This batch continues the deep dive I’ve been taking into mixed fermentation brewing over the last 6 months. I have a bunch of sours in the pipeline now and I’d like to get some funky, non-sour, brett beers going. I brewed my first brett saison a few weeks ago. This will be my second attempt in the broad style of funky saison.

Watching the 10 year retrospective from The Mad Fermentationist’s yearly dark saison project was inspirational. I’m hoping to keep up my own similar series. I think I’ll probably take inspiration from Mike and friends the first couple years, and then strike out with my own experimental brews as I get more comfortable with this style of funky brewing.

One of the standout beers from that tasting was year four’s American Farmhouse Currant Dark Saison. I’m going to brew that recipe for the first shot at this style.

Recipe

This is close to the original recipe, but has a couple small changes.

• I’m subbing Midnight Wheat for the Roasted Barley. I think it’ll provide all the color of the roasted barley from the original and I’m hoping to further reduce the acrid charred flavors that mike was trying to minimize by cold steeping the roasted barley in his version. (Mike didn’t report any problems with the flavor from the roasted barley, but this just seems like the ideal application for Midnight Wheat. It’s worked very well for me in a similar role with black IPAs)

• The other alterations are microbial. I didn’t have access to the exact strains from the original batch, but I’m going for a similar complex blend of funky sacc and brett.

Batch size:      5.5 gallons
Target OG:       1.067
Target FG:       1.006
Calculated IBU:  20.6
Calculated SRM:  30.5

Grain bill:
13 lb Vienna        (91.2%)
5 oz Special B      (2.2%)
5 oz Chocolate Malt (2.2%)
5 oz Carafa II      (2.2%)
5 oz Midnight Wheat (2.2%) (cold steeped)

Water: Howard County MD tap water (unknown profile)
+ 1/2 campden tablet to remove chlorine

Mash (Batch Sparge): 159 °F @ 1.3 qts/lb

Hops:
0.5 oz Warrior @ 60 minutes

Yeast:
2L starter (intermittent shaking) of:
* Omega C2C Saison Blend
* 1 pack WLP644 Sacc Brux Trois
* 1 pack WY5112 Brett Brux

Secondary Additions:
5 oz/gallon dry zante currants
TBD quantity of medium toast oak cubes + red wine

Notes

2020-04-17 - Made up a 2 L starter and added all the microbes. Held the starter at 74 °F in a water bath and swirled it intermittently. Put in the fridge about 30 hours later.

Also started cold steeping the midnight wheat in a french press with about a 20 oz of water at room temp.

2020-04-19 - Brew day. Mash initially came in a little hot at 161. Hand full of ice cubes got it down to 159.

Added the cold extracted midnight wheat at the start of the boil. This is certainly a dark beer!

OG 1.067. Chilled to 69 and pitched the decanted starter. Going to let it primary at 70 °F for a couple weeks, then transfer onto the zante currants.

2020-05-25 - It’s been about 5 weeks since brew day. I transferred the beer to a 5 gallon secondary with 25oz of organic, oil-free, zante currants. Gravity is at 1.015 and still burping slowly but regularly. The gravity sample tastes.. not that great, to be honest. It seems like that’s the way it usually goes with young mixed fermentation beers.

There’s still a long way to go before it’s done though. I’ll just have to wait and see how it turns out.

2020-07-21 - The majority of the currants are still floating. Nothing visible growing on the fruit yet. Topped up to the neck with a little bit of tart saison #1. Drank the rest. Yum.

I’ve noticed that when topping up a carboy with floating fruit, there will be an expansion as the previously floaing fruit is sumberged and starts to swell. What was filled to the neck when you walked away might be overflowing the next morning. Watch out.

2020-08-20 - Airlock still has slow but steady activity. Punched down the fruit today. Most is still floating. Still no visible growth of anything on the fruit yet.

2020-11-11 - Most of the fruit still floating but I don’t see anything growing on it. Possibly helped by the fill level being up into the neck. I’m going to take a gravity sample and add some oak and a bit of red wine soon. Hoping to bottle in Jan/Feb when I’m happy with the oak level.

2020-11-12 - Gravity 1.005. Added 1oz oak cubes that were boiled for 5 minutes, and about one cup of syrah.

The flavor is ok. No glaring off flavors, but a bit dull. Dry, medium-high brett funkiness, minimal roastiness. I’m surpried I don’t taste the zante currants more. I tried adding a little bit of wine to my sample and that improved it significantly. I’m hoping some time with the wine and oak improves things over the next few months. I might even add some more wine at bottling time, we’ll see.

2021-03-14 - I figured this was done back at 1.005 but there’s been a surprising amount of airlock activity since the last update. I’ve honestly been afraid of what I’d find when I finally sampled it.

Gravity is down to 1.003. Smell is funky in a way I can’t really give a name to, but it’s not bad. Some oak on the nose too.

Taste is roastier than I remember. That’s not something I was expecting to change with time. Overall it’s gone in a bit of a weird direction. Is that what I get for complaining that the last sample was boring? Overall, not a dumper but not great. I’ll probably bottle it soon and see how it develops from there.

The wine flavor isn’t too noticeable so I added another ~8 oz of a red blend that we had open.

2021-05-02 - Bottled. Primed to 2.6 vol CO2 assuming a normal level of residual carbonation. From recent experience, it’ll probably come out lower than this.

2021-06-25 - First tasting. Carbonation probably is the mid 2’s, a bit higher than I thought it’d be but not a problem.

Appearance: Very short lived head. Looks like I poured a snifter of cold brewed coffee. Excellent clarity for what that’s worth in a dark beer.

Smell: Oak, wine, leathery Brett. I’ve never really been sure what people mean when they say a beer is leathery but I think this is it. Overall a complex and interesting aroma.

Taste: Lots of wine. It’s a bit roasty but the roast comes across like charred barrel character. Mild acidity. The currants, oak, wine, and Brett combine into a really interesting finished product.

Bit of a shame about the appearance. This does not taste how it looks. I think this would be a crowd pleaser if it looked like a Flanders red instead of a porter.

2021-09-17 - As time has gone on, this has gotten more tart and the wineyness has faded. Not bad but a bit less interesting than before.

I’m surprised at the tartness, I didn’t intentionally add any microbes that should’ve soured it, but maybe a few snuck in. It isn’t full-on sour, but definitely tart.

Changes for next time

Turned out pretty well overall. I’d like to try a similar flavor profile again with a red base beer.