Recipe for Das Überkind Vieille Saison
March 4, 2015
We receive a lot of requests for recipes, to which we always respond. To quote our friend Lewis Dickson of La Cruz de Comal Wines, “(Our) secret is that there is no secret.”
Recently our Head Brewer Garrett Crowell wrote up a really nice description of how we make Das Überkind Vieille Saison, so we thought we’d share it.
“Das Überkind is our most used and versatile barrel aged beer. We blend it with fresh, hoppy beer to make Das Wunderkind Blended Saison. We use it as the base beer for most of our fruit re-fermentation beers, and we also package it as a stand-alone beer. It’s a pretty simple recipe.
OG: 1.038
FG: .998-1.002
SRM: 2.5-4.5
Water
100%, unaltered well water is used for all of our beer. It’s pretty high in bicarbonates, but we absolutely love it.
Grist
84% Pale 2-Row, or Pilsner
8% Raw wheat
4% Munich II (Dark Munich)
4% Flaked Oats
The specialty malts like Munich, and then Flaked Oats rotate based on what we have around the brewery. Sometimes we’ll use spelt, or Maris Otter, or malted wheat etc.
Mash-temp: 154-158F
Hops
10-15 IBUs
-Always early kettle additions, at 60min.
-Usually something like Golding, or Fuggle
-Lately we’ve been adding aged hops for about 30% of our total hop volume with great results.
Fermentation
We use a mixed culture of different yeast and bacteria for all fermentations. These include Dupont yeast, and Thiriez saison yeast, along with a multitude of yeast and bacteria from flowers around our brewery, spontaneous fermentation slurries, etc. These were all blended together one time, and have been evolving as a cohesive culture since being used in our brewery. We maintain this culture in house. Bottle dregs from any of our beers would be best to approximate the fermentation character we achieve.
Primary fermentation temp: 78F
We ferment in either stainless or an oak foudre before sending to smaller, 225L barrels. Secondary fermentation takes place at 62F – 55F. Average fermentation/aging for Das Uberkind is 8-24 months. We mostly use neutral wine barrels and find that very subtle oak character compliments this delicate beer.”