Beer Recipe: There Will Be Blood…Orange Saison

I’ve recently got back into homebrewing and building my own recipes. I’d do one or 2 a year, but now I’m trying to do at least one quarterly. This was the first one I did this year: There Will Be Blood…Orange Saison.

Style: Belgian Saison
ABV: 5.65%
IBU: 20
OG: 1.045
FG: 1.002

Extract Recipe
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grains:
0.5 lb Briess Caramel 20L – steep for 20 minutes @ 165

Malt:
6.0 lb Pilsen LME – add prior to boil.
1.0 lb Wheat DME – add at 45 minutes of boil

Hops:
0.5 oz Magnum – add at 0 minutes of boil
1.0 oz Tettnang – add at 55 minutes of boil

Other:
1.0 tsp Irish Moss – add at 45 minutes of boil
3.0 lb, 1 oz Blood Orange Puree – add at 1 week of fermentation

Yeast:
Safale BE-134
Wyeast 3724

I don’t use a secondary anymore after issues with oxidization in brewing, so the Blood Orange went into the primary. I also mixed 2 different yeast strains on this recipe after; the yeast made the beer super dry. This was the first time I added DME late in the boil, but it worked out perfectly.

The final product got rave reviews; you can hear the BrewsRoom talk about it in this episode of their podcast (jump to 42:00 minutes for the review). I’m willing to say this is the best beer I’ve made.

Unfortunately, it didn’t place well in a competition. I scored a 31 out of 50 (considered Very Good for the style). It got knocked off because it was a little hoppier than the style. This was my first competition beer and I’ve been told a 31 is a good score for the first time.

Next I’ll post my hoppy New England Style IPA, which I just tried last week.