Having brewed and spend some time with Jordan over the years, it was time to take a trip to his new home in Switzerland and the delightful brasserie Trois Dames.
Both of us are suckers to the saison and farmhouse style, so we decided to look at something in keeping with the time of year (summer) and go for something a bit lighter. We went for a grisette. For those who are unsure of the difference between saison and grisette: As saison was considered the drink of farm workers, grissette was the brew of the miners. The origins of the name are sketchy (gris means gray in French). Grissette is commonly said to refer to young women who worked in factories and wore a distinctive gray frock as a uniform. As one story goes, these young women, grisettes, would hold trays of ale to refresh the workers as the exited the mines. The term has also been attributed to the color of the prophyritic stone mined in the area of northern Hainaut province.
The recipe we brewed was using:
Weyermann Pilsner – 67%
Weyermann Vienna – 7%
Unmalted Wheat – 13%
Rolled Oats – 7%
We mashed for 45 minutes at 64C. Recirculate the mash for 15 minutes. Sparged with about 1/3 of the water used for the mash prior to the beginning of the lauter. This gave around 1500 – 1600L. We added a small amount of Hallertau at when the wort first hit the kettle and a similar amount at whirlpool. This wort was fermented with US05. Two days later 10-15kg of fruit will be added along with a pitch of our house blend of yeast and bacteria.
