Saison Brewery Visits - some general thoughts

After visiting a couple of different Belgian saison breweries over the past month or two (and some others over the past couple of years) I thought I'd give a bit of insight into the different modern takes on this style. And this also gives me a chance to put up pictures I have from some of the different leading saison breweries. This is a bit more of an overview and the more specific details on what I took away from different breweries will probably be saved for posts dedicated to those breweries.

As I mentioned in my about me section, the saison beer style is held together more by spirit and feel than by the sort of specific technical parameters you'd find in most beer styles. So while the strength, color, presence of spices, hop levels, etc. in different saisons may vary significantly, all the top commercial examples are dry, refreshing, yeast-driven beers with exceptionally low finishing gravities. Here is some of what I've seen from what I consider different leading Belgian commercial brewers of this style.

The Brasserie a Vapeur steam engine (from 1896).

Brewhouse facilities
Saisons, sometimes called farmhouse ales, are often romanticized as being rustic beers. While this is certainly true for the history of the style, not all commercial breweries (including many of the best) fit into this rustic ideal. Some of the breweries located in the center of villages/towns fit perfectly within the farmhouse feel/image while others out in the countryside have a modern setup. Some breweries (most notably Brasserie a Vapeur) are using some equipment over 100 years old while others, such as De Glazen Toren, have a beautiful new brewing facility that they acquired within the last 10 years or so. So while the style may hold a farmhouse connection to some, the farmhouse connection is certainly not ubiquitous.

The De Glazen Toren brewing setup.

Ground malt waiting for the next brew day at De Glazen Toren

Saisons are generally yeast-driven beers so the fermentation is going to control the final product. Some breweries are using pure cultures for fermentation and some are using mixed cultures, both to beautiful results (though I'm not sure all the breweries with mixed cultures are intending to do so). Some brewers, such as Dany Prignon at Fantome, will at times choose different yeasts and bacteria to add for some of their different brews. So while the fermentation (and the fermenting organisms) may vary greatly, the fermentation tanks are the only consistently reasonably modern equipment I've seen in all the saison breweries I've visited. I suppose that this is unsurprising given the advantages that conical fermenters and clean-in-place systems provide and because while a brewery only needs one mash tun and boil kettle, they will need many fermenters. There was still some reasonably variability between some of the breweries I visited but the variability between fermenters within a given brewery surprised me more than the varying fermentation setups at different breweries. Especially when considering the equipment differences on the hot end.

Spices and 'feel'
My favorite more typical saisons are either dry and rather hoppy (such as Dupont, Thiriez, and De Glazen Toren) or much more mild with the hops and spiced with a blend such that no single spice character seems to dominate the beer (such as Fantome and Brasserie a Vapeur). Achieving the appropriate balance, character complimentary to the yeast, and choosing some original spices is important here. In my mind Dany at Fantome is the master. He doesn't keep a written log of what he does but he's used so many different spices over the years that he has a feel for what levels of which spices are appropriate for the balance.

This sort of intuition or feel that I observed with Dany is something that stood out in the saison  brewers (and for that matter lambic producers as well) that I visited. It goes beyond recipe formulation though, as I saw many parts of the process controlled by feel or quick observation rather than measurement. And in general I think this is a big difference between many commercial brewers and most home brewers. Home brewers often jump around to very different styles, brew less frequently, and have more regularly changing equipment, environment, and process than commercial brewers. And even when the commercial brewers are regularly brewing something new or something they haven't done in a year or so (again taking Dany at Fantome as a perfect example), the feel they have for the style and how to use their ingredients makes a big difference.

Mashing in at Brasserie a Vapeur. The water to grist ratio was adjusted based on the feel of the mixture coming out.

Many homebrewers will often hear the advice that they should repeat the same recipe to get a hold of their process, and I think this is really important. But for those homebrewers out there who would get bored with this and lose what they enjoy in the hobby, try something like what Dany is doing. Find a style of beer you like making and/or drinking. It could be pale ales, it could be saisons, it could be stouts, whatever it is you really like. And brew some similar batches in a row. You can change parts of the recipe or parts of the process but it will still give you an idea about what different ingredients and techniques will contribute to your final beer. Whenever I get a new pack/vial of yeast (especially considering that yeast pitches can be one of the more expensive parts of brewing), I grow it up and split my starter for multiple batches in a similar family or style. Then I'll brew these batches over the next month or so. Keeping this approach of brewing similar styles with similar process and/or ingredients for a few batches in a row helps get a hold of the influence of my ingredients and process. There is no substitute for actual brewing, the closer together the batches are the better, to gain a feel for your system and an intuition for how different ingredients and processes will influence you beer.

