BLOOD ORANGE SAISON RECIPE 1

I feel I should apologise in advance as this is the first beer post I am dropping and writing it on a new bit of blog software so its bound to go fucky…

Blood orange saison (it looked so much better in real life – updates may appear!) It is almost luminous in natural light.

Having had some luck with a Seville orange wine I made a few years ago I decided to make some blood orange wine, then use the left over zests to add to a saison. Saisons are naturally dry so it would be odd to try and keep the sweetness of an orange so no flesh or juice was added. As there was no possible sourness from the obviously absent juice I did not try to sour this with lactobacillus relying only upon the saison yeast.

Only zests were added. No pith and no juice.

The orange zests were added as the wort came off the boil and infuse as it cooled to try and keep as much aroma as possible. To accentuate the zestiness and add some depth I used a small amount of mandarina bavaria hops late in the boil and as a dry hop. The mandarina was added on day six of fermentation when the gravity was at 1.032 sitting five days in a nylon bag before it was pulled out. This is the first time I have ever dry hopped so I was hesitant to use a huge amount playing it quite conservatively. Generally I don’t like overly hoppy beers and saisons are usually mild to moderately hopped anyway. I imagine many will want more of a kick, particularly those over the pond of the American persuasion.

The grains were relatively simple with a pilsner base and oats because I like them and rye because I wanted to test it. The resulting base has decent mouth feel from the oats and tastes wonderfully dry from the slight prickle of the rye. Mash thickness was thinner than my usual with an equivalent of 500g grain to a litre and a half of water during the mash due to oats and rye being thick and gloopy. It had loads of time in a step mash that many will find excessive and I cannot really say if it was truly necessary. I’m a sucker for work and punishment I guess. At lauter it was vorlaufed allowing the first runnings to run through again for clarity. It was then sparged and the grain bed spiked to get as much wort as possible – efficiency was sky high and I initially overshot so made a little extra.

The head stayed for a decent time (for once)

Fermentation was pretty happy using 3724 saison yeast. This yeast can often stall and it did on day five or six when I pitched some Mangrove Jacks M29 taking the chance to dry hop. I prefer this as a second strain to 3711 that is often used to restart a stuck fermentation. Although I did not test the final gravity it tastes bone dry with pleasing bite.

This is certainly my most ambitious beer in terms of recipe using three hops and dry hopping hoping that they can work in conjunction with the orange zest as an adjunct. As the beer has aged the orange flavour has become more pronounced but it is still nuanced and dare I say delicate as I wanted. Next time I may add five or so Seville zests to get a range and depth of flavours. Grain might be simplified to mainly pilsner of have spelt added or replacing the rye. It may also be a split batch with one being aged with Brett or soured to see how they compare. I am very happy with the final beer as it stands now and will certainly make another batch.

Blood Orange Saison With Oats and Rye

Batch:12L
Start gravity:1.068
End gravity: sorry I didn’t check but it was bone dry. Estimate was 1.07.
ABV: planned to be 6.7 but may be more.
IBU: 25
Colour: 4 SRM

Water profile: Lovely Thames tap moved crudely towards a lighter beer profile.

GRAIN BILL

Malt	Weight	Percentage	(Per litre)
German Pilsner	3kg	79%	250g
Rye Malt	400g	10.5%	33g
Flaked Oats	400g	10.5%	33g

MASH

Clucen rest of 45°c for 30 minutes
Saccharification rest of 63°c for 90 minutes
Saccharification rest of 68°c for 30 minutes
Mash out at 77°c for 5 minutes

1.5 litre of water was used for every 500g of grain. Vorlaufed until the wort ran clear. The grain may need to be spiked to allow sparge water to pass though. Sparged with water at 77°c to bring it to 14L before boil.

BOIL

Hop	Alpha	Weight	Time	(Per Litre)
Herkules	13%	6g	60min	0.5g
Tettnanger	3.7%	8g	60min	0.7g
Tettnanger	3.7%	6g	20min	0.5g
Tettnanger	3.7%	8g	10min	0.7g
Mandarina Bavaria	7.2%	8g	10min	0.7g
Mandarina Bavaria	7.2%	28g	Dryhop	2.3g