Petit Saison Rebrew

The grist

I was really happy with my first batch of petite saison, and though I knew by the time the re-brew was ready it wouldn't quite be summer anymore, I figured it would be ok and the beer was definitely worth re-brewing. Since it is a pretty straightforward beer recipe wise, it was also a good candidate for refining my yeast blending. Previously my rough target of ~80% Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison, ~20% Wyeast 3711 French Saison wasn't really based off much in terms of specific test results. I wanted the flavor profile of 3724 to be prominent over the profile of 3711, it was a convenient blend for some earlier batches, and I liked the results of those earlier batches. So it was about time to test that blend ratio out. In order to end up with a good amount of 3 or 4 different blends, I opted for a 16 gallon batch. That also gave me a good opportunity to test out some newer equipment on a pretty low-stress brew before I really needed to count on the equipment and know it's quirks.

A full 20 gallon pot during the boil

The brew day went pretty well. Because my OG was so low I was especially wary of over-sparging. I held some of my sparge water to add straight to the kettle rather than using it as sparge water in the mash tun and I was prepared to top up more as needed. The wort was split into 4 carboys. 3 were kept 'clean' (with only Saccharomyces) and one carboy got Lactobacillus and Brettanomyces in addition to normal yeast. As I mentioned above, one of my big goals with this beer was to try different blend ratios to see what I should set as my target blend for future batches of saison.

For the blending I chose my usual target for the blend of saison yeasts I normally use (~80% 3724, ~20% 3711), a blend more heavy on the 3711 (60% 3724, 40% 3711) and a blend incorporating a third yeast (60% 3724, 20% 3711, 20% Yeast Bay Wallonian Farmhouse). Usually my saisons come out with a blend somewhere between the first two based on convenience, so the goal there was to determine how much that blend ratio really matters. With the third option I wanted to see if I could improve the blend by adding a third yeast. And I was happy with Wallonian Farmhouse and had some around from my barrel aged saison (which just came out of the barrel and is tasting pretty good), so that became the third yeast to put into the blend. Keep in mind that those percentages were targets, and while I was roughly close to that (I recorded what I actually did), the exact numbers are a bit different. It might be worthwhile putting up how I did that blend as a more advanced follow up to my intro to yeast blending. So I'll save a detailed work up of the blend ratio for there.
 

The Saccharomyces strains for this batch

Recipe
Batch Size (vol in primary): 16 Gallons
OG: 1.031
FG: 1.001
ABV:4.0%
IBU: ~21 (Tinseth)

Grist:
36.1% Doehnel Pale Munich (6-7L)
35.8% Doehnel Light Pils (1.5L)
13.5% Wheat Malt
8.5% Weyermann Acidulated Malt
6.0% Caravienne

Adding the caravienne was a change from the first recipe, and we'll see if I like the addition or not. Generally I avoid that sort of malt in pale saisons. However given the especially low gravity of this one I thought maybe it would help boost the malt perception (even though the first batch did come out with a pretty good malt character).

Hops:
84g Hallertau Mittelfrueh pellets, 4.5% aa
77g Tettnang Pellets, 4.3% aa
20g Slovenian Bobek pellets, 5.09% aa

Yeast:
Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison
Wyeast 3711 French Saison
Yeast Bay Wallonian Farmhouse

And in the 4th carboy:
Yeast Bay Lochristi Brett blend
Wyeast 5223 Lactobacillus brevis

Other:
CaSO4 and CaCl2: +95 ppm Ca2+, +113 ppm SO42-, +71 ppm Cl-
Victoria's water has very low levels of dissolved ions so these addition levels are basically the final concentration.
1 Tab Whirlfloc
1 tsp Wyeast yeast nutrients

Mash:

4 carboys fermenting (uncovered for the picture only)

85 minutes qt 150 F (65.6 C), roughly half of the acidulated was added with the rest of the grist and the other 1/2 was added with 15 minutes left in the mash. No mash out above 160 F (71.1 C) to continue conversion into the kettle.

Boil plan:
90 minute boil. I topped up with water as necessary to hit my targets. I didn't want to over-sparge so I expected I would need to top up a fair bit. I used hop bags for this brew as I was using a new larger boil kettle and I didn't have a good way to keep hops out of my fermentation otherwise.

1st wort hops: 12g Tettnang and 19g Hallertau
25 minutes left in boil: 20g Slovenian Bobek
20 minute steep after flame out: 65g Tettnang and 65g Hallertau

Fermentation Plan:
Pitch at 60-70 F (20-21.1 C) and let it rise/warm it up to 78-80 F (25.6-26.7 C) over the first 3 days or so.

3-Aug-14 Brew Day

13-Aug-14 Turned my aquarium heaters off in the fermentation baths and let the beer temp drop to room temp over the next day and a half or so.

7-Sept-14 Bottled. I went away for two and a half weeks at the end of August/beginning of September so I wasn't able to bottle any sooner. But spending that much time in the primary fermenter was not a problem.

Here are the tasting notes from this batch.

The three 'clean' blends (+1 other batch) bottled