Saison du Lewan

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.