Inspired by Mike Tonsemire’s NZ saison and sauvignon blanc post, I brewed a similar style saison a while back as part of a live brew day at the Brunswick.

We had a really fun day out at the festival – on the 17th of January – and the brew went very smoothly, although we got a bit tired towards the end of the day!

Emma interviewed me throughout the day as the brew went along and edited it into a wonderful piece for the show I’m a guest presenter for.

You can listen to it here.

As you can see above – I wrapped the beer in a duvet to insulate it from the cold. My heater was just a heating mat and not too powerful. The insulation worked and in combination with an STC-1000 temp controller successfully fermented at a toasty 28C and fermented to 1.003 in a snappy 3 days. I believe that those mash notes might not be accurate and I may have done a ferulic rest at 45C for a bit to enhance the peppery aromas produced by the yeast.

After fermentation, I dry hopped for 3 days with 7g each of mosaic and Nelson Sauvin hops – just enough to leave a presence but not too much to overwhelm the beer. Tonsemire’s recipe has a stack of hops in it and I wanted a little more yeast character to remain. The beer was kegged in a corny and some brett brux and trois were pitched in – and left for 3 months.

And here’s the recipe: