Table Saison

Having just come off of an involuntary 8 month hiatus from home brewing , I wanted to ease back into it with something simple that would turn around relatively quickly. Given my bias towards saisons and the warm weather (I don't care what the calendar says, Texas summers start in April), the choice was easy: a crisp session strength saison.

I wanted to keep this beer under 4% ABV, dry, and refreshing. I didn't want to get bogged down with complex grain bills or hopping schedules so I decided to use the SMaSH (Single Malt and Single Hop) method. The grist would be 100% Castle pilsener malt and a modest charge of Czech Saaz primarily for bittering, but also some flavor and aroma.

I originally wanted to use Wyeast's WY3711 because it tends to ferment quickly (many report that they reach terminal gravity within 3 or 4 days), but because of its highly attenuative nature and the low starting gravity, I was worried that the resulting beer would be too thin and watery. I decided to use White Labs' WLP565. The last time I used this yeast it took over 4 weeks to reach my final gravity. With the low starting gravity of this beer and some more attention to fermentation temperatures, hopefully this beer will turn around a little quicker.

Table Saison

Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Total Grain: 8.06 lbs
Anticipated OG: 1.035
Anticipated SRM: 2.5
Anticipated IBU: 19.0
Anticipated Efficiency: 70%
Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Grain
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100.0% - 8.06 lbs. Castle Pilsener

Hops
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1.25 oz. Czech Saaz (Pellet, 4.00% AA) @ 60 min.
0.50 oz. Czech Saaz (Pellet, 4.00% AA) @ flameout

Extras
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1.00 tablet Whirlfloc @ 10 min.
0.25 tsp Wyeast Yeast Nutrient @ 10 min.

Yeast
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White Labs WLP565

Water Profile
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Profile: Carbon filtered Waco

Mash Schedule
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Sacch Rest 60 min @ 149 F

Notes
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Brewed on 10 April 2011 by myself

Mashed in with 1.33 qt/lb and added another gallon to thin out mash

Forgot to close ball valve when adding sparge water. Ended up with some husks in the boil. Attempted to filter out with strainer.

Yielded ~8 gal of 1.031 pre boil wort (calculated efficiency 82.1%)

Removed ~1 gal and boiled for 90 minutes

Pitched .8 l starter into ~4.9 gal of 1.038 wort at 3:00 PM @ 72 degrees F

Raised temperature to 90 degrees F over 4 days

Gravity reading: 1.004 on 16Apr11 @ 5:05 am