BIAB Saison

[earle]

I have generally added about 100g of a crystal malt in my saisons. Again make your beer what you want. You've suggested that you want dry and acidic so you might leave it out all together as suggested above. My latest saison is a christmas spiced saison so I wanted the funky spicy flavours with a bit richer beer so I added 700g of Munich I. But it won't be a classic saison.

French saison yeast is a monster and can ferment right down to 1002. I see you're using the belgian saison yeast. I've currently got my first saason with belgian saison yeast (Wyeast) fermenting now but am thinking it should get down to about 1008. A lot of the software doesn't calculate accurately for the low FG of saisons.

 

[Hez]

I have generally added about 100g of a crystal malt in my saisons. Again make your beer what you want. You've suggested that you want dry and acidic so you might leave it out all together as suggested above. My latest saison is a christmas spiced saison so I wanted the funky spicy flavours with a bit richer beer so I added 700g of Munich I. But it won't be a classic saison.

French saison yeast is a monster and can ferment right down to 1002. I see you're using the belgian saison yeast. I've currently got my first saason with belgian saison yeast (Wyeast) fermenting now but am thinking it should get down to about 1008. A lot of the software doesn't calculate accurately for the low FG of saisons.

Yep, you're right again. F*ck it. Do or don't, but don't do it half way, isn't it?
I'll do just 80% pils +20% wheat, no spices, no sh*t. And I'll go to OG 1052 which would give me around 5.5%ABV. This one is going to last very little... jejeje
Then I will think what I want to change for the next time.

 

[earle]

Yep, you're right again. F*ck it. Do or don't, but don't do it half way, isn't it?
I'll do just 80% pils +20% wheat, no spices, no sh*t. And I'll go to OG 1052 which would give me around 5.5%ABV. This one is going to last very little... jejeje
Then I will think what I want to change for the next time.

Now you're talking.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

And it'll give an awesome clean base to do experiments later.

 

[manticle]

So... 80% pils, 20%wheat, no sugar, no crystal/caramel. What about some (~5%) munich or vienna non-cara?
The thing is, this weekend I had a saison on tap in a pub in surry hills and it tasted very very similar to my german wheat beer (50% pilsner and 50% wheat, more banana) :S So much I went back to the bar to check the tap to see if it was a saison or some kind of wheat beer! That's why I didn't want to use wheat on this one...

About the mash, do you think this is alright?
40' 62°C hydration and beta-amylase rest
40' 66°C alpha-amylase rest
10'' 76ºC mash out

My homebrew supplier only has WLP565, it looks like a very specific (and expensive) belgian saison yeast... I've read some people say it's very good and other people make a mix of this one + other dry yeasts I don't know.
I overcome my lack of experience and yeast knowledge by buying expensive yeast and doubling the amount of it I need. I do 10L batches and I use a fresh new whole package of 12$ yeast (intended for 20L) everytime. One step at a time... at some point I will start to sutdy the yeast, right now I'm still starting to look into the water chemistry...

About the hops, I already bought the East Kent Goldings because every Saison Dupont clone recipe I've run into calls for it! :S
I also have a very low alpha tettnanger (1.8%!!) I was saving for making another wheat beer (I have just enough for 1 batch), do you think it would be a good idea to use the tettnanger instead of the east kent goldings for the last addition?



So you recommend to go to a balanced CL/SO4 proportion but add only the chloride to the mash and the gypsum later into the boil, is that it?
ah! and add all the acid into the sparge water instead of the proportional part to both the initial water and the sparge water, isn't it?

Thanks a lot to everyone!

Tett and EKG will be fine.

Not quite with the salts. This is my approach:

Using a spreadsheet, get calcium to the minimum (or preferred) level for the beer you want to make. In this case, I'd target 50 - 100 ppm. Select chloride or sulphate or a balance depending on whether you want to accentuate malt, hop or both. Chloride for malt, sulphate for hop.

Then assess whether the mash pH will be right. If it is too high, add acid until it is correct (to the mash or to the strike water but I prefer the mash). In a pale beer like this with Sydney water, it won't be too low but that adjustment is another kettle of fish.

In addition to the above, add some of your chosen calcium salt/s to the boil and if sparging, add some of your chosen acid to the sparge water.

If you have a pH meter or even some decent strips, you can check the pH and make sure your calculator/spreadsheet is on the money. Definitely when learning, you should actually measure the mash pH rather than rely on software which is a guide only. If you do have a good meter, measure wort pH in the kettle and again at the end. To get really detail obsessed, you can also measure finished beer pH. Keep it simple this time and just get mash pH right - all things being equal, the rest should fall into place.

No to Vienna.

 

[luggy]

I have generally added about 100g of a crystal malt in my saisons. Again make your beer what you want. You've suggested that you want dry and acidic so you might leave it out all together as suggested above. My latest saison is a christmas spiced saison so I wanted the funky spicy flavours with a bit richer beer so I added 700g of Munich I. But it won't be a classic saison.

