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The Question Mark Saison Recipe

Have some fun with your saison by forgetting hops selection, timing, and IBUs and use a single addition of leftover hops.

Josh Weikert Jul 9, 2016 - 4 min read

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With one base recipe, you can create many distinct saisons just by manipulating the hopping. We’ve covered a Classic saison, a Continental saison, an American saison, and a Craftsman saison. Here we have some fun by forgetting hops selection, timing, and IBUs and use a single addition of leftover hops.

ALL GRAIN

OG: 1.056
FG: 1.008
IBUs: N/A
ABV: 6.1%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

8 lb (3.63 kg) Pilsner malt
1 lb (0.45 kg) Vienna malt
0.5 lb (226 g) wheat malt
2 oz (56 g) Caramunich malt

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HOPS SCHEDULE

Do this once a year with some grist, but this base saison grist makes a good one for it because of the style flexibility and the “kitchen sink” origin story it has. Take all of your leftover, remainder, stray-pellet hops and dump them all (up to about 4 ounces/113 g) into an 8–10 minute whirlpool. If you don’t have a bunch of small bags of leftover bits of hops like I do, then you can just pick 2 or 3 ounces (57 or 85 g) at random (go purely by how cool the name sounds) at your local homebrew shop.

YEAST

Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison

DIRECTIONS

Mill the grains and mix with 3.5 gallons (13.25 l) of 162°F (72°C) strike water to reach a mash temperature of 150°F (65°C). Hold this temperature for 60 minutes.

Vorlauf until your runnings are clear. Sparge the grains with 3.1 gallons (11.7 l) and top up as necessary to obtain 6 gallons (23 l) of wort. Boil for 75 minutes.

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After the boil, turn off the heat and whirlpool for 10 minutes, adding all your hops. Then chill the wort to slightly below fermentation temperature, about 68°F (20°C). Aerate the wort with pure oxygen or filtered air and pitch the yeast.

Ferment at 69°F (20°C) for 6 days, then increase the temperature to 72°F (21°C). and hold at that temperature for 4 more days. Once the beer reaches terminal gravity, bottle or keg the beer and carbonate to about 2.5 volumes of CO2. You may want to cold crash the beer to 35°F (2°C) for 48 hours before packaging to improve clarity.

EXTRACT

Replace the Pilsner malt with 6 pounds (2.72 kg) of Pilsner liquid malt extract. Bring 5.6 gallons (21.2 l) of water to about 162°F (72°C) and hold there. Steep the crushed Vienna, wheat, and Caramunich malts in grain bags in the hot water for 15 minutes. Remove the grain bags and let them drain fully. Stir in the liquid malt extract and stir until completely dissolved. Top up as necessary to obtain 6 gallons (23 l) of wort. Boil for 75 minutes. Continue as directed above.

BREWER’S NOTES

This grist will give you a beer that is slightly on the paler end of the spectrum and uses relatively small amounts of character malts (Vienna, wheat, Caramunich) just to provide some nice grain/malt background. I like Vienna rather than Munich to avoid any “heavy” maltiness and give an increased perception of attenuation. Be sure to give this one time to ferment out fully—saison should be a dry beer!

Whether you like to brew over-the-top hops bombs or prefer the subtle pleasures of a British pub ale, discover how to build your own beer recipes from the ground up with CB&B’s online course, Intro to Recipe Development. Sign up today.

_This recipe is built to yield a batch size of 5 gallons (19 liters) and assumes 72 percent brewhouse efficiency. _

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