It has been a while since I put up a new recipe. I am fairly excited about this one for a couple of reasons. I wanted to stretch my legs on a big beer, and test my new water system and knowledge, as well as feature a hop that I have been wanting to use. I love saisons, but have given up on them for the most part as the Dupont yeast strain (my favorite) is so finicky. So two new items in the arsenal are Danstar’s Belle Saison yeast and Nelson Sauvin hops. I found a few recipes online using Nelson in saisons… the verdict seems very positive. I also decided to push the edges here going over 9% abv in a very dry beer.
Using R/O, I added very moderate amounts of gypsum and calcium chloride to bring the calcium levels up a bit. Finished profile target was very close to the Achouffe profile in Bru’n Water. Still very soft and low alkalinity. I also added some acid malt, really for a slight flavor contribution. A little slaked lime helped to bring mash pH back up where it belonged.
Here’s the recipe from Beer Smith in BeerXML format:
[beerxml recipe=https://www.accidentalis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/SaisonDuSauvin.xml metric=false cache=-1]
The brew day went very well, despite a few hitches with a stuck re-circulation. That was fixed with a generous dose of rice hulls, a short infusion of sparge water and some serious stirring. After that frustration, the wort quickly clarified. Hit a mash pH initially of 5.2 (from the acid malt) but it rose back to 5.3/5.4 within about 20 minutes. Mashed at 142F for 45 minutes, then raised temp to 152F. No Mash Out.
Seemed to be very little hot break in the kettle. Nelson Sauvin smells unlike any other hop I have used. While it has a relatively high AA rating, the hop aromas were very soft, almost noble, a bit earthy. I can see where the wine and gooseberry descriptions come from. A lot in an APA would be pretty amazing. Paired with Tettnang, I am hoping this remains recognizable as a saison. I am considering dry hopping later with NS as well and perhaps a tiny bit of Tett for a better aroma profile.
This is going into the third week of fermentation. I was amazed by the blow off from this yeast, probably helped by the gooey rye, but the chugging could be heard all over the house. Within the first 4 days, we were at 1.010, and today, I measured at 1.006. It is still going, and happy to see this go bone dry. I don’t detect any heat or fusels in the samples. I also plan to give this some additional time in the primary, perhaps another week or so, before dry hopping – to replace the aromas that were blown off with fermentation. I will try to remove some of the trub in the next day or so.
I have pretty high hopes that this will be a very drinkable saison, despite the gravity. I cannot quite figure out the hops flavor at this point – still a lot of yeast in suspension. I do want a bit of white wine character to show through at the end. I have a cold right now – so my senses are a bit wonky.
Transferred to cornys today. Used a different method to keep contents under Co2 and no air exposure. Looking to see if this makes a longevity difference.
Holy crap. Just took a FG reading, looks like 1.005. Still bulk conditioning on some dry hops.
Belle Saison is a beast – that is over 93% attenuation!
Dry hopped with another ounce of NS. There is a pungent aroma, a bit sour and berry from Nelson that I think works well here. Will see, at 9% this will require some age!