[rjharper]

I have a Voignier wine kit gathering dust, and I'm tempted to use that to make a Saison.

Per Winexpert: Viognier
The intense fruitiness of this beguiling wine suggests rich sweetness, but it shows a surprisingly dry and aromatic finish. A delicate yellow color, tinged with the variety's typical 'green-gold' hue, it bursts out of the glass with apricot, peach and spice aromas.
Sweetness: Dry | Body: Medium | Oak Intensity: None

I think it would be a good compliment to a dry, peppery saison. I'm thinking of brewing 12 gallons of Saison (pretty much 50/50 pils/wheat with a little munich and caramunich) with WLP 590, then at high krausen feeding the 4 gallons of wine kit concentrate into the fermenter. I expect about the equivalent of 12 lbs of sugar in the wine kit, so I'll use Beersmith to factor in 4 gallons of top up, and a late sugar addition to make sure I have it hopped correctly for bitterness.

I'd love some thoughts.

[JJeffers09]

Sounds interesting

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[erockrph]

I did this with a Gewurz wine kit a few years back, and it was definitely one of the best beers I've ever made. I'll try to hunt down the specifics and link/post them here later on today.

[HoosierBrew]

I have meant to try this for a couple years and haven't. I want to do it this year. I've been thinking Moscato might give a subtle sweetness to the dry finish.

[rjharper]

I did this with a Gewurz wine kit a few years back, and it was definitely one of the best beers I've ever made. I'll try to hunt down the specifics and link/post them here later on today.

Awesome. Good to hear. Looking forwards to seeing your notes. Thanks!

[Stevie]

Stone made one of the vertical epics with must. Version 10 I believe. I liked all of those beers, so I'm sure whatever you did will be good.

[HoosierBrew]

IIRC it was Zymurgy that ran the  article on beer/wine hybrids 2 or 3 years ago, with Stone and DFH being the 2 breweries who'd done it. Again IIRC the takeaway was that both breweries used around a third must in secondary to two thirds beer. So that's my plan when I get to it. If done right, it sounds pretty damn good in a saison.

[erockrph]

I was going to share my recipe, when I realized that I did so many side calculations to fudge my numbers, that it would be better to just describe what I did.

I wanted to target about 30% of my fermentables from the wine kit. I targeted 1.070 for my OG, and wanted about 20 gravity points from the wine. I estimated that this would be about 3 quarts of the concentrated wine must (for a 4-gallon total batch) based on the kit's instructions.

I brewed 3.25 gallons of my base Saison (73% Pils, 20% Wheat, 7% Aromatic) targeting an OG of 1.050 when diluted to 4 gallons. I added 3 gallons of must to the fermenter and pitched 3711. I also dry-hopped with some Nelson Sauvin. My thought was that the 3711, wine, and Nelson would all enhance the dry white wine character that I was going for.

My big mistake was picking such a high OG. I didn't stop to realize that 3711 would take a fermentable wort like this all the way to 1.003, and ended up with an 8.7% beer rather than a 7% one. It was really hot for the first 6 months or so, and by the time everything mellowed out most of the dry hop character had fallen out.

All that said, after some extended aging everything melded together really nicely. You could pick out the wine character, and the dry wine/citrus character of the 3711 complimented everything quite well. The 3711 has a nice mouthfeel that works well with the wine as well. I got some feedback that this would work well with oak, and I would definitely split off a gallon or two next time I try this to try some oak.

I definitely want to try this again soon. I'd probably shoot for a lower OG (mid 1.050's or so), and possibly try a low-temp whirlpool addition of something like Nelson. The nice thing is that if you don't use the whole kit, you can make pyment with the rest, too.

[rjharper]

Thanks Eric! I'll probably be shooting for the higher end of the style but balanced accordingly. I'm also planning to mash a little higher, say 154, to account for the fermentability of the wine.

Thinking 30% each of pilsner, wheat, and wine must sugars, 7.5% munich, 2.5% aromatic.

[santoch]

Yeah, my thought is that this is going to dry out big time.  I'd even mash higher, 158F, and would probably even think hard about a cup of malto-dextrin to boost the body. The grape juice will add a lot of tannin, too, so the dextrins will help compensate to prevent an astringent end product.

[erockrph]

Yeah, my thought is that this is going to dry out big time.  I'd even mash higher, 158F, and would probably even think hard about a cup of malto-dextrin to boost the body. The grape juice will add a lot of tannin, too, so the dextrins will help compensate to prevent an astringent end product.

If you're going for a Saison, why fight it? I'd let it dry out as far as it wants to go. Your mash schedule isn't going to affect the fermentability of the juice, anyways. Just choose your OG appropriately, with 95% ish attenuation in mind.

[santoch]

The issue isn't so much the dryness.  I LOVE a nice dry Saison.  It's the tannin from the grape juice coupled and the dryness of both the beer and the wine -- each will accentuate the other, like Constructive Interference.

[erockrph]

The issue isn't so much the dryness.  I LOVE a nice dry Saison.  It's the tannin from the grape juice coupled and the dryness of both the beer and the wine -- each will accentuate the other, like Constructive Interference.

I don't think that will be much of an issue with a white grape like Viogner. I didn't run into that issue at all with Gewurz.

[HoosierBrew]

The issue isn't so much the dryness.  I LOVE a nice dry Saison.  It's the tannin from the grape juice coupled and the dryness of both the beer and the wine -- each will accentuate the other, like Constructive Interference.

I don't think that will be much of an issue with a white grape like Viogner. I didn't run into that issue at all with Gewurz.

Yeah, my understanding was always that white must (and wine) was juice only, where red includes the skins for color and that the skins include most of the tannins. I can always be wrong.

[rjharper]

Update!

Brewed this a couple week ago. Ended up as 1.073 OG to 0.998 FG, with 33IBUs to balance. It's cold crashing now but tastes good so far. Nicely dry, the white wine comes through, but it's definitely beer. It's not too tannic.

I brewed 13 gal of 1.059 base Saison (30% pils, 30% wheat, 7.5% Munich, 2.5% Caramunich, 30% reserved for grape sugars). Hopped with Pacifica, pitched WLP590 at 70F until 50% attenuation, then raised to 74F. The 30% fermentables balance was calculated from 1.125 SG wine concentrate, where I added 3.5 gal after the fermentation had hit 75% attenuation. Held it at 74F and after 72 hrs we'd hit 0.998.

Probably gelatin it at this point, then run off to kegs