary Duration:
• 15 Months (Target 2 Months)
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.038 (Target 1.040)
• Efficiency:
• 69% (Target 76%)
• FG:
• 1.000  (Target 1.004)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 100 (Target 90%)
• ABV:
• 4.99% (Target 4.73%)

Brewing Notes:

• 3/31/16 - Made a 1.5 L starter with 6.5 oz of DME and 1/8 an ounce of yeast nutrient.  Chilled in the sink and then added SaisonHands dregs.  Put it on the stir plate to propagate.
• 4/1/16 - Added Wyeast 3724, Lacto, and Lambic dregs to the starter.  The starter had reached high krausen by the next day

• 4/3/16 - Brewday - 10:30 AM to 2:00 PM - Including setup and cleanup
• Heated 10 gal of spring water 160 F
• Power was out so I had to mill the grain using the hand crank
• Transferred 28 qt of water to the Mash Tun by hand which gave me about 3.5 gal above the false bottom
• Added CaCl and Gypsum to the mash tun
• Added the grain and stirred in well to eliminate dough balls
• Checked the mash temp after 10 min - had settled to 150 F
• Let mash for 60 min

• Heated the remaining 4 gal of water to 200 F with about 15 min left in the mash
• Added the mash out water to the mash tun and then gravity drained to the kettle
• Collected 9 gal
• Brought the wort to a boil
• Added the first dose of hops with 10 min left in the boil
• Added the second dose of hops with 5 min left in the boil
• Added the wort chiller just before flameout and brought the wort back up to a boil
• Chilled to 85 F before transferring to the fermenter.  It is very cloudy wort.
• Measured the gravity as 1.038 F
• Moved to the fermentation chamber with reptile heater.  The beer is just about 80 F.  Will allow the fermentation to rise up to 90 F
• Added the yeast to the batch

• 4/4/16 - The beer stated bubbling vigorously by yesterday evening and is still bubbling strongly this morning.  The fermenter is up to 82 F.  Will be interesting to see if it continues to rise.
• 4/22/16 - The fermentation chamber has been in the low 70s for the last couple weeks.  I moved this beer out to the 60 F basement to age out a bit more.
• 5/8/16 - Checked on the beer.  Had a pellicle and a funky aroma.  Smells funky and a bit like a pickle.  I noticed this smell in the dregs of the SaisonHands.  Decided not to take a sample just yet.  I'll give this one another month undisturbed.

• 7/3/17 - Finally getting around to bottling this beer!  It still has the pellicle and has a really funky aroma including the pickle like smell I got from the SaisonHands.  The sample measures 1.000 SG and is straw colored and crystal clear.  Lovely beer.  The flavor is lightly tart with spicy yeast character and slight earthiness in the finish.  The beer underwent two short moves over the last year - got shaken up slightly in the car.  Doesn't seem like this had any negative effects on this beer.  Bottled with 4 oz of priming sugar and a rehydrated package of Red Star Premier Cuvee wine yeast.  Got 56 12 oz bottles of beer from this batch.  I'll give it a couple weeks to carbonate at basement temps before trying one.

• 8/30/17 - Tasting Notes - The level of complexity in this beer is very satisfying.  I feel like I could pass this off as a Lambic as easily as I could a Saison with all the flavors it brings to play.

Lessons Learned:

1. Batch sparging saved a lot of time over the normal fly sparging.  Another pound of grain would have more than made up for the efficiency loss associated with this sparge method.  Need to evaluate where I want my efficiency to be and consider the cost/benefit a bit more.