Saison – homebrew

It is time to write something about homebrewed beer. We wanted to experiment a little bit with the French and Belgian Saison Yeast. We did one mash and one boil. We devided the wort into four parts and then added two different Yeasts and used different fermentation temperatures.

The mash and boil:
We made a 90-liters, single infusion, mash (66 degrees) of Saison (recepie to follow). Mash time 70 minutes. We aimed at and got OG 1058. We boiled the wort for 70 minutes.

Fermentation:
The wort was cooled down to 25 degrees and devided into four (4) different fermenters (plastic buckets). In two of them we added French Saison Yeast and in the other two Belgian Saison Yeast. One each (one French and one Belgian) was fermented in 25 degress C and the other two in 27 degress C.

After one week both buckets with French Saison Yeast was at FG 1004. We left them to settle for a week before bottling and kegging.

The Belgian Saison Yeast buckets had stopped at 1025. We decided to let them stay for another week and they eventually got down to FG 1010.

Bottling/Keg:
We kegged about 20 litres of the beers and the rest was bottled. We added spices to some of the beers to make it a little more experimental.
We added an Elderberry-blossom tea to 10 litres of the French Saison.
We added Rooibos tea to 11 litres of the Belgian Saison and a mix of Coriander seeds and Orange peel to 10 litres of Belgian Saison.
Comment: The Rooibos tea was very cloudy and I think we should add it in the second fermentation next time. The tea was made with beer and not water.

Result:
The difference between fermentation temperatures was not really noticable. Two degrees was not enough to make a clear difference. The difference between French and Belgian Saison Yeast was more interesting. The French Yeast was working as expected and made a crisp and fruity beer. The Belgian Yeast was a little bit more tricky but eventually made a complex, spicy and fruity beer.

I made some labels with beerlabalizer. Blue labels are French Saison and Red labels are Belgian Saison.