Batch #51 - Saison de Soufflé Fleur

Saison de Soufflé Fleur

Brewed - May 5, 2012

Style - Saison

Ingredients:

• 27.0 lbs. Pilsner
• 5.0 lbs. Red Wheat
• 2.0 lbs. Munich Light
• 1.0 lbs. White Wheat

• Perle - 3.0 oz. (60)
• Saaz - 2.0 oz. (30)
• Dandelion Tea - 32.0 fluid oz. (1.1 oz. dry dandelion leaf tea)

• Wyeast #3711 French Saison (1200 ml starter / 3 packs)

OG –1.068
Primary – 13 days
Secondary - ?? days

Kegged - ??


FG - 1.005 
Attenuation - 92.7%
ABV - 8.2%


Notes:

• Collaboration brew with fellow homebrewing aficionado Bob Zormeir
• After trying Fantome Pissenlit years ago, I have long wanted to try to brew a dandelion saison; with NHC coming up, this was one the beers I wanted to finally get brewed 
• In this case, we brewed the beer together and each are trying a different method with the dandelions
• On the fly, we scaled up a recipe that Bob has worked up; I had never brewed a 15-gal batch on this system, so it was a learning process
• I didn't estimate the pre-boil runoff correctly and we ended up with 13.5 gallons and overshot the targeted OG
• Bob took ~ 5 gallons home with him and when fermentation slows, he will be adding a tea he made with fresh dandelion flowers and a different saison yeast (Wyeast #3724 Belgain Saison I think)
• I made up some strong dandelion tea an dumped ~ 32.0 liquid ounces into the fermenter before the transfer; ~ 5 gallons were transfer on top and I will be adding more tea depending on flavor, strength, etc.
• The remaining ~ 3.5 gallons will be fermented as is with no dandelions and hopefully will turn out to be a tasting wheat saison 
• We both plan on serving our saisons at the NHC Club Night and it will be interesting to taste the different results 
• Mash at 152° and 90 min boil
• Start the ferment ~ 72° 

Updates:

• Wyeast #3711 is a workhouse and this was down to 1.005 in 13 days
• On May 18th, I added ~ 40 oz. of dandelion tea to 4.5 gals of saison in one keg; I have ~ 3.5 gals in the other and will either leave as is as a base or will use some to blend into the dandelion keg depending on how it tastes in a few weeks