Style Of The Week 11/10/06 - Saison

[Steve Lacey]

I want to make a Saison and plan to get WLP565. But down the track a little I would also like to make a Wit. Any opinions on whether 565 would also do a good job on a Wit, or would it be better to just go ahead and buy a specialist Wit yeast? Where possible I like to have versatile yeasts that will do a few different styles and thus keep the yeast bank as simple as possible (a hard task!)

 

[warrenlw63]

I'd say you'll have no worries Steve. Probably not an overly correct statement but I reckon most Belgian yeasts will make a good/serviceable wit of varying degrees.

Was always my method of choice to make a wit and then save the Belgian yeast slurry for a stronger beer.

Go for it. Just remember to post your results. :beerbang:

Warren -

 

[brendanos]

I love this thread.

I found a pack of Wyeast 3725 (Biere De Garde, Fantome) lonely and growing long in the whiskers at TWOC a while back, and couldn't resist adopting it. So two weeks ago I brewed a Biere De Garde, and yesterday I racked a Super Saison onto the cake as the BDG went into the fridge to garde.

The BDG took a while to take off, as I tried to find the right temperature range to keep it happy, but after ramping up to 30 it chugged away nicely. What really surprised me was how fast the Saison has taken off. It began at approx 1.062, and I'd planned to add some dextrose (for an estimated OG of 1.071) halfway into the fermentation (at 1.035), but after barely 12 hours in the fermenter at 26C, it had already chugged it's way down to 1.025! I guess after the BDG it was feening for some more action.

Has anyone used the 3725 before, and is able to comment on how well/fast it finishes? In hindsight I probably should have warm conditioned the BDG a little longer before lagering, it was only down to 1.011, though I did use a lot of specialty malts. I guess warm conditioning the Saison should give me a good indication. After the last days activity, it seems to behave quite differently to the 3724.


Recipes for both:


Biere de Garde

61% W Pils
15% W Vienna
9% W Munich I
5% W Melanoidin
3% W CaraMunich I
1.5% Bairds Amber
0.5% W Carafa I
5% Dextrose

20L, OG 1.058, 30IBU
Wyeast 3725

20g NZ Willamette 5.9% FWH
20g NZ Styrian Goldings 5.3% FWH
20g NZ Hallertau Aroma 6.8% 20 mins, w/ Yeast Nut., Irish Moss

Mashed at 45C for 30mins, 55C for 15mins, 62C for 30mins, 68C for 15 mins, mashout and fly sparge at 74C to 14L collected, topped up to 24L preboil.


Super Saison

78% W Pils
7.3% W Munich I
5% JW Wheat
2.5% Unmalted Wheat

7.2% Dextrose (boiled and added halfway into fermentation with some more yeast nutrient and a few mL of modiferm)

21L, OG 1.071, 40IBU

50g Hallertau Tradition Pellets 3.7% FWH
10g Horizon Pellets 9.3% FWH
10g Nelson Sauvin Pellets 12.2% 15mins, w/ Yeast Nut., Irish Moss
20g Nelson Sauvin Pellets 12.2% 2mins

Dupont Mash Schedule (45C -> 72C over 2 hours)

I also ended up blending about 1.5L of the BDG into the Saison as I could only fit a small fermenter into the fridge for lagering.

 

[brendanos]

Holy toledoes! After only three and a half days my Super Saison's pushing 1.003, and it's still going strong!

 

[Stuster]

Wow. Wonder what the effect of that mash schedule was then.

 

[warrenlw63]

I love this thread.

I found a pack of Wyeast 3725 (Biere De Garde, Fantome) lonely and growing long in the whiskers at TWOC a while back, and couldn't resist adopting it. So two weeks ago I brewed a Biere De Garde, and yesterday I racked a Super Saison onto the cake as the BDG went into the fridge to garde.

As do I brendanos (luvin' the thread).. Can't vouch for the yeast but please don't forget to tell us how the whole scene turns out. I'll be interested to hear.

Warren -

 

[brendanos]

Wow. Wonder what the effect of that mash schedule was then.

I was a little worried since the seemingly underattenuated biere de garde (1.011 or 81%, was expecting more considering the dextrose content), but now it seems as though the squirt of modiferm might have been overkill...

Will do, Warren. I might even see my first 100%+ apparent attenuation!

Brendan

 

[brendanos]

The Super Saison seems to have reached a terminal gravity of 1.000 - 1.001 after a week. Wow. The bitterness is very pronounced, even at what I guess is a paltry 30-35IBU, though it will probably/hopefully smooth out dramatically over the following weeks.

