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Blackberry Saison in the Dead of Night

Leave at room temp, refrigerate for two days before opening.

In the process of going commercial, might work on this recipe. The hydrometer samples had everything that I look for in a good saison. All feedback appreciated.

5.5 Gallon Batch

Water Treatment
Campden Tab (1/2 in strike,1/2 Sparge)
Cal ChlorIde - 2.2g
Epsom - 3.8g
2 ml 88% Lactic Acid

Mash pH 5.35

Grain:
12lbs Pilsner Malt
8 oz Special B
8 oz C120
1lb Belgian Candy Syrup D-180

mash @ 150f for 75 mins

Hops:
1 oz Tettnang Pellet (4.4%aa) @ 60
2 oz Tettnang Pellet (4.4%aa) @ Whirlpool 180f for 10 mins before chill.

1 Irish moss tab @ 10min

Yeast:
WYeast 3711 French Saison
1 Gallon Starter of 1.040 wort no agitation. Crashed and decanted.

Manual aeration of wort

Primary: 18c for 2 days then started ramping up temp about 1c per day until hitting about 25c. Left it there for a week.

Secondary: At about 10 days in lowered temp to 20c and added 2#'s of pasteurIzed Blackberry in a strainer bag for two weeks, then down to 16 for remainder until bottle day.

Bottled to 3 volumes

OG 1.072 FG 1.000
9.45% ABV 13.8 IBU 15.27 SRM





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Bumping this up there. It was down pretty far on the list.

I've been sick for 6 days so this is the first one I'm getting back at!

Hope you enjoy it!


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Just chucked this in the fridge, can't wait!

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Really enjoyed this beer. I don't have detailed tasting notes because I drank it while eating some greasy spicy lamb, but it was really tasty, and went down easy. The blackberries didn't stand out, but I wasn't looking for them since I didn't check the beer style. Thanks! It went well with roast lamb.

I liked this beer. I found the blackberries pretty apparent. It was a bit boozy; not a suprise given the alcohol %, but still detracted from the impression a bit. But overall no real complaints; I'd drink another.

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Great beer Glen - I couldn't really taste the blackberries but it was a solid saison!

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mdentremont wrote:Great beer Glen - I couldn't really taste the blackberries but it was a solid saison!

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Thanks!

Blackberry is an odd thing to work with.
I have two more batches of this going and I'm pulling it out of the recipe on both just to see what it actually brings to the table.

Too much blackberry berry and you get a weird almost astringent bitterness.

After brewing three beers in a row with blackberry I decided to use it as more of a spice in this beer. I'm excited to compare to the beer without the berry.

One iteration of this recipe is knocked down to 7% to try to take off some of that alcohol note and also to produce something that's sellable on tap. I only pulled out a portion of the base Malt so I'm hoping I'm not getting too much character from the yeast in this beer from it being pushed to such a high ABV. Basically hoping the lower ABV version still has some weight.

Another thing I would like to ad is that I've relabeled this beer a "Dark Strong" it doesn't quite classify in the saison category for me.




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oceanic_brew wrote:

mdentremont wrote:Great beer Glen - I couldn't really taste the blackberries but it was a solid saison!

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Thanks!

Blackberry is an odd thing to work with.
I have two more batches of this going and I'm pulling it out of the recipe on both just to see what it actually brings to the table.

Too much blackberry berry and you get a weird almost astringent bitterness.

After brewing three beers in a row with blackberry I decided to use it as more of a spice in this beer. I'm excited to compare to the beer without the berry.

One iteration of this recipe is knocked down to 7% to try to take off some of that alcohol note and also to produce something that's sellable on tap. I only pulled out a portion of the base Malt so I'm hoping I'm not getting too much character from the yeast in this beer from it being pushed to such a high ABV. Basically hoping the lower ABV version still has some weight.

Another thing I would like to ad is that I've relabeled this beer a "Dark Strong" it doesn't quite classify in the saison category for me.




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I agree fully to all of this

I can attest to the dark strong characterization. I drank this without looking at the recipe first and I thought it was a quad

KB1138 wrote:I can attest to the dark strong characterization. I drank this without looking at the recipe first and I thought it was a quad

Perfect! good to know I'm on point with that. I labeled it Saison before having a chance to taste. It was first time using that yeast.

It's a very versatile flavor.


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Great beer. as mentioned definitely tasting more dark belgian than saison...in a great way. All those nice dark fruit raisiny flavors with a bit of boozy and light fruit from the berries. Great dark ruby color.

Thanks!

know1 wrote:Great beer. as mentioned definitely tasting more dark belgian than saison...in a great way. All those nice dark fruit raisiny flavors with a bit of boozy and light fruit from the berries. Great dark ruby color.

Thanks!

Thanks a lot! Glad you enjoyed


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Definitely more like a dark belgian so I was a little thrown off when I had it. I'm not a fan of that style I find them too boozy but I think yours was likely close. I forgot to post so I can't recall much more than it tasted like a dark strong.

Halifax_Jeff wrote:Definitely more like a dark belgian so I was a little thrown off when I had it. I'm not a fan of that style I find them too boozy but I think yours was likely close. I forgot to post so I can't recall much more than it tasted like a dark strong.

Appreciate the feedback! Thanks


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I actually just drank this last night. It was great. Had a few scotches and then had this...kicked my ass a bit. Thanks for sharing.

Broob wrote:I actually just drank this last night. It was great. Had a few scotches and then had this...kicked my ass a bit. Thanks for sharing.

Haha yeah I’ve had some messy nights since working on that recipe. I had my last one of this batch two weeks ago. It definitely carbonated a little higher than I had planned but it just makes for a better beer in my opinion. The blackberry was completely gone which honestly was welcome.

It actually was a good reminder of just how down the wrong path I am with the beer and I’ve gone back closer to original recipe and altering again from there.

Thanks for enjoying!


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I'm just having this now, at the end of October. There's a hint of solvent, but nothing off-putting. I get a lot of dark fruit, maybe some molasses, and just a hint of cocoa. I could smell some sort of berry near the end of the glass as it warmed up. Seemed more like blueberry to me, but I don't know much about blackberries. A thin head that lasted right to the end. Without knowing, I would have categorized this as a Belgian strong dark.

Absolutely fantastic beer. Thanks so much for sharing.

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Buccaneer wrote:I'm just having this now, at the end of October. There's a hint of solvent, but nothing off-putting. I get a lot of dark fruit, maybe some molasses, and just a hint of cocoa. I could smell some sort of berry near the end of the glass as it warmed up. Seemed more like blueberry to me, but I don't know much about blackberries. A thin head that lasted right to the end. Without knowing, I would have categorized this as a Belgian strong dark.

Absolutely fantastic beer. Thanks so much for sharing.

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Woah! Thanks. Well I am digging this recipe up.

I just have to say that I’ve been struggling to make anything this good since. Perhaps it’s being overly self critical but I’m definitely going back to this one again.

I’ve changed it so much that it’s not nearly the same and It takes forever to condition now.


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