Closing news - note: edited Jan 2015
And I'll close here with an exciting piece of saison-related news. Historically, some saisons would likely have had a character similar to younger lambic from the extended conditioning period and the non-microbiologically pure fermentation. And there is some evidence of a portion of lambic being blended into saison (for a good quick history of older saisons check out the Yvan de Baets chapter in Phil Markowski's Farmhouse Ales). This would certainly aid in the refreshing qualities of the beer and this sort of idea can be seen in some commercial beers today. Most notably Cuvee de Ranke, which is a 70/30 blend of a hoppy pale beer and lambic from Girardin. Edit: the info on the De Ranke website describes this a bit differently, and perhaps the base beer isn't as hoppy as the shelton website would lead one to believe. I've had it on tap in Belgium where it tasted rather hoppy and not very sour, lending credit to the Shelton description, but it may have been a case of a mistake in which beer was put on tap.

Edit fall 2015: An earlier version of this post included information that Jean at Cantillon was interested in some saison-related trial projects. I interpreted this to mean actually doing a bit of brewing with pitched yeast, but I believe I was wrong on that. I've heard no further mention of this so perhaps it isn't going anywhere. It would still be awesome, but I think focus is going elsewhere like toward the new facility expansion and this idea is on the back burner and/or shelved. Or, I think more likely, I was really excited by the idea and didn't fully understand what he meant by it. Jean is involved in saison projects by providing his lambic for blending with saisons produced elsewhere (such as a De La Senne and Hill Farmstead) and other beers (like with Agullons and Birra del Borgo (before the buyout - ed May 2016)), so this is more likely what was meant by his interest in saison-related projects. I expect he will continue to be involved like this and this is probably what he meant when he said he was interested in projects inspired by historic saisons. And I think my enthusiasm let my imagination run a bit. I also got a bit of a feel that this was a bit more of a longer term dream/goal, so it may be possible that he will expand these collaborations. I'll update if I learn of any tangible developments.

Edit May 2016: While I was certainly to quick to post about Cantillon experiments, I was also too quick to edit back that post. I won't say much more here and will leave any further discussion of this to the people involved if/when the time comes. On the whole the original information was valid - that Jean has an interest in continuing to produce quality traditional lambic as well as see how his lambic could interact with other beers/worts.

Alright, that's all. I'll plan to write up some specific brewery visits but thought that this general comparison would be a good way to get some ideas out and set those specific visits up.

Notes from specific saison breweries:
Brasserie Thiriez
Brasserie a Vapeur

Old Ale w/ Brett - Tasting notes

Again, sorry for the delay in getting this post up. I spent some time visiting breweries in Belgium and didn't get a chance to get the post up before the trip. Also, sorry for such a long post with no images. But the visits in Belgium have given me a good amount of photos for future posts. Anyway, on to the post.

This is the tasting and blending notes for my Old ale with Brett c recipe. As a recap, I bottled three different treatments: the non-brett base alone, a blend of 67% non-brett base with 33% brett aged, and the brett aged portion alone. I added White Labs Brett. c. to a portion in the secondary and all three treatments had the same 'clean' (no brett) primary fermentation. The clean and blended bottling was done at the beginning May 2013 (original brewday was 19 October 2012) and the 100% brett aged was bottled at the end of August 2013. As a reminder, the 3 gallons of clean portion were primed to a low level (1.8 volumes) appropriate for the style and after bottling about a gallon and blending in the gallon of brett aged old ale, no additional sugar was added. The 100% brett aged portion was primed to 1.8 volumes.

