Saison Feb 22, 2008

So David, this one's for you. David and I were planning on brewing this together but his time in Seattle was cut short (for a job in SF) so we never got around to it, but we had the yeast that was special ordered. I've also wanted to try my luck at a saison, so now was the time. Base recipe from a friend of David's. All grain, 5 gallons.

Target OG 1.052 (I forgot to recalc based on my mash efficiency - that's a problem with recipes from others)

Water - Filtered, no additions.
Grains (assume 80% mash efficiency) - Extract conversion - substitute ~7 pounds (6 7/8) for pils malt. Steep malted wheat in water to 170 degrees. remove grains at 170 degrees and rinse, add malt extract.
8 # Belgian pils
1 # malted wheat
1# table sugar

Hops - ~35 IBU E Kent Golding + Spalt
Yeast - Wyeast 3711 (Fr. Saison). Made a starter 24 hours before pitching

Mash in with ~2.25 Gal water to 126 for 30 minutes (protein rest unnecessary). Heat to 153 for 45-60 min. Temp dropped into the mid 140's. Heat up to 170 for 10 min. Sparge with ~5 gallons. Take ~6.5 gallons.

Boil 60 minutes:
60 min (~21.4 IBU) 1.42 Oz E Kent Goldings (5.3%)
30 min (~9.2 IBU) 0.5 Oz E Kent Golding 0.5 Oz Spalt (4.1%)
8 min 0.5 Oz E Kent Goldings + Irish moss tea
3 minutes 0.25 t grains of paradise gently crushed with rolling pin and table sugar
0 min knockout, chill to 70 degrees.

Transfer to carboy, aerate with 'filtered air' and pitch. Gravity was 1.058 because volume low. Add liquor to 5.5 gallons for an OG of 1.054. Bubbles/activity by evening.

Calculated efficiency - 78%. 31 IBU

Transfered to 2 ary on 3/14. gravity at 1.003 (!!!). Is that normal? Tasted nice, clean, spicy, and aromatic. Now the only thing to decide is to crash it and keg it, or to bottle in champagne bottles?