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Author Topic: Fruit to add to winter saison  (Read 1304 times)

Offline rbowers

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Fruit to add to winter saison
« on: December 14, 2014, 03:21:35 pm »
I brewed up a large batch (8 gal) of the winter saison (saison d'hiver recipe on AHA website).  Treated 5 gal as per recipe but decided to add Brett Brux to 3 gal as an experiment.  The gravity after primary fermentation was fairly low (1.008) so not a lot left in terms of sugars for the Brett I added after primary fermentation.  I was toying around with idea of adding fruit to the secondary for the 3 gal for Brett to munch on and maybe add some interesting flavor but not sure what would be best.  I omitted the vanilla and cinnamon for the 3 gal with Brett.
Plan to let it sit in secondary awhile (several months).

I've considered currants, dates, and raisins but I'm in uncharted territory in terms of my experience.

Any suggestions?

Recipe is as follows (scaled up for 8 gallons)

For 5.5 gallons (20.8 L)
11.5 lb (5.21 kg) | Belgian Pilsner malt
0.60 lb (0.27 kg) | Crystal 120L
1.0 lb (0.45 kg) | Munich malt
0.4 lb (0.18 kg) | Vienna malt
0.4 lb (0.18 kg) | Wheat malt
0.25 lb (0.11 kg) Carafa malt
0.50 lb (0.22 kg) | Turbinado sugar
0.75 lb (0.34 kg) | Dark Candi sugar
1.4 oz (40 g) | Styrian Goldings hop pellets, 4.7% AA (60 minutes)
0.5 oz (14 g) | Saaz hop pellets, 3.5% AA (20 minutes)


Offline kmccaf

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Re: Fruit to add to winter saison
« Reply #1 on: December 14, 2014, 05:47:46 pm »
I think plums or gooseberries would be good m'self.
Kyle M.

Offline erockrph

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Re: Fruit to add to winter saison
« Reply #2 on: December 14, 2014, 08:27:06 pm »
First of all, it's a misconception that you need to leave Brett "something to munch on" in order to get a lot of Brett character. Brett creates much of its flavor by eating the fermentation byproducts from the original Sacc yeast (i.e., the esters and phenols that your Saison yeast produced in primary). So if your only reason to add fruit was to give Brett some added fermentables, then you can safely just let it ride as-is.

Having said that, cherries jump out at me as being an ideal fruit for this. I get a lot of cherry pie from Brett brux, and cherries also have enough dark fruit character to go with the spicy saison fermentation and the C-120's dark fruit note.

Another thought I had was apples. I'd probably go with juice concentrate or a syrup made from boiling down some fresh-pressed cider, otherwise you may just end up diluting your beer too much.
Eric B.

Finally got around to starting a homebrewing blog: The Hop Whisperer

Offline rbowers

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Re: Fruit to add to winter saison
« Reply #3 on: December 14, 2014, 08:55:59 pm »
Thanks for the tips.  Dark cherries do sound like maybe a good way to go.  I'd heard the same about Brett using primary fermentation by-products as it's fuel as well.  However the only other time I experimented with it was throwing some Orval dregs into secondary of a small portion of tripel I brewed.  Sat on it awhile (8 months) but the character was not all that prevalent in the end- could have been the dregs I suppose.  Just tinkering around and thought some fruit may boost the character and add some different aspects to the beer compared to the other 5 gallons I will be enjoying shortly.

Offline homoeccentricus

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Re: Fruit to add to winter saison
« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2014, 02:31:21 am »
I'm not recommending anything, but here's a list of things that the Belgian saison brewery Fantome has used:

guarana
apples
black pepper
cocoa powder and chili pepper
dandelions
mushrooms
coffee
honey, caramel, coriander, black pepper
red fruit
apple and cherries
rucola

So I'd say basically anything that doesn't try to crawl out of the fermenter.

Frank P.

Staggering on the shoulders of giant dwarfs.