It’s been getting warm here in the Northern Sacramento Valley, to say the least. Temperatures touching 107 F (in the first week of June), have many fearing mass extinctions, global warming, and the ever present flaming fucking hot steering wheel. When I see the thermometer getting up there I get excited, as this is the ideal time for me to brew up some tasty Saisons. I will forego the well-repeated history of the style, rising out of the Belgian-French border, Wallonia, and Les Saisoneres. A very useful resource for the history of Saison is Farmhouse Ales, by Phil Markowski, and my personal favorite. My first heat-defying brew, of what is sure to be a long and dry summer, is my third rendition of a Rye Saison that has quickly found a place in my heart… and my liver. This variation of the Rye Saison will utilize a different strain of yeast. In batches past, I used my go to farmhouse yeast, which is a bit of a mystery strain, isolated from bottles of Sierra Nevada’s Ovila Saison (the original Ovila Saison, not that Abbey Saison Mandarin Orange nonsense). This time I will be using Wyeast 3463 Forbidden Fruit. This is the same yeast I used in my Belgian Wit, Hermine, some posts back. It gave a lot of interesting characters of tart acidity, fruitiness, and a bit of spice in the Wit, and I am anxious to see how this translates with some Rye and Spelt. In a few weeks I plan to rack a portion into a secondary fermenter with four pounds of Mirabelle Plums taken from a tree in my back yard… and another tree, in someone else’s yard. The portion not added to secondary will go straight to bottle for control tasting. 
Recipe Specifications -------------------------- Batch Size (fermenter): 6.00 gal Bottling Volume: 5.75 gal Estimated OG: 1.044 SG Estimated Color: 3.1 SRM Estimated IBU: 25.3 IBUs Ingredients: ------------ Amt Name Type # %/IBU 4 lbs 10.8 oz Pilsen Malt 2-Row (Briess) (1.0 SRM) Grain 1 51.9 % 2 lbs 15.6 oz Rye Malt (Briess) (3.7 SRM) Grain 2 33.1 % 13.6 oz Spelt (3.0 SRM) Grain 3 9.4 % 1.00 oz East Kent Goldings (EKG) [6.70 %] - Firs Hop 4 23.9 IBUs 8.0 oz Candi Sugar, Clear (0.5 SRM) Sugar 5 5.6 % 1.00 oz Crystal [3.50 %] - Boil 3.0 min Hop 6 1.4 IBUs 1.00 oz Crystal [3.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 7 0.0 IBUs 1.0 pkg Forbidden Fruit (Wyeast Labs #3463) [124 Yeast 8 - Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out Total Grain Weight: 9 lbs ---------------------------- Name Description Step Temperat Step Time Protein Rest Add 8.12 qt of water at 125.7 F 113.0 F 30 min Peptidase Add 4.00 qt of water at 180.4 F 131.0 F 20 min Sacch Add 4.12 qt of water at 210.3 F 148.0 F 30 min Mash Out Decoct 6.38 qt of mash and boil it 168.0 F 15 min Sparge: Batch sparge with 4.72 gal water at 168.0 F
June 12, 2014: Brew Day: pretty straight forward brewday and it wasn’t even that unbearably hot. I guess brewing butt-naked wasn’t absolutely necessary, but hey, why not? OG – 1.046 5.5 Gallons collected, aerated for approx. 5 minutes (aquarium pump), yeast starter pitched, and carboy left to ferment at ambient temperatures in my spare bedroom (approx. 83 F) Fermentation took off in less than two hours.
June 29, 2014:
Final Gravity down to 1.008
Bottled half of the batch with 5 tbsp of clover honey.
The other half of the batch was racked onto 4 lbs of Mirabelle Plums that had been sanitized, then frozen for a week, thawed, smooshed, and then dumped into a 3 gal carboy.
July 2, 2014:
“We like plums.” – Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Bières d'exil 