Damn Saison

[bleachcola]

Fermenting JZ's Saison -- forgot the sugar so my OG is a bit low, 1.052. Pitched Wyeast 3724 at 66F, 1L starter. Fermentation started in 8 to 12 hours, not very vigorous but bubbling nicely. Started slowly ramping temperature up over next several days now at 81-82F (fermwrap). It's been going for 10 days now, SG down to 1.028/9.4 Brix. Dropping consistently at 1 Brix per day.

Is this typical? Slow and steady even at elevated temps?

Animaldoc

It's not too late to add the sugar. But yeah, my experience with that yeast is that it takes off pretty quick but then poops out and goes slow and steady.

[animaldoc]

It's not too late to add the sugar.  But yeah, my experience with that yeast is that it takes off pretty quick but then poops out and goes slow and steady.

Yeah, but if I added the sugar now, how much longer would it take to finish????

[andy77]

Update: after 4 months in the secondary (really just a keg with a cut diptube) my saison has dropped 6 points to 1.006.

Refresher: it took 2.5 weeks for my saison, with a big healthy pitch of saison blend (WLPwhatever) to drop from 1.06something to 1.012, shy of my goal of 1.007. I pitched a 500ml stater of wlp001, waited 4 days, and got nowhere. I gave up, racked to a keg, and put it in the back of a closet. Every so often I would vent the keg, and wouldn't you know it, every time there was 5 psi or so in there, indicating to me that the yeast still in suspension was still fermenting. I just put it in the kegerator today and drew a hydrometer sample and it dropped from 1.012 to 1.006. Whaddyaknow?

[bleachcola]

It's not too late to add the sugar.  But yeah, my experience with that yeast is that it takes off pretty quick but then poops out and goes slow and steady.

Yeah, but if I added the sugar now, how much longer would it take to finish????

In the words of Whitey, "It depends."

[BlueLoon]

We did a 10 gal batch of Saison for the big brew and split it and pitched diff yeast. I pitched the Wyeast French Saison 3711 and the other club member pitched WL565. Mine was ramped to 80 over about 8 days and got to 1008. He had the "saison" problem with it stopping at about 1014 ish. He ramped but his heater maxed out at 78. He pitched US05 to try and get it down. Eventually got to 1010. The Whites said the Saison II yeast is better. Totally agree with the warning or something.

[Newcastle]

The trick with the DuPont saison strain is to propagate warm, pitch warm, and ferment warm - generally no cooler than 75F, and no warmer than 95F, and be patient. The strain in question is actually very closely related to red wine yeast, more so than most other Belgian strains. Since its a farmhouse strain it's probably been condition/selected for higher temperature fermentations. As far as flavors go, you'll get banana/tropical fruit esters at 75-85F, and phenolics/spices at 85-95F. Assuming you pitch the appropriate quantity of yeast and oxygenate, you will not detect any fusel alcohols in your beer at these temperatures.

Last year I fermented a batch out by holding the temp at a steady 83F - OG was 1.049 (all malt), FG was 1.008 - took 5 weeks to finish, although I'm sure I could have gotten it down to 1.006 had I waited another month.

I've got another batch that sadly was cold shocked by a wave of mild summer weather, dropping the temp down to 67F while I was away, stalling fermentation at 1.020. I transferred it to a conditioning tank (corny keg w/trimmed dip tube) and was able to start it back up again with a fermwrap raising the temp slowly to 85F, but I think I'll mix it up this year and drop some Brett into the keg to finish things out and give this beer an even more interesting character.