Dandelion Blossom Saison

Originally posted by HornyDevil

Originally posted by bitbucket
I’m guessing I need to pick a couple of quarts of dandelion blossoms?

For 5 gallons, I’d pick 8 - 10 quarts which equals 800 - 1000 grams or about 28 - 35 oz.

From everything I’ve read, making the tea for two days is a necessity. As is separating the petals from the rest of the plant. You can obviously do it however you want to, but I just figured that if I’m putting this much time into it, I want to do it right. FWIW, it took me about 2 hours to pick enough flowers to end up with 25.7 oz (about 760 g) of petals. It took me 7 hours to depetal them. Certainly a large time investment, but I think it’ll be well worth it.

I just racked this dandelion beer to the secondary on Saturday. Didn’t taste it, but it smelled quite different. I’ll definitely report back when it is conditioned enough to be worth tasting.

Just got some good advice from a brewing friend who reminded me that I don’t have to wait until brew day to figure out how things might taste. I can make small batches (8oz. or so?) of dandelion tea using different amounts of blossoms with boiling or steeping or a combination to determine how much flavor I’ll get and what method I like. Gotta love prototyping.

Originally posted by bitbucket
I agree with you, but this is for an AHA event and the BJCP style guide for Saison says "SRM: 5 – 14". 12oz. just barely squeaks in at 5. FWIW, the NHC 2010 gold medal Saison had "0.6 lb (272 g) Durst Munich malt".

I suppose this beer really falls into category 21. Spice/Herb/Vegetable or 23. Specialty and in the grand scheme of things the color is not so important no matter what the style is.

Hey Bob....sounds pretty cool...I’m going to be doing something very similar in the next few weekends, so it will be fun to compare the results...hope to be ready for NHC...I think I’ll be making my tea with dried dandelion instead though...mostly pils with some white wheat and vienna...and with Wyeast 3711 probably

HornyDevil...did you add the tea towards the end of the boil? that’s what I plan on doing (maybe 2 gals into a 10 gal batch) but haven’t done the math yet to figure out what gravity I need the boil at prior to the tea to hit my final gravity, etc...going to make a little batch of tea this weekend to see how it tastes

Originally posted by SuzyGreenberg
HornyDevil...did you add the tea towards the end of the boil? that’s what I plan on doing (maybe 2 gals into a 10 gal batch) but haven’t done the math yet to figure out what gravity I need the boil at prior to the tea to hit my final gravity, etc...going to make a little batch of tea this weekend to see how it tastes

Originally posted by SuzyGreenberg
Hey Bob....sounds pretty cool...I’m going to be doing something very similar in the next few weekends, so it will be fun to compare the results...hope to be ready for NHC...I think I’ll be making my tea with dried dandelion instead though...mostly pils with some white wheat and vienna...and with Wyeast 3711 probably

HornyDevil...did you add the tea towards the end of the boil? that’s what I plan on doing (maybe 2 gals into a 10 gal batch) but haven’t done the math yet to figure out what gravity I need the boil at prior to the tea to hit my final gravity, etc...going to make a little batch of tea this weekend to see how it tastes

Bottled this beer today. It came in at 1.002 and looked and smelled lovely. I’ll report back when it carbonates as to the taste.

Originally posted by HornyDevil
Bottled this beer today. It came in at 1.002 and looked and smelled lovely. I’ll report back when it carbonates as to the taste.

Originally posted by HornyDevil
Bottled this beer today. It came in at 1.002 and looked and smelled lovely. I’ll report back when it carbonates as to the taste.

Originally posted by bitbucket

Originally posted by HornyDevil

Originally posted by bitbucket
malt & fermentables
% LB OZ Malt
79% 8 8 Weyermann Pilsner
14% 1 8 Wheat, Red
7% 0 12 Munich Malt

Personally, I’d ditch the Munich unless you want this beer to be perceived as malty. Even 3/4ths a lb. would be too much, IMO. I think that you’d want it to have a clean malt profile with the yeast and the dandelions taking center stage.

I might just do that.

I agree with you, but this is for an AHA event and the BJCP style guide for Saison says "SRM: 5 – 14". 12oz. just barely squeaks in at 5. FWIW, the NHC 2010 gold medal Saison had "0.6 lb (272 g) Durst Munich malt".

I suppose this beer really falls into category 21. Spice/Herb/Vegetable or 23. Specialty and in the grand scheme of things the color is not so important no matter what the style is.