French saison yeast is a monster and can ferment right down to 1002. I see you're using the belgian saison yeast. I've currently got my first saason with belgian saison yeast (Wyeast) fermenting now but am thinking it should get down to about 1008. A lot of the software doesn't calculate accurately for the low FG of saisons.

In my experience the Belgian strain will go way lower than that, I've had one batch go as low as 1.000. My favourite saison strain mate I'm sure you'll be happy with the results

 

[Hez]

There we go again... I hope this time is alright!

GRAIN AND YEAST
~80% 2150g Pilsner
~20% 550g Wheat Malt
OG 1.050
SRM 3.44; EBC 6.78

https://www.whitelabs.com/yeast-bank/wlp565-belgian-saison-i-yeast
According to White Labs the WLP565 Belgian Saison Yeast attenuation is 65-75%, but according to you @earle, @luggy, @Lord Raja Goomba I, I've made this table:
FG 1.000 -> ABV 6.56% Attenuation:100%
FG 1.005 -> ABV 5.91% Attenuation:90%
FG 1.007 -> ABV 5.64% Attenuation:85%
FG 1.010 -> ABV 5.25% Attenuation:79%
FG 1.012 -> ABV 4.99% Attenuation:75%

I will stick to the 1.050 OG, I think 5-6% ABV it's a good range for this one.

MASH
40' 62ºC
40' 66ºC
10' 76ºC

HOPS
60' 13g East Kent Goldings: 16.29IBU
15' 14g East Kent Goldings: 8.70IBU
0' @80ºC for 30' 30g Tettnanger: 0.57IBU
IBU 25.56

I've dimished the bitterness from 30 to 25IBU (lower ABV) and added a big very-low-alpha-acid-Tettnanger addition at 0' for flavour/aroma as suggested by manticle.
https://ychhops.com/varieties/tettnang-1
Jef Van der Steen would be proud of me

P.S. New doubt: Should I dry hop as well? how much? 3g/L? 6g/L? I only have 30g of tettnanger left... If I dry hop should I use the east kent goldings for the boil and the tettnanger for the dry hopping or should I mix them? :S

WATER ADJUSTMENTS

Using a spreadsheet, get calcium to the minimum (or preferred) level for the beer you want to make. In this case, I'd target 50 - 100 ppm. Select chloride or sulphate or a balance depending on whether you want to accentuate malt, hop or both. Chloride for malt, sulphate for hop.

Then assess whether the mash pH will be right. If it is too high, add acid until it is correct (to the mash or to the strike water but I prefer the mash). In a pale beer like this with Sydney water, it won't be too low but that adjustment is another kettle of fish.

I used the EZ_water_calculator_3.0.2 (http://www.ezwatercalculator.com/)
With:
-Gypsum: 1,3 to mash, 0,7 to sparge
-Calc. Chloride: 0,6g to mash, 0,3g to sparge
-Lactic Acid 88%: 3.5ml in total, 22drops to mash, 13 drops to sparge

I got:
-Ca: 52ppm (recommended 50-150) <- to minimum!
-Cl: 54ppm (recommended 0-250)
-S04: 68ppm (recommended 50-350)
-Clorate/sulfate ratio: 0,80 -> balanced, a little on the "enhance bitterness"
-Mash PH 5.3 (room-temp)

so far so good...

In addition to the above, add some of your chosen calcium salt/s to the boil and if sparging, add some of your chosen acid to the sparge water.

I do "BIAB sparge", basically, I take the bag out of THE kettle after the mash out, I put it over a steaming pot (it has a big-hole-strainer/colander) and transfer the sparge water from another pot over the bag with a hose and gravity, then I put the resultant "sparge wort" back into the kettle for boiling. So I say I only use one big pot, but it's not true, I use 3 of them!

Sorry manticle, but I don't understand. How should I use the salts and acid then?
O1- like the spreadsheet says: to mash and sparge water, both acid and salts.
O2- salts into the boil, acid into the sparge
O3- like O1 + additional salts into the boil <- how much?! the rest until 100ppm in the same proportion Cl/SO4 ?

If you have a pH meter or even some decent strips, you can check the pH and make sure your calculator/spreadsheet is on the money. Definitely when learning, you should actually measure the mash pH rather than rely on software which is a guide only. If you do have a good meter, measure wort pH in the kettle and again at the end. To get really detail obsessed, you can also measure finished beer pH. Keep it simple this time and just get mash pH right - all things being equal, the rest should fall into place.

