The Saison beer style is one I have wanted to brew for some time having first discovered the joys of the traditional Belgium & French Saisons 18 months ago whilst stewarding at the Australian International Beer Awards. These yeasty fruity light aromatic ales typify to me the 'harvest' ales of Spring to be enjoyed post a hard days work in the fields. Whilst not many of us toil a day in the fields these days I suspect it would go down a treat post gardening, lawn mowing or with friends over for a BBQ in the heat of Summer.
Taking guidance from the excellent La Sirene Saison brewed by Costa Nikias and shared in the recent Spring issue of Beer & Brewer magazine. My thought was it be good to get this down and out of the way before the Silly Season (it is more likely I will be bottling in the midst of the silly season!) and there is a famous Saison called Silly, so I was silly enough to call my home brewed on "Silly Season Saison".
Most likely I should be indulging in this little beauty with friends around the BBQ or out and about in mid-late Jan 2014 which is just fine by me :-)
Brew Day - Sat 30 Nov 2013
Ingredient:
- 2.9Kg Gladfield Pilsener Malt
- 1.9Kg Gladifeld Munich Malt
- 0.5Kg Gladfield Wheat Malt
- 52g Tettnang Hops 3.9 A/A 2012 Harvest
- 18g Hallertau Mittelfruh 4.8 A/A 2012 Harvest
- 1tsp Wyeast Yeast Nutrient
- 1/2 Tab Irish Moss
- Wyeast Belgium Saison 3724
- 5g of Calcium Chloride and 5g of Calcium Sulphate (to balance the water)
Mash: (single infusion 60 mins)
Pre-boiled and topped up with pre-boiled water 29.5L of water in the Crown Urn and let it cool to 69 degrees celsius before adding the grain bill which dropped perfectly to 63.5C. Played with the temp controller and noted some variation up to 67C 30mins later and back down to 62C by time took off to strain 1 hour later. Took a sample from the grain bag drippings and got a reading of 1.050 pre boil.
Boil: (60 mins)
Put the Urn back up to 110C to get to boil and notice something dodgy as took 1 hour to get to a rolling boil before I left it for 20 mins and added the 52g Tettnang 40 mins from flame out, 8g of Hallertau 20 mins from flame out and Yeast nutrient and immersion chiller into boil 10 mins from flame out and 1/2 tab of Irish Moss and the remaining 10g of Hallertau Mittelfruh hops at flame out. Immersion chilled and racked off into the fermenter after 30 mins and temp was down to 36C. Waited for it to cool and pitched the Wyeast Belgium Saison yeast into 24C wort after vigorous aerating shanking of the fermenter and set the Keg King temp controller @23C. Took a SG and read 1050 for just under 20L of wort which is a miss and pretty sure its time to take the trusty Urn back for an element and temp controller check up!
Primary Fermentation:
Sun 1 Dec and the primary ferment is up and running at velocity with a good krausen forming visible inside the fermenter. Temp controller is holding stable at 22.5C which is good. Little check on my Silly Season Saison and its up and running with a full head of steam on Mon 2 Dec - how very exciting & silly.
