25B Saison

Summer Haze

A wheat-heavy summer saison with ginger and honey. Not a hazy IPA, despite the name.

Recipe by Owen Paterson Brewed 4 times Owen Paterson

Brew day sheet → Open in compare →

What this is

Despite the name, this is not a hazy IPA. It is a wheat-forward summer saison with ginger and honey, filed as 25B, and the haze in the title refers to the appearance rather than the style.

Around 5.9%, and very dry: the canonical version finished at 1.003. A third of the grist is wheat malt, which keeps the body from disappearing entirely at that gravity.

The shape of it

Four brews between October 2021 and November 2023, and the grain bill converged early. From the second brew onward it has been Pilsner 3.0, Wheat 2.0, Vienna 0.6, with Light Crystal creeping from 0.35 to 0.5 kg — a small counterweight to the attenuation.

The ginger and honey are constant across the whole series, both at 15 minutes. Adding honey that early is a deliberate choice: most of the delicate aroma is lost to the boil, so what it contributes is fully fermentable sugar and a faint floral dryness rather than any honey flavour. If you want the aroma, it goes in the fermenter instead, and this recipe does not.

What moved

The yeast. Lallemand Belle Saison for the first two brews, Safale BE-134 from the third. Both are hard attenuators; BE-134 took the canonical brew to 1.003.

The hops, considerably. Motueka and Pacific Jade at 16 g and 12 g on the first brew — barely a presence — then Cascade at 50 g for two brews, then Citra, then Citra with Taiheke. The trend is toward more hops and toward New Zealand ones, but there is no settled schedule yet.

Brewing it

Ferment warm at 23°C. Saison strains want the heat and this one is meant to finish bone dry.

The whirlpool is a rapid cool to 80°C at flameout before the Citra goes in, which keeps some of the aroma that a hotter stand would drive off.

Watch the wheat in the mash. At 33% with no rice hulls in the bill, a stuck sparge is a real possibility on a fine crush.

Lineage

Every brew made from this recipe, oldest first, ending on the canonical version. Differences are computed from the brews themselves rather than written down, so this cannot drift out of step with the archive. 24 of the rows below vary.

Summer Haze V2 2021-10 Owen Paterson Summer Haze V3 2022-09 Owen Paterson Summer Haze IV 2023-02 Owen Paterson Summer Haze V 2023-11 Owen Paterson Summer Haze Canonical
Vital statistics
OG 1.0481.0581.0521.0481.048
FG 1.0041.0081.0041.0031.003
ABV 5.8%6.6%6.3%5.9%5.9%
Batch 19 Lsingle22 Lsingle22 Lsingle22.5 Lsingle22.5 Lsingle
Total grist 4.67 kg5.95 kg6.1 kg6.1 kg6.1 kg
Total hops 28 g1.5 g/L50 g2.3 g/L150 g6.8 g/L100 g4.4 g/L100 g4.4 g/L
Fermentables kg
Gladfield Pilsner Malt 2.3 kg49.3% of grist3.0 kg50.4% of grist3.0 kg49.2% of grist3.0 kg49.2% of grist3.0 kg49.2% of grist
Gladfield Wheat Malt 1.6 kg34.3% of grist2.0 kg33.6% of grist2.0 kg32.8% of grist2.0 kg32.8% of grist2.0 kg32.8% of grist
Gladfield Vienna Malt 0.5 kg10.7% of grist0.6 kg10.1% of grist0.6 kg9.8% of grist0.6 kg9.8% of grist0.6 kg9.8% of grist
Gladfield Light Crystal Malt 0.27 kg5.8% of grist0.35 kg5.9% of grist0.5 kg8.2% of grist0.5 kg8.2% of grist0.5 kg8.2% of grist
Hops grams · stage split
Motueka 16 g8 b · 8 dh
Pacific Jade 12 g8 b · 4 wp
Cascade 50 g35 b · 15 dh50 g20 b · 30 wp
Citra 100 g20 b · 30 wp · 50 dh50 g20 b · 30 wp50 g20 b · 30 wp
Taiheke 50 g20 b · 30 dh50 g20 b · 30 dh
Yeast
LalBrew Belle Saison PitchedPitched
SafAle BE-134 Belgian Saison PitchedPitchedPitched
Adjuncts & extracts
Honey 380 g15 min500 g15 min300 g15 min300 g15 min300 g15 min
Orange zest (fresh) 30 g15 min
Coriander seed 2 tsp15 min
Grapefruit peel 12 g15 min
Mandarin peel 7 g15 min
Ginger root (fresh) 38 g15 min
Whirlfloc half tablet15 minhalf tablet15 minhalf tablet15 minhalf tablet15 minhalf tablet15 min
Yeast nutrient 1.2 g15 minhalf tsp15 minhalf tsp15 minhalf tsp15 minhalf tsp15 min
Ground ginger 10 g15 min20 g15 min40 g15 min40 g15 min