This was the first time I had tried to blend two batches just before bottling (aside from a couple of random bottles here and there) and as I eluded to in the first post it proved to be a bit trickier than I had anticipated. I had a great plan. This was to bottle 1 gallon of the clean old ale (3 gallons total in a rather full 3 gallon carboy) and then siphon in one of the gallon jugs of brett old ale, mix gently, and bottle the blend. My plan for siphoning and starting the siphon is where I had a bit of trouble. I wanted to use my racking/bottling cane, full of wort, to start the siphon of the brett portion. I though this was a great idea to minimize mid-bottling sanitaiton steps and air exposure. The issue came with the bottling wand tip. I didn't want to put it all the way to the bottom of the 1 gallon jug as that would stir up some sediment, and the angle and wand length were not enough for me to push it on the side of either the carboy or the 1 gallon jug to depress the tip and get flow.

The deliberation for a new plan mid-process and removal of bungs while trying things out allowed for more air exposure and also resulted in the less than ideal solution of quickly pinching off the tubing, removing the bottling wand, resanitizing the end of the tubing and starting the siphon. Also with my 3 gallon carboy on the counter for bottling I was without a good place to put the 1 gallon jug to get and keep a siphon going. So I had to end up holding it up on my shoulder for the duration of the siphoning which was not especially pleasant and also almost certainly resulted in more jostling and more sediment resuspension and transfer. Lesson learned for next time.

I've tried to detail what I thought were my mistakes pretty well to help others avoid them in the future. While it didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped, it still worked out pretty well. So here were my 4 take away messages from this experience to make it go better next time.

1) Have multiple racking canes sanitized and ready to go from the start. Maybe you won't use them all but it's better to have them there than need to adjust one or resanitize mid-process. With only one racking cane on hand I had a tricky time here.

2) Have the gravity feed setup in place for all steps before starting. You'll potentially find yourself with rather full hands with the racking canes and other miscellaneous stuff so moving carboys mid-process can be tricky.

3) As mentioned in the step 2, your hands will often be full. Have everything you need (sanitizer spray bottle, caps/bungs, racking canes, CO2 bottle for purging, etc.) close by. And maybe have some options for holding racking canes that don't result in either a lost siphon or non-sanitized equipment that you will need to use again. I had no place to put down my racking cane without losing the siphon and that made moving things around tricky.

4) Have some help. Bottling alone can be fine but with a new process involving multiple vessels, possibly multiple sets of tubing and more scattered equipment, it is really good to have another set of hands around. That definitely saved me.

On to the tasting notes. Both the clean portion and the blend were tasted at the end of August 2013 (3.5 months in the bottle). The 100% brett aged portion was tasted in the middle of September 2013 (only 3 weeks in the bottle). Perhaps what stuck out most to me was an acidity in the brett treatments. Where did the acidity come from? It is definitely possible that it came from bacteria, but I don't think that is the case because the brett portions weren't sour before bottling and both went sour in the same way after bottling (meaning they would have needed to pick up the same sort of bacterial contamination at their different bottling times). Plus the sourness did not seem to increase with added time in the bottle, there were no bottle pellicles, and there certainly wasn't an excess of CO2 production. I think it came from brett acetic acid production due to oxygen pickup. While brett on its own doesn't really produce much sourness in fermentation, if you give it extra oxygen after the growth period it can produce a lot of acetic acid. So with the bit of O2 I introduced with bottling I got a bit of acetic acid, which was not enough to be especially unpleasant and production stopped when the O2 ran out.

Clean Old Ale:

Aroma - Rich candy sweetness and caramel dominate, the more earthy English base malt comes through nicely, virtually no hop presence as would be expected for the style and the recipe, mild alcohol.

Appearance - very low tan head, fair retention, peach-amber color with a fine haze

Taste - Rich and earthy maltyness, fig, grape, and a bit of oxidized apple character, caramel, the Marris Otter base comes through nicely, light alcohol presence but overall smooth for it's strength. The rich English malt character dominates with a some pleasant supporting fruit in the background.

Mouthfeel - Low fine carbonation (at a good level for the beer/style), medium/full body but no heavy sweetness, light alcohol warmth in the finish

Overall - Mellow and smooth, on the more subtle side with no aggressive character dominating. The alcohol gets more noticeable with warmth. In comparison this batch was more malty and much more subtle. Potentially my favorite of the three but the blend is a close second. We'll see how they develop.

