One of my favorite styles these days is mixed fermentation tart saison. Earlier in the year I made my first attempt at brewing one myself. For that beer, I blended about 20% kettle soured berliner weisse to a saison that had brett, but no souring bacteria added. It isn’t finished yet, but from some gravity samples I think it’s going to end up being tasty, but not as tart as I expected from my blending tests.
For my second go at the style, I’m going to use a full range of brett and souring bacteria. To hopefully get a light tartness instead of full-on souring, I’m going to mash low and wait until a few days into fermetation before adding the sour bugs.
Update: After some intermediate samples I decided this beer could use some adjuncts to make things a bit more interesting. On the theme of native North American ingredients, I’m going to split the beer onto cranberries (cooked down with some red wine), blueberries, and local honey*. I’ll bottle what remains as-is.
*ok, it’s a bit of a stretch to call honey native, but it’s close: https://nativebeeology.com/2018/01/26/native-honey-bees/
Recipe
This recipe is mostly taken from the “Inspired by Saison Vautour” recipe on page 340 of American Sour beers.
I’ll be using different yeast since that’s what I have on hand.
Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Target OG: 1.057
Target FG: 1.004
Calculated IBU: 30.5
Calculated SRM: 4.1
Grain bill:
8.5 lb Pils (73.9%)
2 lb Rye Malt (17.4%)
1 lb Blond Candi Sugar (8.7%)
Mash (Batch Sparge): 148 °F @ 1.5 qts/lb
Hops:
1.75 oz Hallertau Mittelfrüh @ 60 minutes
0.45 oz East Kent Golding @ 15 minutes
0.35 oz Hallertau Mittelfrüh @ 15 minutes
0.40 oz East Kent Golding @ 5 minutes
0.40 oz Hallertau Mittelfrüh @ 5 minutes
Yeast:
Most of a decanted 2L starter (intermittent shaking)
of my current house saison blend, a combination of:
- Omega C2C Saison
- WY 5112 Brett Brux
- WLP644 Sacch Trois
Then add sour bacteria a few days into primary.
Notes
2020-05-22 - Made a 2L starter of my “house funk” blend from the dark saison.
Planning to inoculate with either “house sour bugs” or some sapwood dregs a few days into primary
2020-05-25 - Brew day. Pre boil gravity seemed good but OG came in a little low at 1.054. Guess I had less boil-off from the 75 minute boil than I expected.
2020-05-26 - 24c over night, letting it free-rise to 24.5. Going to move to water bath at 25ish tonight.
2020-05-27 - Added a splash of house sour bugs to primary (Mostly a mix of some ECY sour blends). Fermentation is slowing down but still has some krausen
2020-05-31 - Gravity 1.006. Transferred to 6 gallon PET carboy. I have maybe 5.5 gallons? I meant to transfer earlier in the week while fermentation was more active. I added 3.5oz sugar to get the yeast going again and clear out the head space. It’s tasting really nice at this point! I hope it stays good as the slower bugs start to do their work.
Bubbling was pretty active later in the day. Probably could’ve gotten away with less sugar.
2020-06-20 - Significant increase in airlock activity after going pretty slowly the last couple weeks. Big pellicle forming.
2020-07-20 - Activity has slowed noticeably. The pellicle is thinning out, or at least it’s deflating. Hard to tell.
2020-08-08 - Graivty 1.003. The flavor isn’t great and on top of it it’s kinda bland. Not particularly tart yet. Kinda disappointing. It tasted great straight after primary. It seems like it’s gotten less flavorful and just generally worse since then. Here’s hoping it improves with some more time.
2020-08-16 - I’ve made a plan to split this beer into a few experiments to try to add some character to what is a pretty boring beer right now. On the theme of native North American ingredients, I’m going to split the beer onto cranberries (cooked down with some red wine), blueberries, and local honey. I’ll bottle what remains as-is.
2020-09-26 - Gravity 1.001. It’s tasting better than last check. Got a bit of tarness now. Gravity has moved since two months ago but I doubt it’s going much lower than this, so I’m going to take my chances and bottle.
