1214 Chimay -90% Attenuation

Just cold crashing my belgian blonde. Took a gravity reading and was surprised to see 1.006! Is it common to hit 90% attenuation with the Chimay yeast? Recipe below...

83% pils
10% wheat
4% cane sugar
3% aromatic

OG 1.061
FG 1.006

Aerated with Venturi hose and collander, and used about 1L starter on stir plate (used yeast calc for calculations). Ferment starting at 60 and gradually up to 65.

For me, 87-88% is more common, but your low gravity there is not the same. Surprised, though, since you didn't use much sugar.

I've had it go from 1.096 down to 1.013 and also from 1.131 all the way down to 1.013, so yeah, it can do the job.

The main thing, though, does it taste good? In my experience, this yeast kicks out a lot of banana esters early on, but they age out well and it attains some nice character. I don't think it's so good for young beers, though.

It tastes great. Just not the attenuation that I was expecting. Although I looked through BLAM earlier today and I think it shows Chimay getting 89% so I'm in the ballpark. I can't recall getting that low outside of a saison yeast. In any case, it does taste good. There's a good amount of banana but some nice Belgian spice as well. It's conditioning at 35 now. I tried to keep it in the low 60s because I read a lot of comments about overwhelming banana flavors. I think I did a solid job; it'll just be 7.2% rather than 6.5.

Brewed with this again. This time as a small session beer. 89% AA. Stopped at 1.004. I must say though I'm not much of a fan of this yeast at lower temps. I read some advice which said to keep it under 63 for the start of fermentation to avoid huge banana. However there are zero esthers at that temp. It just has an earthy quality. Pretty bland otherwise. I just don't think I'm a fan of the flavor profile, high or low. Prefer 3787 much more.

tagz said:

Brewed with this again. This time as a small session beer. 89% AA. Stopped at 1.004. I must say though I'm not much of a fan of this yeast at lower temps. I read some advice which said to keep it under 63 for the start of fermentation to avoid huge banana. However there are zero esthers at that temp. It just has an earthy quality. Pretty bland otherwise. I just don't think I'm a fan of the flavor profile, high or low. Prefer 3787 much more.

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Did you ramp up or leave at 63?

I like 3787 better as well but have made some nice beers with 1214.

I held at 63 for the first week. Then I believe I ramped up to around 68 to finish. I would recommend ramping a little earlier for others using the yeast. The beer is actually no too bad. Just drier than I like and a little more in the ester production would be good.

I've never left it that low for that long. I usually pitch it around 64, then ramp up over 5 or so days into the mid 70s or so and I get plenty of esters. When I've seen people saying to pitch this cool, they don't mean to leave it that way for a week. The beer should be allowed to ramp up. You don't want to hold that cooler temp for any more than a day, IMHO. You don't have to ramp it up all in one day to warm temp, I gently raise mine over 5 days, 2 degrees per day. With some beers, I let it free rise on its own though keep it from going wild.

Yeah I typically raise a degree per day. I just read a few post by Denny that warned against starting at anything higher than 62, so I proceeded with caution. I think if I use it again I will go 64-65 for day 1-2 and then ramp. But I think I'll explore other beligian strains before I return o this one. 3787 and 3944 have made some fantastic beers for me. Ive tried 3711 and 3724 as well. I might try Ardennes next, or maybe forbidden fruit.

Achouffe's yeast, 3522, is quite a nice yeast as well.