This is a blueberry saison. When I've made it in the past, I’ve
used blueberries that I picked fresh from The Blueberry Ranch in Mishawaka,
Indiana. I freeze them, thaw them in the fridge, puree them with some water,
and then heat them up and hold them at 180 F for 30 minutes to pasteurize them
before I add them to the fermenter. If you’re brewing with berries, it’s
not advisable to boil them to pasteurize them as it will set the pectin and create
a haze in your beer.
This is a big hit. I used to add the blueberries in the
secondary, but I started adding them to the primary instead with better
results.
Saison du Lewan (2014)
Style: Blueberry Saison
Water:
2 ½ gallons in brew kettle, heated to 155 F to steep
specialty grains.
1 gallon in separate pot, heated to 155 F for sparging
specialty grains.
Grains:
8 oz. Carapils
8 oz. honey malt
Extract:
7 lbs. extra light DME
Hops:
1 ½ oz. Styrian Goldings pellets (bittering @ 60 min.)
½ oz. Styrian Goldings pellets (flavor @ 15 min.)
½ oz. Saaz (flavor @ 15 min.)
½ oz. Saaz pellets (aroma @ 5 min.)
Honey:
2 ¼ lbs. (36 oz.) blueberry honey (@ flameout)
Fruit:
3 lbs. of blueberries added on the third day of primary fermentation. Puree berries and mix with 6 cups of water. Hold at
180 F for 30 minutes to pasteurize, and then cool before adding to fermenter.
Yeast:
Wyeast 3711 French Saison
Other Ingredients:
1 Whirlfloc tab or 1 tsp. or Irish moss (added 15 minutes
before flameout).
Water to add to the wort to achieve 5 gallons of total
volume in the primary fermenter.
¾ cup of corn sugar or 1 ¼ cups of ex light DME boiled in 2
cups of water for five minutes to prime beer before bottling.
Notes:
OG should be about 1.080; FG should be around 1.016 (I kept crappy records last time, but I think this is about right). The ABV
should be between 8 and 9%; I’m not entirely sure how much fermentable sugar
the blueberry puree adds, but I’d imagine it boosts it up a bit.
I've dipped the bottles with blue wax in the past and given them as gifts. It actually ages pretty well. I recently had one that was almost a year old, and it still had saison spiciness and a detectable fruit essence.