 

[pmolou]

I'm wondering when your brewing a saison as i've read it can take up to 6 weeks to fully ferment.
Is this on the primary yeast cake or racked into secondry.
As with normal beers you'd get yeast bite at such high temps on the cake for a long period of time or does this not apply for saisons yeast

PS. I never rack my beer

I just bought a temple's saison from G&G and going toculture that for the yeast anyone tried temple's saison???

 

[choppadoo]

haven't tried the temple saison, but late last year i cultured yeast out of a bottle of saison dupont. after a dubious starter i pitched anyway, and it turned out beautifully.

 

[Stuster]

That long time for fermentation is for the most commonly supplied Saison yeast, the one supplied by Wyeast and White Labs which is the Dupont yeast. Six weeks seems a bit long - as long as you keep the temperature high it should finish in 3 weeks or so, at least in my experience. There are other Saison yeasts that are released from time to time by the yeast companies and some of them are a bit quicker. The yeast works well at 28C or higher and it won't throw off flavours/fusels at that temp.

Good luck with culturing that yeast. I've given up doing it as it wasn't worth the effort for me. Many yeasts in big beers transported half way round the world seem to have given up the ghost. But you might have luck. Just be careful that you taste and smell the starter, and maybe even take a gravity reading to make sure it's working. Let us know how it goes and what recipe you end up using.

 

[pmolou]

i was going to mod this recipe
and get rid of the carapils and wheat and add 200grams of crystal malt and use the temple's saison yeast which is an aussie brand so not from halfway round the world

I've been told to hold in primary for two weeks then 1 week in secondry then lager for two weeks then bottle. Is this necessary as i dont have a secondry fermentor or is it worth spending the extra 15$ to get a racking bin????

any tips on the recipe was going to use a british ale but then decided to try something differant
Flying Fish Brewery Farmhouse Summer Ale
(5 gallon/19 L, extract with grains)
OG = 1.0451.048 FG = 1.0101.011
IBU = 18 SRM = 3+ ABV = 4.34.6%

Ingredients
3.3 lbs. (1.5 kg) Coopers light malt extract syrup
2.2 lbs. (1.0 kg) Briess wheat dry malt extract
0.5 lbs. (0.2 kg) wheat malt
3 oz. (85 g) Carapils (dextrin) malt
3 oz. (85 g) pale 2-row malt (for sour mash)
1.0 AAU Styrian Golding hops
(0.25 oz./7g of 4.0% alpha acid)
3.5 AAU Magnum
(0.25 oz./1.8 g of 14.0% alpha acid)
2.1 AAU Styrian Golding hops
(0.53 oz./15 g of 4.0% alpha acid)
1.4 AAU Styrian Golding hops
(0.35 oz./10 g of 4.0% alpha acid)
White Labs WLP005 (British Ale) or
Wyeast 1098 (British Ale) yeast
0.75 cup of corn sugar (for priming)

Step by Step
For the sour mash, start 23 days in advance. Steep 3 oz. (85 g) 2-row pale malt in a pint of 150 F (66 C) water, then cover and let sit for 23 days. On brew day, steep the sour mash along with the wheat and dextrin malt grains in 3 gallons (11.4 L) of water at 152 F (67 C) for 30 mins. Remove grains from wort, add the first wort addition of Styrian Golding hops, malt syrup and dry malt extract, tnen bring to a boil. Add the Magnum hops and boil for 60 mins. Add the second addition of Styrian Golding hops for the last 30 mins. of the boil and add the last addition of Styrian Golding hops for the last 2 mins. of the boil. Now add wort to 2 gallons cool water in a sanitary fermenter and top off with cool water to 5.5 gallons (20.9 L). Cool the wort to 75 F (24 C), aerate the beer and pitch your yeast. Allow the beer to cool over the next few hours to 68 F (20 C) and hold at this temperature until the yeast has finished fermentation. Bottle and enjoy!

 

[winkle]

I'll be firing up a saison this weekend.
Pretty basic using 80% BB Ale + 20% BB Wheat mashed at 65 C hopped with NZ Hallertau and Tettnanger hop plugs. Yeast- W3711.
Can anyone who has played with the french saison yeast, let me know what sort of time frame to expect at 26-28 C?

 

[Stuster]

We had some great saisons by Double A (who doesn't seem to be around much) at the start of the year made with this year, winkle. He'd fermented at around 20C and it was done at two weeks. There was plenty of yeast character there and I think there's no real need to push this one too hot.

 

[petesbrew]

I'm planning to do one closer to summer when the garage temperature warms up,
I've got a nice farmhouse ale culture I grabbed off Rukh which I'm saving for this baby.

 

[bconnery]

I tried the Temple Saison mentioned above recently.
I liked it.
Can't comment on culturing the yeast but I thought it was a nice beer myself. Good palish colour, good body but still finishing nicely.

