So I heard back from the Brewmaster at The Alchemist and here is what he had to say:
90% Pilsner malt
10% Caramalt
Shoot for a hardness of about 200ppm
You MUST hit the proper pH in your mash, 5.1-5.3
Mash it low around 144'F
Maybe 35-40 ibu's of mostly late addition hops.
Good luck.
Now the Farmer's Daughter is a much bigger beer than what I'm shooting for (8% alcohol vs 4.7% projected for mine) so the IBU's don't surprise me too much, but I'm definitely surprised by the 10% Caramalt in the grain bill.
I don't know anything about Caramalt but some info online seems to suggest it's similar to a crystal 20, and I don't like much more than 5% crystal in any of my beers, never mind something as dry as a saison. I wonder if the saison yeast just chews through some of the stuff that is normally unfermentable by say an American ale yeast?
I might just go ahead with what I've been planning and revisit this with a future saison. I've made a few more tweaks and will post the revised recipe soon.