Saison D'Hiver

It was 101° here the other day, and with the humidity the heat index was 105°. I dreaded brewing this weekend, but this is my employer's Christmas beer, and it needs to age a few months before serving. I got an early start, and was able to finish before the temps hit triple digits.

Saison D'Hiver
13.5# Belgian pilsner
2.5# Munich malt
1.5# Vienna malt
.6# Crystal 120L
1 oz Challenger 6.5%/60 minutes
2 oz Styrian Goldings 3.5%/60 minutes
1 oz Saaz 3.1%/20 minutes
.5 oz Saaz 5.8%/20 minutes
.5# Turbinado sugar/10 minutes
1# dark Candi sugar/10 minutes
1 stick cinnamon/secondary
1 vanilla bean, split/secondary
1.5l starter WLP 568 Belgian Style Saison Ale Blend
1 vial White Labs Belgian Abbey Ale WLP530 (if needed)

I mashed at 151° for 75 minutes, and boiled for a little more than an hour and a half. (I collected a bit too much liquor and needed to boil it down.) The original recipe called only for 1.5 ounces of Styrian Goldings and 1 ounce of Saaz, but the alpha acid numbers on my order were about half what the recipe called for. Fortunately, I had some Challenger and half an ounce of a stronger Saaz.

I get 60% efficiency, so my OG was predicted at 1.076. And I hit that number. The predicted color was 30 SRM, which is Stout color. But in the kettle, the color was more of a golden, and after adding the sugar, it was a light brown. Using the brewing calculator on my iPhone, I estimate the color about 14 SRM, the upper end of the range for a Saison. Then I compared my recipe to my shipment and realized that I forgot to add Carafa III to my order. D'oh!