French Saison

I've been considering brewing a Saison for quite some time but I was concerned about the temperature requirements in order to get the dry finish that is characteristic of the style.  People typically start saisons quite a bit warmer (high 60s) than normal ale to accentuate the yeast flavor and then ramp the temp up into the 80s to encourage the yeast to finish the beer out to get down to less than 1.004 or so.  I'm lagering a batch right now so my fermentation chamber is off limits but my basement is sitting between 61 and 63 F pretty consistently so I'm pretty sure I can keep beer at a reasonable fermentation temperature down there.  This may be a little cool for a saison though.

I have been reading that the Wyeast 3711 French Saison yeast is capable of fermenting all the way to typical Saison gravities in the low 60s while still providing a good spicy yeast character.  This sold me on the idea of making a Saison my next batch rather than waiting until the summer.

I found a recipe that sounded pretty nice on homebrewtalk.com called "Cottage House Saison".  The Dark Mild I made as my first batch was also by this brewer.  I decided to go for a lower gravity version of the beer in order to get about 5% ABV.  I liked that it was a pretty simple recipe without a whole lot in the way of spicing (just a bit of black pepper).

Saison are a very rich category.  You see commercial and homebrew examples run the gamut from very light to very dark, from very sessionable to high alcohol, from mild and yeast centric to hoppy and bitter, and sometimes sour and/or funky from wild yeast and bacteria.  I would eventually like to try hitting all those various styles.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjuncts:
• 6 lbs Pilsner
• 1 lb 8 oz Wheat Malt
• 8 oz Caramunich I
• 8 oz Flaked Oats
• 12 oz Orange Blossom Honey at 5 min
• Hops:
• 0.5 oz Sorachi Ace (Pellet, 11.9% AA) FWH
• 0.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 3.8% AA) FWH
• 0.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 3.8% AA) at 30 min
• 0.5 oz Sorachi Ace (Pellet, 11.9% AA) at 15 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 3711 French Saison
• Water:
• 12 gal Spring Water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloide
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min
• Extras:
• 1.5 tsp Black Pepper at 5 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal
• Mash:
• 148 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 90 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 61 to 63 F (Basement Temps)
• Primary Duration:
• 4 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.038 (Target 1.045)
• Efficiency:
• 62% (Target 76%)
• FG:
• 1.000 (Target 1.004)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 100% (Target 91%)
• ABV:
• 4.99% (Target 5.38%)

Brewing Notes:

• 1/21/15 - Prepared a 1.2 liter starter with 4 oz of DME.  Added 1/8 tsp of yeast nutrient.  Boiled, chilled down to the 80s, put on the stir plate and pitched the yeast.
• 1/23/15 - Brewday - 2:45 PM to 7:15 PM including setup and cleanup
• Heated 5 gal of strike water up to 175 F - took 15 min

• Added 12 qt to the mash tun and let settle for 5 min.  Ended up at 165 F
• Added Calcium Chloride to the mash tun
• Added the grain and stirred well.  Ended up around 155 F so I stirred some more until it was right around 148 F.
• Stirred after 15 min - temp was still right around 148 F
• After half an hour I start to heat 7 gal of sparge water to 190 F and then killed the heat - took 25 min
• Stirred the mash again at 45 min - temp was down to 145 F
• Added the First Wort Hops to the kettle
• Added 2.5 gal of mash out water (which raised the mash temp up to 155 F), stirred, vorlaufed, and then drained at full speed
• Added a 4.5 gal batch sparge (raised the temp to 170 F) and drained quickly
• Collected 9 gal
• Brought to a boil - took 20 min
• Put the jar of honey in hot water to allow it to pour easier
• Added 30 min hops when the volume got down to 7 gal
• Added the 15 min hops and irish moss when the volume got to 6.5 gal
• Added the honey and black pepper once it was a bit less than 6.25 gal

• Chilled down to 60 F - took 10 min
• Transferred to fermentor (included cold break and hops in the transfer)

• Poured back and forth between buckets to aerate
• Pitched the whole yeast starter and left in the basement (not on temp control)
• Collected about 6 gal (maybe a little bit more than that).  Gravity was at 1.038 which was 7 points lower than expected.
• 1/24/15 - Airlock filled with krausen this afternoon.  Setup the fermentor with a blow off tube.
• 1/25/15 - Bubbling pretty regularly

• 1/29/15 - Bubbling stopped.  Switched out the blowoff tube for an airlock
• 2/4/15 - Airlock is bubbling a bit again which is a bit surprising to me - hopefully the yeast is drying the beer out for the last few points.  I'm a bit surprised that it's still working on this beer as it was only 1.038 OG
• 2/24/15 - It has been more than a month and the airlock is still bubbling a bit.  Checked the gravity which is down to 1.000.  The beer has a very nice spicy yeast character - fermenting low produced a good result.  It's light and I'm sure it's going to be very refreshing.  The sample had quite a bit of carbonation somehow - this probably explains the off gassing.  I'm going to bottle this weekend.
• 2/26/15 - Moved to the fermentation chamber set to 38 F to cold crash.
• 2/27/15 - Bottled with 7 oz of priming sugar to get 3.2 vol of carbon dioxide.  Ended up with 5.75 gal which got me 58 12 oz bottles.  I will let these carb up over the next week or two down in the basement.
• 3/18/15 - Tasting Notes - Turned out to be a flavorful refreshing beer.  Pretty happy with it.  The one critique is that it may be a bit more hop forward than I would like for such a light beer.
• 9/21/19 - Drank the last bottle of this after not having any in a couple years or so.  It has a pretty distinct honey flavor and aroma at this point with no hop flavor/bitterness remaining.  It is a very odd beer which doesn't really resemble a saison any more.

Lessons Learned:

1. I forgot to get the normal acid malt to get pH into the correct range (although I have no way to prove to myself it is in the correct range).  I suspect that this could have contributed to my lower than expected efficiency.