First Saison

[rimski]

Hi

Going to try and do a saison over the next week or so and have a couple of questions regarding fermentation

Recipe

8kg - Lager Malt
0.7 kg Munich Malt
0.35kg CaraBelge
0.3kg Wheat

Hops will be Bobek or Fuggles for bittering, with a Saz adition near the end to give an IBU of upto 30IBU.

This is a 50l batch size and gives only a 4.3% beer and I just wondered if I should add sugar or maybe some crystal to give it some more body/colour and raise the ABV.

Yeast is the Belgian Saison Yeast available from Rob at TheMaltmiller.

I have a temp controlled ferment fridge but this needs to free rise, so I thought I would start the ferment at 21% and just let it raise itself in the fridge with no electrical help or could I raise the temp a degree or 2 every day?

Any advise please

[seymour]

I would urge against Crystal malt. I would add quite a bit of something, though, because a Saison should be 5-7% alcohol. Sugar, Brown Sugar, Invert Syrup, and/or more unmalted grain (any combination of Torrified Wheat, Flaked Wheat, Flaked Barley, Flaked Maize, Corn Grits, Steel-Cut Oats, Rolled Oats, Spelt, etc.) This is an old-fashioned farmhouse style which would've contained any/everything from the harvest, so it can be a very imaginative multi-grain thing. I also strongly recommend a multi-step mash for this style. You want the best possible conversion and highly attenuative yeast for a dry, digestive finish.

[Barley Water]

Agreed, you really don't want to start adding crystal malt or anything for that matter that will tend to make the beer sweet, you want dry, dry,dry. Think about working on a farm all day long in the hot sun, this beer is supposed to be a thirst quencher and sweet really doesn't get it done. With respects to Mr. Seymour I would argue one point however, I don't think the beer has to be 5%. Although many commerical examples are pretty strong including Saison Dupont, there are also many newer offerings that are 3 1/2 to 4%. Check out the Jester King website, they specialize in Saisons and I think it is the Petite Prince that is very low gravity; a great quaffer (those guys have some pretty funky stuff going on down there in Austin). I personally think that the BJCP guidelines for this style are a bit messed up, you know those farm workers back in the day weren't slamming down 7% beers, hell no work would ever get done. Incidentally, if you are using the Dupont yeast you can get it pretty warm without causing yourself problems, in fact I would recommend it to get maximum attenduation. I generally wait until the middle of the summer to brew that style and I ferment at room temperature which at that time of year is as hot as 80F. It's rather a fun style to brew because you can do all sorts of wild stuff to the beer, last time I made some I threw some Brett C into it before bottling. It took a while but the beer is very interesting and that Brett dried it all the way out (I figured there was no way they didn't have bugs in the beer back in the day). I may screw around with ginger next time I make a batch.

[seymour]

Good point about the gravity targets. I stand corrected.

I for one don't mind slamming a few 7% Saisons while I do yard-work, but I'm not being counted on to bring in the harvest to stave-off starvation either.

[smdjoachim]

Drop the crystal and add 10% syrup.
Mash low @ 63 C
Yeast will go down to 1003 with no problems

[rimski]

Thanks for the advice so far

I am looking into step mashing but atm I don't have a temp controlled mashtun so the only way I can think to do a step mash is to end up with a very wet mash as I would need to add boiling water at each temperature change to bring it up to required temperature but I just don't see that working as it would take too much licquor to raise by enough each step.

As for bringing up the OG I am going to just add standard sugar as this ferments out completely either as a homemade candi sugar or just as a sugar thus dropping the crystal.
As for ferment going to start at 23 and let it rise itself