Attempting a Saison from a Pils kit.

[louis macneice]

Sounds good. Wish i had the space / time to do brews like that!

It's all done in the kitchen with two large pans and takes about three hours from start to finish (but with time to do other stuff during the mash and the boil). The fermenter goes in the bathroom; this time with a 3 seasons sleeping bag over after the first day to ramp up the temp. On Sunday evening the bucket felt properly warm to the touch; it had dropped back a bit by yesterday evening but was still noticeably warmer than my usual brews.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[Markdon]

Down to 1.002, odd bubble now and then, test jar was amber and crystal clear, taste is much bolder, strong spicy note, in other words, cracking.

 

[clibit]

Sounding good!

So when will you be posting a side by side review of the two brews? :

 

[Markdon]

Once they've both had a few weeks to mature, know they will get better over a longer period, but should give an idea.

 

[Markdon]

Racked tonight and added 45g styrian goldings and 24g saaz, wasnt going to add the saaz but its all that was left so bunged it in. Really nice golden colour to this, brew #1 was still quite cloudy at this stage, yeast must be better at cleaning up. Will leave the hops in 4-6 days then rack and either bottle or leave to sit for a while as im off to ireland to do some work in two weeks.

 

[louis macneice]

Just bottled this afternoon. The bit left over in the bottling bucket tasted pretty good; obviously sweet from the priming sugar but had lots of other interesting stuff going on: some pepper, some orangey fruitiness, a little bit of tartness along side the sweet and something else which I can't quite define but which I'm calling a light yeasty/summer straw flavour. It's certainly good enough that I'm going to wash the Danstar yeast and save it.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[clibit]

You bottled Markdon's brew? Have I lost the plot?

 

[louis macneice]

You bottled Markdon's brew? Have I lost the plot?

No just bottled mine - see my post 27/4 for recipe.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[clibit]

Och aye, I had lost the plot. Looking forward to hearing how it turns out. Sounds great.

I notice you mashed at 60C, is that not a bit low?

 

[Markdon]

Working in wales, found an awesome pub in chester, had a bottle of dupont, came home today, first thing i did was open a bottle of my unconditioned brew #1 and was surprised at how similar they were. Thouroghly enjoyed it.

 

[louis macneice]

Och aye, I had lost the plot. Looking forward to hearing how it turns out. Sounds great.

I notice you mashed at 60C, is that not a bit low?

Sorry that should've read approx 65 degrees.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[clibit]

Ok, sorry for being pedantic, just wondered how that would work.

Markdon, is that the T58 brew that resembles Dupont? Great result whatever it is.

 

[Markdon]

Yep, same flavour, could be biased and fuzzy headed after 24hrs apart, but nice still!

Got a free fridge to condition the ale, plugged it in, relay blew, replaced it and the fridge started smoking and tripped the house power!

Looks like im going to have to pay for one need one asap as loft and shed are no longer cold.

 

[clibit]

I don't have temp control, I just brew with the seasons! Not at all during the hot spell last summer. Times like now, just use yeast that produces good beer in the low 20s. Saisons want a warm fermentation, a good summer brewing beer.

I have a packet of T58 in the fridge, and a desire to do a kit plus mini mash brew, so something similar to yours looks likely to materialise soon. Nice one, thanks for sharing it all, looking forward to hearing how brew#2 compares.

 

[louis macneice]

Mine's tasting pretty good: spice, citrus and the sort of 'hay' taste of the yeast. I tested it out on a French mate who liked it enough to accept some more as a gift.

I'll definitely be brewing another lot with my washed Danstar yeast.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[Slid]

Partial mash/mini BIAB 26/04/14; the mash/BIAB part went as follows:

800g pale 2row
200g wheat malt


Mashed in 3.5 lts of water at approx 60 degrees for 60 mins; I kept the stock pot in a warmed oven to help retain heat, checking every so often.

Heated another 3.5 lts of water to sparge my grain bag in once I'd let it drain; heated to 75 degrees. I dumped the bag into the pot left it for ten minutes and then lifted it out and drained it. After that I left bag in a colander to collect the final run off.

I combined the liquid from the original mash, the sparge and the final run off and brought to the boil, adding 15g of tettnanger for 20 mins and another 15g at 5 mins.

In the meantime in a fermenting bin, I mixed 500g of dry wheat malt extract and 500g of brewing sugar with 3 lts of cold water. Once that was thoroughly combined, I added the 1.7kg tin of Coopers Pilsner extract.

The boiled, hopped wort (approximately 4.5 lts) was then added to the fermenter through a strainer. The whole lot was topped up to 23 lts with cold water.

I pitched re-hydrated Danstar Belle Saison and four hours later it was working away merrily.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

I've done 4 Saisons using Belle Saison. First was a strong brew and the other three were made using the washed yeast from the first.

The second is almost gone now and I brewed it long (26L) using two kits - Coopers APA and a Wilko Cerveza with a hop tea addition (Triskel) and 750g table sugar.

It is distinctive and well worth doing. By the time I did this second it was already Autumn. It has turned out to have a very clean taste and a very low FG (1003 or so, using the guessing stick).

I will get another yeast sachet in before summer hits this year and see what happens.

I thought briefly about keeping the last 250ml bottle with original one but chucked it recently as 9 months is probably pushing the boundaries a bit too far.