Summer Saison

Been too busy to brew is my excuse for now.  I always like trying different Saison recipes for some reason and this time is a take on the now defunct Odonada Saison.  Although I never got to try the beer, or any of their wonderfully sounding beers, I hope to recreate something of what they had with this recipe.  I want the Saison to be rustic, earthy and slightly funky with no Brett present.  So to help do this I bumped up the Wheat malt, Acidulated malt and added some Melanoiden Malt and Flaked Oats.  I also wanted to bump up the fermenting temperature of the WY3711 yeast this time around. To ferment some where in the 80's was my goal.  I was quite lazy making this batch and didn't make a starter at all.  I smacked the Wyeast pack and hoped for the best.  What I got was a much dryer beer than I expected, but thats a good thing.

Summer Saison

Malt:

7 lbs: Weyerman Floor Malted Pilsner

5 lbs: Wheat Malt

1.5 lbs: Melanoiden Malt

12 oz: Cara-Pils

8 oz: Munich Malt

8 oz: Acidulated Malt

4 oz: Flaked Oats

Hops:

1.25 oz: Chinook 1.25aa @ 60 min

2 oz: Willamette 4.0aa @ 10min

Misc:

1 Whirlfloc @ 20min

Target OG: 1.066

Target FG: 1.010

IBU: ~31

Actual OG: 1.065

Actual FG: 1.000

Apparent Attenuation: 88.7%

ABV: 7.7

ABW: 6.1

Yeast:

Wyeast 3711 French Saison (From Smack Pack)

Hopville Recipe

Update 9.1.2011:  Beer finished out a bit dryer than I was expecting.  The Wyeast 3711 is an amazing strain of yeast.  I let the beer sit on the yeast longer than I wanted which caused it to dry all the way out.  This made the beer quite imperial at 8.7% abv, and you can tell it too.  While the beer is cold, the hot alcohol is barely noticeable, but as soon as it starts to warm up, they really come out.  I think it's going to be back to the drawing board on my Saison recipe.  Next time I will look for a more low gravity solution, and try to keep it under 5% abv.