Belgian Saison

07 May 2006 @ early afternoon | Comments (0)

Nothing like a full-bodied, fruity and spicy Belgian ale to welcome July’s warm summer nights filled with the aroma of night-blooming jasmine.

The recipe

• Style: Belgian saison
• Type: All grain
• Batch size: 5 gal
• Color: 7 SRM
• Bitterness: 37 IBU
• OG: 1.064
• FG: 1.016
• Alcohol: 6.4%
• Mash: Single infusion
• Efficiency: 66%
• Yeast: Belgian Saison (WLP565)
• Grain:
  • 10 lb. Pale malt (Belgian)
  • 1 lb. Aromatic malt 20L (Belgian)
  • 0.25 lb. Dextrine malt (Cara-Pils)
• Spice:
  • 0.5 oz. Dried orange peel
• Boil:
  • 1 lb. Belgian candi sugar (clear)
  • 1.75 oz. Styrian Goldings (60 min)
  • 1 oz. Saaz (aroma)

The process

We’ve been using epsom salt (MgSO4) and calcium carbonate (CaCO3) additions to our reverse osmosis water in order to balance the mash pH, but it still doesn’t seem to be affecting the mash efficiency in any way. Our ppm and nomograph measurements all balance out, but mash efficiency is still dwindling around 65%, pretty poor.

I still am not convinced that the use of CaCO3 to adjust the mash does anything at all, due to its insolubility. Most likely we’ll try to change something up for the next batch, since we’ve now been able to eliminate most everything but mash pH as the source of our problems.

The result: 3.0/5.0

This beer is definitely a better result than my first attempt at a Belgian recipe. After six months in bottle, this brilliantly clear yellow-gold beer has a lot of peppery character, although it lacks the signature orange citrus character of most Belgian saison. It’s a very good beer, perhaps lacking a bit of complexity, but still tasty!

Lessons learned

• If you want to keep your eyebrows, don’t stand over a 75,000 btu flame if it’s having flow problems while you’re trying to light it.
• Water. Seriously.