I've used the seasonal wyeast French Saison 3711 recently and it fermented down to 1004/3 easily, with a mash temp of 64C, and ferment temps starting at around 19C and then ramping up to ambient, Brisbane, mostly in the mid to highish 20s.
After reading of some of the issues people had with saison yeasts I was surprised.

I've only kegged it last night but hydrometer samples were very promising!

I can say so far that it appears Nelson Sauvin isn't out of place in a saison...
Time will tell though, need to do some drinking to make space in the fridge... Damn ANHC got in the way of my keg emptying :icon_cheers:

Batch Size: 24.00 L
Boil Size: 35.00 L
Estimated OG: 1.054 SG
Estimated Color: 11.1 EBC
Estimated IBU: 28.2 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 70 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
2500.00 gm Pilsner (Weyermann) (3.3 EBC) Grain 43.48 %
1500.00 gm Pale Malt, Galaxy (Barrett Burston) (3.0 EGrain 26.09 %
1000.00 gm Vienna Malt (Weyermann) (5.9 EBC) Grain 17.39 %
500.00 gm Wheat Malt (Barrett Burston) (3.0 EBC) Grain 8.70 %
50.00 gm Caraaroma (Weyermann) (350.7 EBC) Grain 0.87 %
25.00 gm Hallertauer Aroma, New Zealand [8.50 %] (Hops -
20.00 gm Northern Brewer [6.60 %] (60 min) Hops 14.5 IBU
20.00 gm Nelson Sauvin [12.60 %] (15 min) Hops 13.7 IBU
100.00 gm Brown Sugar, Light (15.8 EBC) Sugar 1.74 %
100.00 gm Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (2.0 EBC) Sugar 1.74 %
1 Pkgs French Saison (Seasonal) (Wyeast Labs #371Yeast-Ale

 

[glennheinzel]

I posted this in the WAYB II thread the other night, but its probaby appropriate to repost here. Its based on Jamil's recipe, however he uses the standard Hallertau hops and he uses all table sugar (not Lyles+table sugar).

Its sitting in the NC cube at the moment and I hope to unleash some Wyeast 3726 Farmhouse Ale yeast on it in the next couple of weeks.

22 litres
Original Gravity: 1.060 (1.048 - 1.065)
Terminal Gravity: 1.008 (1.002 - 1.012)
Color: 5.55 (5.0 - 14.0)
Alcohol: 6.73% (5.0% - 7.0%)
Bitterness: 30.0 (20.0 - 35.0)

Ingredients:
4.8 kg Pilsner Malt
.34 kg Wheat Malt Pale (Organic)
.34 kg Munich TYPE I
.06 kg Caramunich TYPE I
.45 kg Invert Sugar (how good does Lyles syrup taste?!)
.10 kg White Table Sugar (Sucrose)

35 g Hallertau Tradition (5.7%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
21 g Hallertau Tradition (5.7%) - flameout

 

[pmolou]

haven't tried the temple saison, but late last year i cultured yeast out of a bottle of saison dupont. after a dubious starter i pitched anyway, and it turned out beautifully.

so the temple saison yeast worked well i think because i having trouble with head retention and carbonation despite the fact i added alot of priming sugar...

could this be from too much acidity in the beer

it tastes good but i know it would taste much better with high carbonation

ps. i ended up adding a variety of yeast towards the 3/4 mark to speed up fermentation took over a month to happen...
us-56, abbey II,

 

[kabooby]

I'll be firing up a saison this weekend.
Pretty basic using 80% BB Ale + 20% BB Wheat mashed at 65 C hopped with NZ Hallertau and Tettnanger hop plugs. Yeast- W3711.
Can anyone who has played with the french saison yeast, let me know what sort of time frame to expect at 26-28 C?

Hey Winkle, how did this one finish up?

I have a second cube of pils that I might put the 3711 French Saison yeast on, just for shits and giggles

This was for a 40L batch

7.50 kg Pilsner (Weyermann) (3.3 EBC) Grain 100.00 %
45.00 gm Horizon [10.90 %] (60 min) Hops 31.9 IBU
30.00 gm Saaz [3.20 %] (15 min) Hops 3.1 IBU
45.00 gm Saaz [3.20 %] (0 min) Hops -
200.00 ml Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 min) Misc

I might add some dark candi sugar to beef it up a bit, or I might just leave it as is and have it a bit lower alcohol. Sometimes it's nice to have a few <5% beers on tap h34r:.

At least it will give me a true indication of the yeast.

Kabooby

 

[winkle]

Hey Winkle, how did this one finish up?

I have a second cube of pils that I might put the 3711 French Saison yeast on, just for shits and giggles



Kabooby

Ended up using the farmhouse yeast 3726 (mostly due to hangover), and was that impressed I made 2 more batches on slurry with each getting a bit more spice and alcohol. Kept the temp down to 20 C + it had done the deed in 8 days.