Wa'cha Saison?

This Saison has no spices or flavor additives. Instead I prefer the yeast and hops to come through with the character of the malts.

The Pilsner and Vienna malts are the primary character here and the classic Saison malts. The rye flakes adds a bit of spice and helps with balance, foam retention and adds a bit of haze. The carapils is also non-typical (and totally optional), but there is just a bit in there for extra body and foam retention to counter how much this will attenuate. The cane sugar is there to help with attenuation and drying this out.

The hops are designed to yield a lemongrass sort of profile.

I do a recirculating mash on a BrewHA BIAC. As my LHBS mills a bit fine for this equipment, I add some rice hulls to deal with the flakes that can really clog up the mash. Because of this, I add the flakes in a bit late on top of an established mash bed and only stir in the top few inches. Once mash is complete, I mash out at 170F to help thin the mash for better lautering, then sparge until I have 6.5 gal in my boil kettle. The 90 min boil (high percent pilsner malt requires longer boil to make sure the Dimethyl Sulfides, DMS, is removed) will reduce by about 1 gal on my equipment to get to my 5.5 gal batch size.

I pitch at 62F and let it free rise to mid 75F. Push it up to 80F if it needs more attenuation towards the end. After generally 10-12 days I cold crash the primary (I use a jacketed conical) for a day and then rack to a corny keg and condition at 68F (basement temp) for a few weeks. I then move to 38F for two weeks of force carbonation and cold conditioning.