White Labs 566 Saison

I probably wouldn't be doing another saison right now, but Fritz had an extra tube of this yeast that was close to it's "best before" date, and he wasn't going to brew with it. Since this was the last of the 6 White Labs/Wyeast saison strains that I still hadn't brewed with, I jumped at the chance.

Recipe is for 6.8 gallons pre-boil, 5.7 gallons post boil, 5 in the fermenter.

O.G. 1.060 F.G. 1.005 IBU's 29 ABV 7+%

9.5 lb. Durst Pils malt

1 lb. Wheat malt

.25 lb. aromatic malt

.5 lb. light organic turbinado sugar

(All hops are pellets. This is a weird mix as I was trying to use up a lot of partial bags. Basically, I shoot for a flavor addition of .5 ounces, and a knockout addition of 1.25 ounces, and then adjust the bittering addition to achieve the IBU's I want. I really like the earthyness that the Goldings hops contribute, so I went heavy on them.)

17 gr. East Kent Goldings 5.5% 60 min

7 gr. Crystal 3.3% 60 min

8 gr. Styrian Aurora 7.6% 60 min

9 gr. Styrian Goldings 3.5% 15 min

5 gr. Saphir 4.2% 15 min

29 gr. East Kent Goldings 5.5% 0 min

6 gr. Saphir 4.2% 0 min

Mash:

3.25 gallons H2O + 2 tsp Gypsum. Mash in to 147. Checked the pH after 10 minutes: pH was at 5.5, so I added .5 ml lactic acid to reduce it to around 5.2. Held at 147 for 90 minutes total, then I raised it to 170 over 20 minutes.

Sparged with 5 gallons t 170.

Collected 6.75 gallons at 1.046, 76% efficiency.

Boil 90 minutes, adding sugar at 90 minutes, hops as noted.

Whirlfoc at 15 min

1/2 tsp. Wyeast Nutrient at 10 min.

Chilled to 68, whirlpooled, and let settle for 30 minutes before racking.

(For the starter, I went big, because this yeast tube was 4 months old. On a stirplate, I did a 1 qt. starter, pitched in to a 2 qt. starter, and then let it settle out over a few days. Then I poured out about half the liquid.)

Pitched 1500 ml starter of Whitelabs 566 saison II yeast.

Fermentation was going strong within 3 hours, at 68 degrees.

Day 1: 68-70

Day 2: 70-72

Day 3: 74-76

Day 4: 76-80

Day 5: 80

Day 6: 78
Mid-70's until bottling.

Bottled on 12/14. Bottling volume approximately 5 gallons, with 6.5 ounces priming sugar.
Tasted very nice, big fruityness leaning towards grapefruit.