Got 21 bottles of the straight saison (priming sugar calculated for 2 gal to 2.4 vol). 1 gallon jug with 6oz of my cousin Deb’s raw honey. 1.25 gal with 12oz cranberries that I cooked down before adding. 1.25 gal with 2lb frozen organic blueberries that I smashed around in the bag a little, but added mostly whole. Boiled medium toast American oak cubes for 5 mins. 0.25oz in each of the 1.25 gal fermenters, 0.20oz in the 1 gal jug.
Going to wait 6 weeks, ~11/7 and bottle anytime after that if things look stable.
The fermenters I’m using for the 1.25 gal variations are little big mouth bubblers.
Overall, not great, but pretty ok. I expect it’ll taste better in the future as the hops fade and the Brett cleans up after itself a bit.
The two fruited variants have THICK pellicles but I don’t think they’re moldy yet. It’s a bit hard to see since the lids of the fermenters are opaque. The honey variant as a significant pellicle too, but less crazy than the fruits.
2020-11-08 - Bottled the cranberry and blueberry versions. No mold on either! Got 12 bottles of each. Felt a bit bold and primed to 2.9 vols.
I went light on the cranberries because I feared they’d be too bitter and astringent but they are nice. That version just has kind of a vague fruitiness in the background.
The blueberry version is in-your-face blueberries. The smell and initial taste are very nice but it has kind of a weird aftertaste. I’m hoping that goes away with age. In both versions, the oak is pretty light. 6 weeks isn’t that long for oak cubes. I may add more next time I do something similar.
Still waiting on the honey version to stabilize. It still has some slow but steady airlock activity.
2020-12-03 - The honey version has looked stable for a couple weeks. It’s dropped very clear too. Good looking beer. I’ll bottle soon.
I haven’t opened either of the fruited versions yet but they are both clearing up too. The blueberry version is looking particularly clear in the bottle.
2020-12-05 - Bottled the honey version. Got 9 12oz bottles. There was so little of it, I decided to skip the bottling bucket and bottle straight from the siphon. Primed to ~2.4 vols with Domino Dots sugar cubes for convenience. Little sample tasted pretty good. I’m looking forward to the finished product.
2021-02-06 - Trying the plain saison again. It’s been in bottles about 4 months now. Carbonation is good. Very little head retention. Appearance is clearer than last tasting but still slightly hazy
The taste has improved nicely. No more cheerios. The hop bitterness is fading to a nice balanced level. Still lightly tart. I could go for a little more tartness but this is enough to be noticeable.
Some nice brett funkiness going on now, and it’s developed a prominent lemon flavor that wasn’t there in my last tasting. I’m happy with how this is going. It’s not mindblowing, but it’s definitely improved up into the ‘enjoyable’ range.
I tried the two fruited versions around christmas but didn’t take notes. They were both very undercarbonated. I’ll come back to them in another month or two. I’ll try the honey version around then too.
2021-03-19 - Opened the first bottle of the honey variant. It is very carbonated. I wonder if my estimate of the domino dots a was a bit off. Still quite drinkable but needs to be opened with care. Smell and initial taste are very nice. Aftertaste is a bit harsh and unpleasant which is unexpected. The base beer doesn’t have this issue.
I’ll let rest of the honey version condition some more and try it again in the summer.
2021-03-22 - Tried a bottle of the blueberry today. Carbonation much improved from the last Christmas tasting. The blueberry flavor is a lower intensity than before, which is a surprise. Most of my other fruited beers have held onto their flavor better. Tastes pretty nice overall though. The odd aftertaste is still there but I think it’s fading with time.
2021-06-27 - Trying the blueberry version again. The carbonation is light but enough that the beer doesn’t feel totally flat. I don’t know why this is so much less carbonated than I intended. I must’ve been wrong about the residual CO2 at bottling time, or maybe I just measured out the wrong amount of sugar.
Taste is good! The unpleasant chalky aftertaste is just about gone. Only really noticeable if you’re looking for it.
Plenty of good blueberry flavor still. It’s dry and funky. The beer has gotten a bit more tart than I remembered. Very nice overall.
I also tried the honey and cranberry versions recently. The honey one has cleared up very nicely. The weird flavor from the last tasting is gone. I really like this version now. Cranberry, not tasting so good. The cranberries have gotten kind of astringent, and I’m just not enjoying the overall flavor in that one.