Courtney Chaos Saison

This is the first recipe in a series of three for my sister's wedding.   The wedding is at the end of July, so I'll be posting one recipe a week until the wedding.  To make it sound super official, I'm calling this the Wedding Series.

Last year over Thanksgiving and couple of homebrews I suggested to my sister that I brew a few batches for her wedding.  The following month I picked up a variety of Belgian style ales for a tasting.  Styles included blonde, dubbel, tripel, quadrupel, saison, and a sour ale.  The saison was Saison Dupont (one of my personal favorite beers) and was my sisters favorite from the flight of beers as well.  She chose the name Courtney Chaos.  I don't really consider saison to be a particularly chaotic style, but it's her wedding so Courtney Chaos it is.  Here's my attempt at brewing a delicious saison for the wedding.

Brew Day: 4/20/2014

BJCP Style Category: 16C Saison

Batch Size: 5.50 gallons
ABV: 6.3%
IBU's: 25

Grains:
8.80 lbs Belgian 2-Row Pale Malt 
1.70 lbs White Wheat
1.00 lbs Clear Belgian Candi Sugar
0.60 lbs Flaked Oats
0.30 lbs Munich Malt
0.30 lbs Rye Malt

Hops:
0.62 oz Pearle - 60 minutes remaining in the boil
0.62 oz Willamette - 60 minutes remaining in the boil

Other Additions:
1.12 oz dried, fresh orange peel - 5 minutes remaining in the boil.

Yeast:
French Saison Yeast - Wyeast Labs 3711

Before you brew pick up a fresh orange from your preferred source of oranges (backyard tree, local farmers market, grocery store, neighbors fridge, etc.).  Peel the orange before you begin brewing and place them in a sunny spot outside and allow them to dry.

Mash the grains at 150 deg F (strike temp 167 deg F) for 90 minutes using 3.9 gallons of water.  Sparge at 170 deg F using 4.5 gallons of water.  Boil for 1 hour and add the hops per the recipe.  With 5 minutes remaining in the boil toss the dried orange peel into the boil.  Cool your wort and pitch your yeast as you normally would.  

FERMENTATION NOTES:  The last time I brewed a saison style ale the beer did not fully ferment after the first week and I needed to pitch an additional yeast starter for the secondary fermentation.  When I pitched into the secondary I used a champagne yeast, which really dried out the beer.  Saison's do typically have some dryness, but I felt the champagne yeast was a little overwhelming.  Based on this, I let this beer ferment for a full two weeks in the primary to fully ferment.  Finally, I aged the beer another two weeks in the secondary before kegging.  By the time the beer is tapped the first time it will have been in the keg for about 7 weeks.

This beer will debut at the wedding.  Look for pictures on Twitter at the end of the month!