Saison Recipe Advice

[Tao]

Im aiming at a more traditional brew here, low alcohol content and using a fair amount of adjunct. Im using dry yeast for several reasons

1: Price (I think thats a good enough reason)
2: I get my yeast posted to me and I never know how long its going to sit in the mail for.

I want a dry beer thats easy enough to drink, refreshing with a low alc content so I can have a few if I feel so inclined. I want a little bit of spice (T-58) and Im not concerned about clarity (no additives to help the beer clear, on a side note has anyone used egg white to clear their beer? They use it in wine making).



With that in mind I have come up with this:



Recipe: Saison

Style: Belgian Specialty Ale

TYPE: All Grain





Recipe Specifications

--------------------------

Batch Size: 22.00 L

Boil Size: 29.66 L

Estimated OG: 1.035 SG

Estimated Color: 4.9 EBC

Estimated IBU: 23.7 IBU

Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %

Boil Time: 80 Minutes



Ingredients:

------------

Amount Item Type % or IBU

0.25 kg Rice Hulls (0.0 EBC) Adjunct 7.04 %

2.30 kg Pilsner, Malt Craft Export (Joe White) (3.Grain 64.79 %

1.00 kg Wheat Malt, Malt Craft (Joe White) (3.5 EBGrain 28.17 %

34.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (60 min) Hops 21.6 IBU

17.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (5 min) Hops 2.1 IBU

1 Pkgs DCL Saf Wheat Yeast WB-06 Yeast-Ale

1 Pkgs SafBrew Specialty Ale (DCL Yeast #T-58) Yeast-Ale





Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge

Total Grain Weight: 3.55 kg

----------------------------

Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge

Step Time Name Description Step Temp

75 min Mash In Add 10.65 L of water at 68.2 C 63.0 C



Any advice is welcome.

 

[neonmeate]

i say get some WLP565. the money you spend on the yeast you can save on malt cause you'll get an extra 6 or 7 gravity points' attenuation out of it.

with the low hopping, wheat malt and the wheat yeast you are probably going to end up with more of an american wheat type of thing. it might be what you're after but it won't really be a "saison".

 

[Tao]

Thanks for the advice Neo, I will explain my logic. I have gone with dry yeast, not a specific Saison strain but one with similar qualities, as well as wheat yeast because I want to pitch a large amount of yeast and a mixed culture without worrying about the quality. It could be in the post for a few days before it gets to me. Saison is a broad style and some have large amounts of adjunct added (farmhouse Ales states that some have up to 40% malted or unmalted wheat as well as the potential for other adjuncts). The low hopping is not common in the traditional Saison but they hopped them highly in order to store them, sometimes for over a year. So I figure that I dont really have to hop it that highly if I want to make a beer drinkable sooner rather than later.

Its by no means a modern Saison, but I think Im in keeping with the older ones (Low Alc beer for drinking in the fields). Just want to know if anyone has done anything similar.

 

[Stuster]

Well, I've recently made a low alcohol saison recently actually. For reasons that are too foolish to relate I used a different yeast than I was originally planning and used the French Saison yeast on a 1033 beer. It's actually turned out really nicely and I think you'll be happy with the grain bill you have and going for a low alcohol. Mine was the second running of a parti-gyle mash, mostly ale malt with a bit of wheat (15% or so) and a bit of caraamber. Hopped to almost exactly the same as you have with Target and then a good whack of homegrown hops (EKG and Perle) at the end.

I agree with neonmeate that it won't really be a saison with those yeasts. I think you'd be better off choosing one and for what you want I'd go with T-58. Sure brewers in the past used mixed cultures, but they also knew which yeasts went together. I don't think those two will though I could well be wrong. If you really want to do it, experimentation is good and I'm sure you'll still be able to drink the result. I wouldn't worry about the yeast firing up though after a couple of days in the post. Dry yeast is pretty hardy.