Blended Brett Old Ale (67% clean, 33% brett aged):

Aroma - Tart and vinous, the brett is fruity oriented and its influence comes through strongly, the aroma of the blend is much more complex and less malt forward than the clean version, there is a light leather character that adds a nice complexity

Appearance - Pretty much the same as the clean version, peach/pink amber with a fine hazyness, very low head (lower than the clean version)

Taste - Much like in the aroma, fruity vinous and tart brett character come through strongly. The fruityness is grape and berry oriented. The malty and caramel character in the clean portion come through in the finish, and it is good to see that some of that is still there. The earthy malt character works well with the subtle leathery edges in the blend. There is defintiely a tartness here, and while it is interesting it is a bit more than I was shooting for and throws off the balance bit. The acidity is acetic oriented but is low enough to be ok to me. Generally I am not a fan of acetic sourness in beer but here it is sufficiently low to not be problematic or rough here.

Mouthfeel - Very low carbonation. The blend had no extra priming sugar added, so it had 2/3 the rate of the initial clean batch priming sugar. I expected the brett to slowly work through what is there in the clean majority of the blend but that doesn't seem to be the case as of this tasting. The body is a bit lighter than the clean portion, which is possibly helped out by the acidity. There is a mild acidic warmth in the finish with the alcohol.

Overall - The tartness is not drastically too much but it is a bit more assertive than I wanted. The blend is drier than the clean portion, which makes sense from the added attenuation of the Brettanomyces, and has a bit more bitterness and roughness in the finish. Overall the beer is smooth for it's strength which I'm happy with. I like the added complexity that the brett adds to the blend (like the fruityness and the mild leathery character) but I think next time I will decrease the brett portion a bit. A smoother blending process may also lower the rougher brett blend qualities as the brett aged portion on it's own was not really acidic (or acetic) before blending. If I can isolate the brett complexities without the acidity (or with only a hint) I think it will add quite a bit to the old ale.

100% Brett Aged (still the same 'clean' primary fermentation):

Aroma - The brett comes through strongly with earthy and musty/funky (not in a barnyard Brett. b. way) character along with a mild fruityness and mild acidity. The aroma of this treatment is not as acetic as the blend, likely reflecting oxygen exposure that the blend got during blending. A light alcohol similar to the clean portion comes through but it is mild and unobtrusive. The rich English malt and caramel from the clean portion come through well along with more of a toasty character.

Appearance - Very low coarse white head (though this is derived more from the pour than from carbonation). There is more haze than either of the other two portions but that may be due to the shorter time in the bottle. The color is amber without the pinker highlights of the other two treatments, but that may be influenced by the haze.

Taste - The taste is surprisingly tart, much more so than the aroma suggested. More earthy English malt character (like the clean portion rather than the blend) with dried dark fruit (prune and date) and some malty sweetness. The tart brett character dominates and the tartness enhances the perception of sweetness. The tartness fades away to a nice dry earthy/woody finish.

Mouthfeel - Medium body with very low practically non-existent carbonation. There is a moderate tartness with an acetic edge that is a bit rough but not terribly so.

Overall - The aroma is really nice but the acidity is too much. The flavor is nice other than the acidity and I think what I learned from brewing, blending and tasting these three treatments will help out next time. There are definitely ways that the brett added to the beer. Now to isolate those positive contributions while avoiding the not so good ones...

The only change I think I'll make for the next iteration of the base recipe is adding a bit of darker British crystal malt (135-165L) and increasing the level of chocolate a bit to darken the beer. Other than that I am happy with the base recipe. As mentioned above I would probably drop from 1/3 brett aged in the blend to something like 1/4 and I'll take care to avoid oxygen pickup while blending with what I learned from this first blending experience.

Old Ale with Brettanomyces - Recipe

Alright, sorry for the almost month-long delay since the last post. The only reason I'm able to get to a post now is a flight delay of a day due to the full shutdown of Europe's 3rd largest airport (Frankfurt) by a strike from the security personnel. At least I was able to put up this post because of it. Anyway, on the beer info.

