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In the Fermentor: Session Saison

It's been awhile since my last Saison, so I'm taking a stab at a new one.

The beer below is a fairly straightforward take on the style. However, like I did with my Abbey Blonde a few months back, this beer is serving as a base for another beer that I'll be writing about in a few weeks.

Let's take a quick look at the recipe.

The beer's grain-bill is nice and simple: Pils Malt, plus a little Aromatic Malt and Flaked Wheat for character. Since I intend for this to be a late Summer beer, my Original Gravity is below the bottom of the BJCP Saison guidelines (not that really care all that much). If the yeast doesn't go too nuts, the beer's alcohol content will clock in at around 4.5%. That's just abut right for a beer meant for drinking while plowing the fields, rather than for getting plowed in the fields.

Styrian Celeia hops provide a nice floral quality. The bitterness will be prevalent, but not overpowering. As I did with last year's Saisons, I wanted to use Wyeast's French Saison yeast. I like it because it has a nice bit of sourdough and spice funk, while being fairly tolerant of room temperature changes during fermentation. Unfortunately, my homebrew store was out of it. They recommended White Labs' Belgian Saison II, so I ran with that instead. I'm curious to see what this new-to-me yeast does.

Although the beer is light and should therefore finish quickly, I'm giving it a couple of extra weeks in the secondary fermentor to help the yeast's character develop. Assuming I can make myself wait, letting some of the beer age in the bottle for a few months will really let the yeast do its thing.

Here's the five-gallon recipe:

Grains:
6.5 lbs Castle Pilsen
12 oz Castle Aromatic
12 oz Briess Flaked Wheat

Hops:
0.5 oz Magnum (14.7% a.a.): 60 min
1 oz Styrian Celeia (4.0% a.a.): 20 min
1 oz Styrian Celeia (4.0% a.a.): 5 min

Total Boil Time:
90 min

Yeast:
White Labs WLP566 - Belgian Saison II

Mash Schedule:
Protein Rest: 125F for 20 min
Saccharification Rest: 149F for 60 min
Mashout: 168F for 15 minutes

Original Gravity:
1.044
Estimated Final Gravity:
1.007

IBU: 40
SRM Color: 10

Fermentation Schedule:
2 Weeks Primary
4 Weeks Secondary
2 Weeks Bottle Conditioning

Cost: $15 per case (Closer to $20 if you don't reuse your yeast)
Commercial Equivalent: Great Divide Colette: $36 per case
Savings: $21

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