The original farmhouse beers were brewed with whatever ingredients were on hand or available at the time - these were beers that truly represented the place that they were from. Unfortunately, I don't have the resources to brew with 100% local ingredients (or the time - I don't farm, bro), but for this particular beer, I was able to utilize at least one awesome local ingredient - locally sourced orange blossom honey. I stumbled upon this glorious nectar at my local farmer's market and knew it would be great in a beer.
I kept the grain bill pretty simple for this one - mostly pilsner with some wheat and munich malt. I wanted the orange blossom honey to lend some character to the beer but not dominate it, so I kept it to around 6% of the total fermentables with the hope that it would help dry the beer out and also lend some complexity to the aroma and flavor.
For hops, I used some leftover EKG and Styrian Goldings for bittering and flavor. I wanted this beer to have some nice hop aroma as well, so I added a fair amount of Hallertauer with a couple of minutes left in the boil. I picked up some coriander seeds from an Indian spice shop down the street from my house which I added for some additional spicy notes.
Not long before brewing this, I had tried the beer, Joey Pepper, a collaboration from Evil Twin and Sante Adairius, and I really loved the subtle funk from the Brett Claussenii. I had never brewed with it before so I decided to try it out on this beer. I decided to pitch it in the primary along with Wyeast's French Saison strain with the hope of getting a very dry beer with some subtle funk.
Well, everything went smoothly on brew day, but about 24 hours into the fermentation, the temperature controller on my fermentation box (chest freezer) went wacky and kicked on the compressor until the beer was down to 53 degrees. Naturally, I was enraged when I got home to find this, but after 5 or 6 F-bombs and some good ol' fashioned bitching, I pulled myself together, set the temp to around 71 degrees, and let it slowly rise back up over the course of two days.
The temperature drop caused the fermentation to move incredibly slowly, but after about 3 weeks, the gravity was all the way down to 1.003 and it tasted really nice so my worries faded away. Even with the troubles, this beer turned out great. It might be my favorite of all the saisons I've brewed. It's bone dry, spicy, fruity, and the orange blossom honey added a nice layer of complexity to both the aroma and flavor. I don't think many people would pick out the honey, but it definitely gave the beer that "je nais se quoi" that I find in some of my favorite commercial saisons.
I entered this one into the National Homebrew Competition and was very happy with the 40 the judges scored it. One of the judges was even the head brewer/co-founder from one of my favorite San Diego breweries so it was great to get good feedback. It didn't move on to the final round, but it did go to a Mini-Best of Show round and earned a gold certificate so I'm a pretty happy camper.
Recipe Specifications
Batch Size (fermenter): 3.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.052 SG
Estimated Color: 4.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 26.3 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes
80% - Belgian Pilsner
7% - Munich Malt
7% - Wheat Malt
6% - Orange Blossom Honey (last 10 minutes of boil)
Hops:
.48 oz. East Kent Goldings (Pellet, 5.1% AA) @ 60 minutes - 16 IBUs
.20 oz. Styrian Goldings (Pellet, 4.5% AA) @ 60 minutes - 5.9 IBUs
.20 oz. Styrian Goldings (Pellet, 4.5% AA) @ 20 minutes - 3.6 IBUs
.40 oz. Hallertauer Mittelfrueh (Pellet, 3.9% AA) @ 2 minutes - .9 IBUs
Other:
.20 oz. Freshly crushed coriander seed @ 5 minutes
Yeast:
Wyeast French Saison - pitched in primary
White Labs Brettanomyces Claussenii - pitched in primary
Water:
RO filtered water - added 3 grams of calcium chloride, 1.5 grams of gypsum, and 1 gram of Epsom salt to the strike water.
Mash:
Single-infusion @ 147 degrees
Notes:
Brewed on 10/19/14.
10/20/14 - Temperature controller on fermentation chamber shorted out 1 day into fermentation. Dropped temp down to 53. Son of a gun. Warmed back up to 71 over the course of 2 days.
10/24/14 - Fermentation is now moving slowly. SG is only at 1.017. Still bubbling steadily.
11/8/14 - Gravity is down to 1.003. Tasting nice.
