Made the following 4 gallon recipe using equipment dedicated to "sour" and Brett beers:
38.3% Full Pint Malt
15.7% Vienna Malt
9.6% Wheat
2.4% Acidulated Malt
4.8% Mesquite Honey
29.3% Apricot Puree (after primary fermentation is complete and krausen settled)
32 IBU
0.5 oz. Jarrylo hops 14.2% AA (@ 60 minutes)
0.5 oz. Jarrylo hops 14.2% AA (@ flameout)
0.4 oz Coriander (@10 minutes)
0.4 oz Bitter Orange Peel (@10 minutes)
2 tsp Yeast nutrient (@10 minutes)
0.25 tsp pectic enzyme (with apricot puree)
75 minute boil total
Added 1 vial of New Nordic Blend (without a starter). Pitched directly into wort cooled to 76 deg. F (via wort chiller) into a 5 gallon plastic carboy (the beer was made on a warm day so this was the lowest temperature I could achieve.).
Fermented at about 80 deg. F for 4 days. Pleasant banana ester smell coming from airlock.
OG = 1.046
FG = 1.010
Results: Strong, tropical fruit smells coming from the fermenter airlock. Completed fermentation quite quickly. The final beer has been one of my best saisons ever. Friends who tried the beer think I should remake it and enter it into a competition.
Tasting Notes:
Appearance: Cloudy with a golden color. clears considerably if left cold for a week or more.
Smell: Grapefruit and apricot.
Taste: Tart. Very dry with excellent fruity flavors (not your typical banana esters or clove). A hint of "funk" in the background. The slightest hint of diacetyl appeared early but dissipated with conditioning time in the bottle.
Overall impressions: This is a well-chosen yeast blend that produces unique flavors and aromas. It is worth going out the way to get a hold of this product (in my case, ordering through the yeast vault). I wish White Labs would make this a regular blend - I would easily make it my go-to saison blend). This blend is great to make beers when air temperatures are high and it is difficult to cool the wort and ferment cool since it produces great beer even when it is quite warm.
