First Saison

[scotchpine]

I'm going to brew my first Saison in a few days. 5 Gal batch A.G. 10# Belgian Pale, .75# C20, 3oz Strisselspalt total. OG 1.056. Wyeast 3522, OG 1.056
My question is, if I wanted to add a pound of table sugar to up the ABV a little, would thin the beer out too much for the style? I know it should be fairly dry, but is that overdoing it? Also, I'm going to package half the batch with a little blackberry extract, in case that factors in for some reason. Thanks

[animaldoc]

FWIW I haven't done this ...... but my take is that if you are ADDING sugar it's not going to thin out the beer.

The idea that sugar dries out a beer comes from when the sugar *replaces* malt in a recipe, maintaining alcohol production but no residual/unfermentables left behind for body/sweetness/mouthfeel.

[DragonOrta]

Wyeast 3522? Saison?


Try 3711 or 3724.

[scotchpine]

Thanks for the replies. I ended up not adding the sugar. My OG was low from a problem with my mash temp, I think. Should end up about 4.5 ABV now. Also, I wanted to give the 3522 at try for it's ester description and it's large temp window, as I'm fermenting like the farmhouse with no temp control. I am going to reuse some of this for my Surly Cinic clone next.

[numsquat]

3522 makes a fine farmhouse ale on its own, also works well with the 3724 to finish it out when the 3724 gets stuck. I'll use the 3522 alone in the winter because of the cooler temp range and let it go w/o temp control in the basement. Summer time will use the 3724 alone if I have the time to let it ride out or use the 3522 to speed things up when the 3724 sticks in the 1.03's, which it almost always does for me.