This is a recipe for an English Old ale that I brewed in October 2012 and bottled in May 2013. If you are unfamiliar with the style, it is a light amber to brown, malt forward English strong(er) beer that was traditionally aged for an extended period of time. During this long aging, especially at a time when brewery microbiological control wasn't where it is at today, the beer may pick up non-typical brewing yeasts such as Brettanomyces (brett) and other organisms normally associated with beer spoiling. In the right amounts and contexts these yeasts and bacteria can add nice complexity. My goal with this beer was to try an English beer with some Brettanomyces character. Belgian beers with brett are more common in both commercial and home brewing and I hadn't ever tried using brett in English beer before. I'm certainly not an English brewing historian so I can't speak to how well this recipe fits to historical English old ales, and that wasn't necessarily my goal. I did model the recipe of the sorts of flavors described in the BJCP guidelines and tried to stick with ingredients that an English brewer may have used, but that's about as far as I went with the strict historical accuracy. If you're interested in historically accurate reproductions of English styles there are some blogs out there that might be helpful such as Shut Up About Barclay Perkins.

This beer was inspired by Upright's Billy the Mountain, which is a blend of 'clean' old ale (only Saccharomyces cerevisiae for fermentation so no 'wild' yeasts or bacteria) with barrel aged old ale with Brettanomyces. I talked with Alex Ganum, the head brewer/owner at Upright, years ago when he was releasing the second batch of Billy the Mountain. At that point I remember he was blending a younger and fresher batch of the old ale with what I think he said was the previous year's brewing of the old ale which had been aging in barrels with brett. This may have changed since then, though I expect he is still following a similar process and bottling a blend of the new brew with a portion of the previous brew that has been aging with brett. Blending at this stage allows good control over the level of brett character and also combines some of the flavors you might get in an aged beer (like those associated with oxidation) with the those in a younger beer.

I decided to blend my beer as well, combining a clean aged portion with a brett aged portion, however with only one batch I wasn't going to be blending young clean beer with old brett beer. Instead it would be clean and brett beer both aged for the same amount of time. I let primary finish and then racked into three different vessels in November 2012, 1 month after brew day. The vessels were a 3 gallon carboy which I filled with the 'clean' portion and two 1 gallon jugs to which I added Brettanomyces clausenii (also classified as Brettanomyces anomalus/Dekkera anomala). I filled the 3 gallon carboy right to the neck to try to minimize oxidation. I got pellicles on both of the 1 gallon jugs, but they were relatively tame. I also added dregs of Upright's Billy the Mountain to both of the brett treatment jugs.

After aging for 7 months I blended back and bottled (May 2013). I primed the 3 gallon carboy to about 1.8 volumes of CO2 and then bottled about one gallon of the clean portion. Then I racked one of the brett jugs into the 3 gallon carboy, mixed and bottled without adding more priming sugar. I bottled this portion in high pressure bottles and a good number of swing tops in case the brett started to work away at what was left in the clean portion, but so far the carbonation doesn't seem too high. I'm not sure why it didn't drop lower but that seems to be the case so far. I bottled the final brett portion on it's own. Bottling seems to have been the only snag in this beer, as I'll get to in a follow up post with a review of the three treatments.

Recipe:
Batch Size: 5.25 gallons (19.9 L)
OG: 1.088
FG: 1.019 (non-Brett portion, 8.9% ABV) and 1.013 (Brett portion)

Grist:
16 lbs (7.26 kg) Thomas Fawcett Marris Otter
2 lbs (0.91 kg) Munich
1 lb (454 g) Briess Crystal-60
1 oz (28 g) Pale Chocolate (for color)

Hops:

at 70 minutes left in the boil:
1.5 oz (42.5 g) East Kent Golding pellets, 4.7% aa (~19 IBU calculated, Tinseth Formula)
1.5 oz (42.5 g) Fuggle pellets, 4.0 % aa (~16 IBU calculated, Tinseth)
1.5 oz (42.5 g) Willamette whole hops, 5.6% aa (~22 IBU calculated, Tinseth)

30 minutes left in the boil:
0.5 oz (14 g) East Kent Golding pellets (~5 IBU)
0.5 oz (14 g) Fuggle pellets (~4 IBU)

Yeast:
Wyeast 1028 London Ale
White Labs Brett Clausenii
I made a 1.4L stater of the London ale that I let ferment out and decanted. I also made a small starter for the Brett c.

