Lucky Lizard Saison

The second beer I brewed during my bachelor weekend was a saison.  I love saisons, but I have struggled to brew one that I have loved.  This is the third time I have attempted a saison.  The first one was straight-up Jamil’s recipe from his book Brewing Classic Styles. It had a very simple grain bill – Pilsner with a little light Munich and wheat.  It was a decent beer but nothing special.  For my second attempt, I went the polar opposite with a bunch of different malts trying to get some complexity.  I replaced some of the pilsner with Maris Otter, and I added some acid malt and even a little chocolate malt and hit it with some brown sugar and pepper.  This was certainly a step up from my first attempt and I liked the twang from the acid malt, but it still wasn’t there.

At this point I started focusing on my yeast.  I had used White Lab’s saison strain the first two times but I wanted to do something different.  I was able to get my hands on East Coast Yeast’s Single Saison strain (ECY14) and thought this might do the trick.  I tweaked the grain bill once again, substituting US 2 Row for the Pilsner and Vienna for the Maris Otter, but pretty much kept the specialty grains the same.  The ECY did a number on it attenuating it down to 1.003 in 2 weeks.  I have high hopes for it if I can just get it bottled.

 

Brew Date: 8/8/14

Beer Number: B37

Beer Name: “Lucky Lizard Saison”

Type: Saison

Primary Fermenter: 7 gal. plastic bucket (xx days)

Secondary Fermenter: NA

Volume: 5 gal (target 3 gal.)

OG: 1.044

FG: 1.003 (as of 9/5/14)

Expected IBU: 25

Expected SRM: 4

Calculated Alcohol %: 5.38%

Calories: 141/12 oz.

 

Ingredients:

2.65 lbs. Breiss US 2 Row Malt
1.25 lbs. Wyerman Vienna Malt
0.375 lbs. Wyerman light Munich Malt (8.25L)
0.4 lbs. wheat malt
0.2 lbs. acid malt
.03 lbs. chocolate malt
8 oz. rice hulls
1 lb. white sugar
14 g Mt. Hood pellet hops (6.0% AA) @ 60 min
14 g Mt. Hood pellet hops (6.0% AA) @ 5 min
ECY14 Saison Single Stream

Step by Step Process:

ECY14 Yeast Starter (8/8/14)

1. Boiled @ 200g Pilsen DME in @2.0L water for 15 minutes
2. Transferred @ .75L to ½ gallon growler
3. Cooled and pitched bottle of ECY14 Saison single strain
4. Covered with foil and swirled periodically
5. Minimal kreusen appeared

Wort

6. Crushed grain in Barley Crusher (double-crushed the wheat)
7. Heated 6.29 qt. strike water to @170F and poured into mash tun
8. Allowed temp. to settle to 153F
9. Added grains to tun and stirred – temp. settled at @149F
10. @45 min. added 0.9 gal. 170F water – bringing temp. to 158F
11. Heated 6.25 qt. water to boiling and poured into mash tun to raise temp. to 149F
12. Recirculated @ 2 qts.
13. Opened valve slowly and then wide open and drained into kettle
14. While draining, fired burner and set heat on med.
15. When empty, filled with 2.85 gal. of 170F water, stirred mash, recirculated and drained
16. Collected a total of @ 6.0 gal. wort
17. Brought to a boil and boiled for 60 minutes adding hops per above
18. Placed in an ice bath and cooled to below 100F  in @ 30 minutes
19. Covered and allowed to cool overnight
20. Next day OG was 1.033
21. Boiled 1 lb. white sugar in 24 oz. water and poured into plastic fermenter
22. Siphoned wort into sanitized plastic fermenter

Fermentation

23. Pitched entire yeast starter @ 70F
24. Placed fermenter in fermentation room
25. Signs of fermentation within 8 hours
26. @48 hours – no signs of visible fermentation
27. 10/24/14 gravity reading 1.003