Black Cherry Saison

I decided to colour outside of the BJCP guidelines with one of the recipes I recently designed. I wanted to create a beer that would be confusing to the drinker. The style I was targeting was one I've made recently, a Saison, but I wanted to confuse the eye and ramp the SRM level up towards 40. I also went with an American breed of hop for bittering, which is also uncommon for the style. On this brew day I was joined by a friend who is currently in the middle of her PHD in Biochemistry. Like me, she also has a love for yeast and was interested in learning about the brewing process.

When designing the recipe, the first thing I wanted to do was throw off the eye with a pitch dark colour. What I didn't want to do was impart too much of the roasty, bitterness that comes from many dark malts. After some researched, it looked like my best bet was Midnight Wheat Malt, as it was labelled as the smoothest source of black colour from any malt. While I was milling the grain Sunday morning I tasted a couple grains, I still got some roasty flavour, but I don't think there is a way to completely avoid that. I used Bohemian Pilsner Malt as the base malt for the grain bill, which is the same one I used for the Huron County Saison.

I decided to stick with the same mash schedule as the Huron County Saison as I was looking for a similar dry finish. We mashed in at 153F for 90 minutes and mashed out at a temperature of 147F. By mashing in that temperature range we are looking to activate the beta amylase enzyme group, in turn producing more maltose, which is the main sugar fermented in the wort. Once the mash was complete, we filtered the wort into the brew pot, sparged with 168F water and gathered a total of 6 gallons pre-boil. As you can see in the third picture below, we ended up with basically a pitch-black colour by using 1 pound of the Midnight Wheat Malt.

At the start of the 90 minute boil, we added 1 ounce of Glacier hops for bittering. My hope was this American breed of hop would add a bit of citrus, fruity, woody, herb notes, while not being overly bitter since the Alpha Acid (5.0%) is much lower than typical American Pale Ale hops. With 10 minutes left in the boil, we added 0.5 ounce of Sorachi Ace hops, a Japanese breed with a high AA (11.9%) and a more regular choice for the Saison style. Adding it later in the boil, I was hoping some of the lemon characteristics would shine through.

Once the boil was complete, we cooled the wort and filter it through a strainer into the plastic fermenting bucket. I gave April the honour of pitching our billions of yeasty friends into the wort to get to work. 

Over the next week and a half I'll need to pick up a can of the Oregon Cherry Puree as I'll be racking the wort into the secondary a week from Sunday, on top of the cherry puree as well as another 0.5 ounce of Sorachi Ace hops. I'm hoping to get some big cherry flavour and tartness as well as a bit more lemon notes by dry hopping.

Thanks for reading!