Other:
1/2 tab whirlfloc
1/2 tsp Wyeast yeast nutrients
4g CaCl2
2g CaSO4
Base water profile: basically distilled/deionized. The water profile of Victoria is similar to Plsen.

Process:
Mash - single infusion, 60 minutes at 154 F (67.8 C). Maybe this is a bit lower than typical for the style but I'm happy with where my FG was.
Boil -  90 minutes, boiling 8.25 gallons (31.2 L) down to about 6.25 gallons (23.7 L) to yield 5.25 gallons (19.9 L) in the carboy. It was a bit of a windy day and the boil strength was irregular at times.
Fermentation - a bit over a week for primary. Pitched at 63 F (17.2 C) and let rise to 69 F (20.6 C) over the first 4 days. The temp was held at 69F/20.6C for 4 more days, by which point the gravity was down to 1.019. At this point I stopped heating the carboy and let it drop to ambient temps of about 60 F (15.6 C). Then I let the carboy age for about 7 months, with racking into secondary at the end of the first month. Aging was carried out at about 54-60 F (12.2-15.6 C). When I need to warm a beer, I control temps with a water bath and an adjustable aquarium heater. The water batch is about the same volume as the beer, maybe a but more, and it comes up to at least half way up the carboy. I feel this helps keep the carboy from getting much warmer than the temp that I heat to.

In a couple weeks I run through my tasting of the three beers and why I think some of them came out as they did. Overall at this point I'd say this recipe was a success. But look for a finished beer breakdown in a couple of weeks.

Soma recipe: my 2013 NHC 1st place Saison

This is the recipe for my saison that took 1^st place at the final round of the National Homebrew Competition in 2013. In many respects the recipe is similar to the beer I entered for the first round (which snuck me into the final round by placing 3^rd in the Seattle regional judging center), but I feel that the final characters of the two were very different. I much prefer this version and it seems to have worked out well for me. The key difference between these two beers is the yeast strains, but there was also a bit of influence from the pre-fermentation wort treatment.

I feel that one of the defining character of this recipe is the use of a blend of Wyeast 3724, the notoriously finicky Belgian Saison yeast strain, and 3711, the attenuation workhorse French Saison yeast strain. The idea originally came to me from (the unfortunately short lived) Odonata Beer Company saison, which I thought was pretty solid. Some details of the Odonata saison are discussed in this Brewing Network podcast (check about 1 hour and 36 minutes in for the yeast info). I prefer the flavor of 3724 but the reliable and extremely high attenuation of the 3711 strain really helps out saisons. So I think a blend of the two, favoring the 3724, is a great idea. And I know of at least one other commercial brewery out there doing this now.

Soma Recipe

Style-Saison

Batch size: 5 gallons (US)

OG: 1.053

FG: 1.002

ABV: 6.7%

IBU: ~ 27

Grist:

90% Franco-Belges Pils

10% Vienna

Hops:

3oz German hHllertau Mittelfruh Pellets (4% aa)

2oz Czech Saaz Pellets (3.2% aa)

-see boil for addition amounts and times

Yeast:

A blend of Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison and Wyeast 3711 French Saison. Roughly equivalent to 2 vials/smack packs of yeast and the blend was something on the order of 70% 3724, 30% 3711. I had starters of each going and poured off from at high krausen. In subsequent saison batches I've let the starters ferment out and cold crashed them, and then split into patchable amounts in mason jars in the fridge. I either blend the strains at this point or blend at pitching. I prefer blending cold yeast slurries (either before storing or at pitching) because I think it gives me better control of the pitch rate. And I like to grow up the two strains in individual starters to allow me versatility in using the strains individually and to control the blend proportions. In the future I'd like to experiment with repitching the blend but for now this is easier and the results are reasonably consistent.

Other:

½ tab whirlfloc

½ tsp wyeast nutrients

6.5g CaSO₄ added to the mash

The base water profile for Victoria is a Pilsen/nearly distilled oriented water.