I was thinking about buying a pH meter but the cheap ones are a waste and the good ones are too expensive and need so much care! I don't know if it's something I can justify at this stage. So I bought "a 100 PH 4.5 - 9.0 strips" from ebay and I think I wasted the 7$ they cost me. I tried them with my saliva and I think I must be very sick, the reading was around 6.5
Anyway, I'll try them with this one to see at least if I'm doing it more or less ok. Where can I find good ph strips? I don't want to have a discussion about pH meters here in this post, I will look into it if you tell me that's the way to go.

thank you!

 

[earle]

In my experience the Belgian strain will go way lower than that, I've had one batch go as low as 1.000. My favourite saison strain mate I'm sure you'll be happy with the results

Thanks mate. Hydro samples are tasting good but I need it to get to FG so I can bottle for the xmas case swap. You're not heading down to this one?

 

[earle]

There we go again... I hope this time is alright!


P.S. New doubt: Should I dry hop as well? how much? 3g/L? 6g/L? I only have 30g of tettnanger left... If I dry hop should I use the east kent goldings for the boil and the tettnanger for the dry hopping or should I mix them? :S

No, don't dry hop. This style is all about the yeast so if you're going for a classic saison flavour hops will get in the way. As LRGI said in a previous post make this one an awesome base, then if you want to change up future batches do it then.

 

[manticle]

Not sure I suggested a big tett addition at 0 although some late hopping is fine. 25 ibu is fine, as is 30. From memory I used the word 'gentle'. Dry hop is in keeping with historical saison but not needed. Keep it simple for your first. If you do decide to dry hop, use ekg rather than tett.

As for salts - option 1 but add another dose of salts to the kettle if you want. Think of it like seasoning a soup. Calcium helps pH and a bunch of other things in the mash, it also helps with a bunch of things in boil and fermentation. Sulphate and chloride aspects help with flavour.

 

[Hez]

Not sure I suggested a big tett addition at 0 although some late hopping is fine. 25 ibu is fine, as is 30. From memory I used the word 'gentle'. Dry hop is in keeping with historical saison but not needed. Keep it simple for your first. If you do decide to dry hop, use ekg rather than tett.

As for salts - option 1 but add another dose of salts to the kettle if you want. Think of it like seasoning a soup. Calcium helps pH and a bunch of other things in the mash, it also helps with a bunch of things in boil and fermentation. Sulphate and chloride aspects help with flavour.

I said that, but I meant you suggested I use tettnanger! Lost in translation, sorry... anyway, 30g /10L is not such a BIG addition, I got excited jejeje

Ah! now I understand. Thank you very much, manticle, you are a great teacher

@earle convinced me and manticle ratified it, no dry hops this time.

I'll make the full calculations again and order the ingredients. I hope I can brew it next saturday (not this one, the next one). I'll keep you updated!
Thanks again to everyone!

 

[manticle]

Yeah tett's a great hop.

 

[luggy]

Thanks mate. Hydro samples are tasting good but I need it to get to FG so I can bottle for the xmas case swap. You're not heading down to this one?

Not sure mate I'll have to see closer to the date, hoping I can make it

 

[Hez]

I finally did it on saturday. Weird stuff happened...
First of all I realized I ordered 50g of grain less than I calculated, just because.
After having put all the corresponding salts and acid into the mash, I measured the pH with the strips and I got around 5.6! Remember I adjusted it to 5.3 in the water chemistry spreadsheet. After the sparge (I also added the corresponding salts and acid to the sparge water) I took another measurement and got exactly the same!
I moved to the boiling and it was 0.6L short. I think the calculated grain absorption was low so I topped up before boiling, no big deal.
Then I added the remaining salts "for seasoning" and measured the pH again: 5.6 <- what's going on!? As I didn't know if my strips are inaccurate or what and it was still within the recommended range, I decided not to add more acid. Should I have added it?

Then I did the hop additions within the hop spider. The East Kent Goldings (pellets) are from are different supplier and they expanded a lot into the wort. After the second addition the spider was almost full! After the last 0' addition it was totally full. I think this was a waste... should I buy a bigger spider, use several hop shocks or dump directly the hops inside the kettle?
If so, how do I keep them from going into the fermenter? Remember I do BIAB. My kettle doesn't have a tap/spiggot. Do I use a colander/strainer? :S
I think this might be the reason why all my IPA attempts have failed to be hoppy enough...

I got 12L into the fermenter, exactly as I calculated (10L + 2L trub), I measured the OG and I got 1056!!! and I had calculated the OG with 50g more of grain to 1050. So I added 1L of cold water from the tap and measured again: 1052. I didn't add more water because I didn't want to dilute more the IBUs.
So I redid the calculations and I had an impressive (for me) result:

Wort Collected: 18.3L
Batch Size after boil: 13L
2.15kg German Pilsner
0.55kg Wheat Malt
OG 1052
27.96IBU
------------------> 79% efficiency!!!

