Your mods look like they'll work. You're adding some sweetness with the Carared, taking out some bitterness the spices won't compensate.... Yours is going to be a fairly sweet brew, rather heavy bodied (that's why the sugar was in there). My question: What's your reason for modifying the recipe? It looks like you're going for something in the Trappist family and those are generally very simple.

 

I don't have any particular combination of spices that say "Christmas". Cinnamon and nutmeg work just fine. As do coriander and orange peel. For Thanksgiving - I need to make the beer - I use cranberry and orange. I'd make the choice of spices around what you traditionally serve for Christmas dinner, make the beer complement it, for example, if a lot of the dishes are "sweet", you might want to make the beer sour. My observations about your recipe compared to the original come to this: You've sweetened it by adding caramel malt, you've reduced the bitterness which will also increase perception of sweetness, perhaps picking up noble hop flavors in the process, and you've thickened the body by increasing the sugar. You've also added the spices, the 5g coriander being a bit on the low side. Not knowing your objective, it's hard to tell if you'll hit them but your recipe should work and should make an interesting beer.

 

I should have written you've thickened the body by omitting the sugar. Your recipe should make a decent beer but it's definitely not the original.

 

How about vanilla as a nice holiday spice? Orange and vanilla is more of a classic combination for the holidays but both do okay in beer. I've never tried vanilla in a saison but, wtfn? I think it would increase the perception of sweetness though so you would have to compensate by either increasing you hop addition (which I personally find increases the harshness in combination with vanilla) or reduce the vienna and carared. And, vanilla can be very potent and might override the yeast contributions if you use too much so go easy on it.

 

I'd go with just enough vanilla to make people think, what's that I'm tasting. Suggestion on vanilla, if you're using extract whether commercial or homemade, is to add it at packaging. You can stir it in gently under a CO2 blanket and stop just when you notice a change in the flavor. The classic phenolic flavors of a Saison need sweetness to balance their harshness or sharp flavors to accentuate them - I used Grains of Paradise in my last one to good effect. To be frank, it sounds like you're fighting yourself attempting to make a Christmas Saison, in my mind the flavors don't blend well. Why not do a Dark Strong or a Dubbel instead? In my opinion, either of those would respond to Christmassy spices better than a Saison. Take your recipe, ferment it with a Trappist strain instead, lose the coriander and spice it with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, perhaps orange or ginger.

 

p. s. You can make tinctures of all your spices and add them at packaging. Soak your spices in cheap vodka while your beer ferments. Ferment it out, and start dosing samples with the tinctures. When you get a blend you like, scale up..

 

If you can find them, try whole beans cut in half (length wise) as a dry hopped in 5.5 gallons. 1 or 2 whole or even 1/2 a whole bean dry hopped for 3-5 days will likely be very very apparent. Vanilla is both a strong flavor and delicate so use conservatvely as a dry hop. I've never done it but I think adding it to the boil would ruin any flavor contribution. I think extract to be way too easy to over use and kind of harsh as a final product but it will still do the job.

Even better: as Nosybear says: make a vodka tincture by soaking a single/couple of whole bean in a bottle of cheap vodka (for at least 3 to 5 days) then add a few drops or a shot or two to a pint and see if you like it. It would mean you have to brew a second batch if you scale it up but worst case scenario you have to use up some vanilla flavored vodka over the holidays. I'd even go so far as to say this might be better than a whole 5 gallon batch to the same flavor. If you brew a base recipe, then use as much or as little spices in your pint as you like without committing to a whole batch. I consider this to be the cocktail version of spiced craft beers! Everyone at the party gets to pick their own spices...makes a great party game. Word of warning...this kind of game tends to devolve into adding nasty additions to the glasses to see who gags first!

 

I have a Christmas Ale that I brew with cinnamon and ginger, it is a clone (hate that word) of Great Lakes (Ohio) Christmas Ale, it is a beauty

 

Keep the sugar, but you can use different types of sugar. Here is Louisiana, I use fresh cane syrup in my saison recipe.

If you’re in the UK, maybe you could try Lyle’s Golden or some other local treat. It won’t completely change the final taste, but will impart subtle flavors based on the sugar type.

 

What I'd do? Step mash, if possible, something like 144/156 degrees, 40 mins each. It's the dextrines that give the impression of sweetness so you want to reduce as much of them as possible to fermentable sugar. Upping the hops a few IBUs would again remove some of the impression of sweetness. I like the idea of using the spices: This is not going to be a beer for pounding anyway so some sweetness in the glass likely won't be a bad thing. In my "Christmas" beer, I like warming alcohol, spices, enough to suggest whatever target I'm after, some sweetness, an almost oily mouthfeel, in other words, a beer suggestive of a winter cordial.

 

My experience with the Belle Saison yeast is that it attenuates past target regularly. My last batch went 5 points past target, so no problem with residual sweetness.

 

Love cinnamon and ginger. That sounds like it will be a heck of a Christmas treat!

 

Depending on the Saison strain some a diastaticus so they can chew through some of the more complex sugars that most yeast cant that's why they should end up pretty close to 1.000.
Just my 2c I'd brew with what you've got and see what you get then adjust next run

 

I kegged up a batch last week that had gone to 1.001. A very tenacious yeast.