Mash:

Sour Mash- Pils comprising 10% of the total grist was sour mashed for ~24 hrs. I did a standard sacch rest (~152-154F) with the sour mash portion for 60 minutes. Then I raised the temp to 170F and let it cool to 120F with minimal mixing to keep out O₂. At 120F I added ~1/3 handful of acidulated malt and ~1/3 handful of Franco-Belges pils to inoculate with lacto. A lower pH and the absence of O₂ helps a sour mash be successful and avoid gnarly off flavors. I sealed the top right at the liquid line with saran wrap to keep out O₂. Then I floated the sour mash pot in a rectangular cooler with hot water and a floating dairy thermometer to watch temps. I would regularly pull water out of the cooler, boiled it and added it back to the cooler to keep the temp between 100F and 120F. The temp would definitely drop overnight and while I was at work, but I was able to keep it in this range well enough. It was a bit of a pain overall and I tried this sort of thing with acidulated malt to achieve a similar acidity, but it was missing complexity and the mouthfeel wasn't as good. In future sour mashed batches I may let it go 36-48 hours. If the mash gets too sour you can always add only a portion of it. I added the sour mashed wort to my main mash runnings by pouring the pot with my mashed grains (and inoculation grains) through a large grain sack, the sort you would use for steeping and brew in a bag.

Soma 2 step infusion mash.

Main Mash- 2 step infusion. 45 minutes at 147F, and 20 minutes at 153F (see graph). I mash in a 10 gallon stainless pot with a false bottom. The advantage of this is that I can heat my mash with my burner. The disadvantage is that it doesn’t hold temperature super well so I pretty much always have to heat my mash at least once, especially in winter.

Boil:

2 hrs. Was planning on 90 minutes but my gas tank ran out in the middle and as a result the boil was weak for a reasonable length of time, so I added 30 minutes to hit my target gravity and volume. Hops were added 30 minutes (0.75 oz Saaz, 1.25 oz Hallertau), 5 minutes (0.5 oz Saaz, 0.75 oz Hallertau) and 0 minutes (0.75 of Saaz, 1 oz Hallertau) left in boil. Most of my saisons follow this backbone grist and hopping regime. I prefer hoppier saisons, and as it is a relatively low IBU style I like to derive all of my bitterness from ‘flavor’ and/or ‘aroma’ additions.

Fermentation:

Fermentation schedule

The graph at right details the fermentation schedule. I pitched at 68F and kept the beer at 68 for the first day, then raised to 80F over the following 2 days. I held it at 80F from day 3 until day 9, then the temperature was smoothly lowered to 71 by day 11. Finally I chilled it reasonably quickly to ~58F until bottling. I racked to secondary after 15 days. This was more out of needing to free up a carboy than desire to do a secondary, and I usually avoid transfer to a secondary (and advocate that others do so as well) in a beer of this nature (meaning no long term bulk aging). I controlled fermentation temperature with an aquarium heater in a tub of water. I like this method as it gives me good control of temp throughout fermentation by simply turning the dial on the heater and the water bath acts to cool the beer temp if fermentation is producing too much heat. I don't have to worry much about cooling the beer more than that. As it was winter and I like the cold, the conditioning temp between active primary and bottling was the ambient temp of my room (58F).

Bottling:

There was one month between brew day and bottle day. I primed the beer to ~2.7 volumes of CO₂. My experience with 3711 leads me to believe that this yeast slowly works on more complicated sugars over time so carbonation probably was more like 3+ vols. I’ve talked to commercial brewers and yeast company folks about this and have heard mixed answers. Whatever the case, 3711 attenuates REALLY well and even if I let a beer finish out, over time in the bottle the carbonation seems higher than what I primed it to.

Other thoughts:

There was about 5 months between brew day and judging day (4 months between bottling and judging). I set aside bottles for judging in the fridge for about the last 1.5 months before shipping the beers to Philadelphia. It probably took about 1.5 months in bottles before the beer was where I wanted it to be. I’ve noticed that with a number of my saisons, even when I condition them relatively warm, it takes a good bit of time in the bottle before the beer is where I want it to be. And many of them throw off diacetyl in the early stages in the bottle. So a saison that is diacetyl free at bottling might have diacetyl and near-final carbonation at 2-3 weeks and then will have no detectable diacetyl at 4-6 weeks. This isn’t always the case, but I do see it happening fairly often.

Here's a writeup of  how I now grow up yeast for blending.