Interesting thread
I was in dubio about Citra saisons; I tend to equate Citra with fresh hoppiness, and saisons are (almost by definition) not fresh.
But then I got handed a box of fresh medlars by a friend, with the express directive to brew a saison with them. I could've picked Saaz, but gravitated to Citra from the get-go, so here goes: Saison Cul de Chien.
Made a 5 gal. batch, comprising 36% Pilsner, 36% pale and 28% wheat malt.
Mashed on the low end at 150°F, where it gradually petered down to about 140 (my mash tun needs an insulation coat).
70' boil.
0.5 ounces of Citra @70' (26 IBU)
1.0 ounces of Citra @ 10' (6 IBU)
1.5 ounces of Citra @ flameout (0 IBU)
5g of black pepper corns and zest of 1 lemon @10'.
Cooled to 68°F and pitch with French Saison (second generation 3711, kindly donated by homoeccentricus).
Fermented at 71°F, ramping to 77 over the course of a week; dropped from 1.063 to 1.002.
Racked to secondary and split in three batches.
1) basic version. Will likely be dryhopped with more Citra.
2) Cul de Chien: added syrup I made from about 2 dozen bletted medlars, half a lemon, and sugar.
3) basic + Orval dregs for Brett funk and rustic saison character.
I intend to leave all three in secondary untill late spring, and bottle them at 2.5 - 3 volumes of CO2.
I must say I'm quite please with that French Saison. I liked it a lot better than the Fermentis Belle Saison i've used for saisons so far. I split my yeast cake in half. One half will be returned to the donating brewer, the other half will make me more saison