Brewed: Aigre Saison

By scot in Beer Recipes, Home Brewing on Sunday, March 3rd, 2013

The name of the beer, in English, is Sour Saison. I decided to jump on the bandwagon of using French for a French/Belgian inspired beer. As you can tell by the simple name, I went all out. I didn’t use my customary golf terminology (from my days of a caddying). Fret not my friends I will meander back to the normal naming conventions with my next few beers but I will use French names in the appropriate spots.

I used a blend of WLP 566 and some of the yeast cake from a recent brewing of Bad Tipper Oud Bruin. I had been thinking about sour mash, acid malt, and other possible ways to get this beer tart/sour. Alas, I thought reusing some roeselare yeast would do the trick. I used a high mash temperature to create longer chain sugars to keep some goodies around for the bugs to munch on. I have used Brett in a Saison in the past but I truly wanted to say this was a straight forward sour beer, thus the bugs.

This one will be racked off the yeast after four weeks into secondary, allowing it to age until it starts to taste as I expect. I am going to add a bit of oak chips to the secondary as well. Enjoy!

General Information:
Brew Date: Sunday, March 03, 2013
Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: WLP 566 and Oud Bruin yeast slurry
Yeast Starter: 2 liter for 566 (was four month old yeast)
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.25
Original Gravity: 1.057
IBU: 20.9
Color: 3.6 SRM
Boiling Time (Minutes): 90
Brewhouse Efficiency: 68%
Alcohol by Volume: 5.7%
Primary Fermentation: 28 days @68*F
Secondary Fermentation: 365 days @68*F, including some oak chips

Grain Bill:
10.00# Pilsner
1.00# Red Wheat
0.25# Flaked Oats

Mash:
Saccharification Rest @ 156.3*F for 60 minutes.

Hop Bill:
0.20 ounces Warrior (15.0%) @90 minutes
1.00 ounce Fuggles (4.5%) first wort hop
1.00 ounce Fuggles (4.5%) @3 minutes

Extras:
1.0 tsp Irish Moss @ 15 min.
1.0 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 min.

Useless Fact: ‘Formicophilia’ is the fetish for having small insects crawl on your genitals.