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The saison is a great beer style and this home brew recipe makes a pretty good saison. It’s a great beer for warmer weather and traditionally fairly light on alcohol so it’s great if you want to have a few. Adding to that, they’re light and refreshing but are a lot more interesting than a lager. However, at 6.3% (after bottle conditioning), this saison is bit bigger than tradition!

On that, this saison uses a mixture of hops from all around the world, so it’s really breaking from tradition. The hops bring out a ton of citrus, florals, and even some subtle tropicals which make this beer even more refreshing.

Be careful with this one though, the alcohol hides a little bit so it’s easy to go overboard.

The Story Behind the Name

As with all of our home brew recipes, this one is named after a scientist.

Lemaitre’s Cosmic Egg is named after Belgian priest, astronomer, and physicists Georges Lemaitre. The saison is typically a Belgian style, and as Georges Lemaitre was a Belgian scientist, it’s fitting!

Lemaitre is known for proposing what eventually became the Big Bang Theory, except, he originally decscribed the creation of our universe as a “Cosmic Egg.”

Lemaitre managed to derive Hubble’s law two years before Edwin Hubble managed to do it. Unfortunately for Lemaitre though, his data was unable to prove what he already knew, so, when Hubble was able to prove it, he got the recognition for the law.

All of this lead to Lemaitre’s theory of an expanding universe which, while correct, had Albert Einstein say to Georges Lemaitre “Your calculations are correct, but your physics atrocious.” Einsten felt that mathematics alone doesn’t neccessarily make a theory correct. Not many people are able to disprove Einstein, but Lemaitre was right!

Equipment Needed

This is a pretty basic recipe, so a basic all grain set up should be fine.

The minimum home brew equipment recommended is:

  • Mash tun – we used the Esky/cooler method for mashing
  • Wort chiller – we used an immersion chiller. This is always recomended, but you may be able to get away with slower cooling for less hopped beers like this.
  • Fermentation temperature regulation – we fermented at 25 degrees Celsius. Saison yeasts are a bit more robust in terms of temperature variation, but it’s probably best to keep it at the proper temperature.
  • Second fermenter for bottling – you’ll already be doing this if you bulk prime anyway, but if you’re not a bulk primer, a secondary is deffinetely working before bottling or kegging to filter out the large amount of sediment saison yeasts tend to make.

The Recipe

This recipe is for a 24 litre batch of beer.

Grain:

Mash the grain for 60 minutes at 65 degrees Celsius in 13 litres of water. Check out our strike water temperature calculator to get the right mash temperature.

Total grain of 5 kilograms consisting of:

  • 3 kilograms – German Pilsner Malt
  • 1.9 kilograms – German Vienna Malt
  • 0.4 kilograms – Dark Wheat Malt
  • 0.3 kilograms – Rye

Hops:

The total boil time is 60 minutes.

Bittering hops – 60 minute boil

  • 30 grams – East Kent Goldings

Taste hops – 20 minute boil

  • 5 grams Ella

Taste hops – 15 minute boil

  • 12 grams – East Kent Goldings
  • 12 grams – Styrian Goldings

Aroma hops – flame out

  • 5 grams – Citra
  • 5 grams – Ella

Dry hop

  • 10 grams – Ella
  • 10 grams – Styrian Goldings

Dry hop a few days after pitching your yeast.

Yeast and final steps

Yeast – Danstar Belle Saison

Fermentation temperature: 25 degrees for two weeks – fermentation actually completes pretty quickly with this year, but it’s best to let the beer settle for awhile.

Bulk priming: 144 grams caster sugar

Stats

OSG: 1.044

FSG: 1.008

ABV: 5.8% (without bottle conditioning)

IBU: 39 IBU

Give this recipe a go and tell us how it turns out.

Like the recipe? Check out our other home brew recipes.

Did you get different specific gravities or just need more stats? Check out our ABV calculator.

Did you try different hops? Check out our IBU calculator.