In my first brews I had a consistent 68% efficiency using 2L sparge. Then in my last 2 I increased it and I had 70%. This time I increased the sparge to 7L (~36% of the total water) and I did it slower. On top of that it's the pH and salts adjustement and on top of that I used a lot of weyerman's pilsner for the first time, I think, I beleive I've never asked especifically for that brand, so I guess I've used Joe White malts all the time.

Do you think it is possible I've had 79% efficiency doing BIAB with my ****** equipment and experience? Or I've made a wrong calculation or something? I can't beleive this is right, I don't trust myself. :S

Well, I pitched at ~19º and it's been around 20º since then. Yesterday the airlock was making a bubble a second.. and they say this is a lazy/slow yeast.

I'll keep you updated.

 

[Hez]

OH! what do you think of this:

https://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/guide-saisons-and-saison-yeasts

??

BTW, in the spanish forum and into the yeast package itself they say not to raise the temperature more than 25ºC while fermenting, but the yanks say to reach it upt to 29º and even 35º !!!

It's been 3 days between 18º and 20º, today I'm taking it out from the bucket with the t-shirt and esky-blocks so it raises wildly... This week it's going to be between 16º and 27º in Sydney, but inside my appartment it would be like 18º to 24º, I hope that's enough...

I've been looking for a second hand bar fridge I can use for my tiny fermenter and it's impossible to find one!

 

[Quokka42]

KK got the White Labs 568 in again and I grabbed some. Thinking of Pilsner, Wheat, a little UK crystal and some home made "Candi Sugar," clear but made with good raw sugar.
I'd prefer to use the hops I have as I believe Saison is more yeast than hop based - so what do people think of 10g Magnum first wort, 10g Saaz at 15 minutes (a little spice to work with the fruitiness of the yeast) and 10g at flameout for some spice/aroma?

I'm no Saison expert, but I thought I'd try the "Candi Sugar" as it seems to be in a lot of actual traditional recipes and should offset some of the acidic aspects of the yeast and grist?

Don't be afraid to offend - I offend a lot of people (I'm an opinionated ******* that actually prefers my own brews to just about anything commercial - even when they fall short of perfection.)

 

[Hez]

KK got the White Labs 568 in again and I grabbed some. Thinking of Pilsner, Wheat, a little UK crystal and some home made "Candi Sugar," clear but made with good raw sugar.
I'd prefer to use the hops I have as I believe Saison is more yeast than hop based - so what do people think of 10g Magnum first wort, 10g Saaz at 15 minutes (a little spice to work with the fruitiness of the yeast) and 10g at flameout for some spice/aroma?

I'm no Saison expert, but I thought I'd try the "Candi Sugar" as it seems to be in a lot of actual traditional recipes and should offset some of the acidic aspects of the yeast and grist?

Don't be afraid to offend - I offend a lot of people (I'm an opinionated ******* that actually prefers my own brews to just about anything commercial - even when they fall short of perfection.)

Mine has been already a week in the fermenter and is still there, I'll take a gravity reading tomorrow to see how it goes, but it looks like it they are in the famous saison yeast stall...

About your recipe I can't tell, this is my first saison, but from what I've read it sounds very similar to other recipes I've seen in different forums, blogs, etc .
Many people use saaz and three additions at "first wort", 15 ' and "whirlpool".
I've never used Magnum so I can't tell. I know that: "thinking all hops for bittering are the same is ludicrous" , but as long as you make your ibu calculations correctly and using another hops for aroma and this yeast... White in a bottle.
Good luck.

 

[Hez]

It's been 8 days. After day 4 it almost stopped bubbling. Sometimes you see one, but I stood 5 minutes at it and nothing. Just when I was about to take a gravity reading blup! One bubble! Jeje
The gravity now is 1005!!!!
It's done in a week!
I've tried the beer from the hydrometer and it's dry and tart. Really really light in colour and it has the characteristic flavour of the saison but very very mild, bland for my taste.
No hoppy mess whatsoever... [emoji52]
Should I wait more ? Is it worth to take measurements everyday ? What if it's totally done? What if it's in "the saison yeast stall"?
:S

 

[mondestrunken]

Great thread. Love a saison. Sorry to hijack...
I heard WLP565 is pretty temperamental and can easily end up sticking. Seems like not the case here?
Last saison I did was with Lallemand Belle Saison, but I'd prefer to use the liquid. Any thoughts?

 

[Hez]

Great thread. Love a saison. Sorry to hijack...
I heard WLP565 is pretty temperamental and can easily end up sticking. Seems like not the case here?
Last saison I did was with Lallemand Belle Saison, but I'd prefer to use the liquid. Any thoughts?

I've read lots of people in Europe use the belle saison. But obviously no experience with that jeje
Nope, some people say this one usually eats for one week, then stalls for the second one around 1020-1030 and then finishes the job on the third one to less than 1007. Not In my case!
I don't know if I should bottle it right away... And how much should I condition in the bottle? 3 weeks ? More?