Odd Saison Fermentation...

Brewed the AHS Hibiscus Ginger Saison on friday with the help of some friends (who now want to start brewing their own after seeing how much fun it is). I got a starter going on wednesday and it was a really good starter (took off like crazy on thursday). Anyways, after brewing i aerated it a lot and my SG was right on the money at 1.063. I let it set and didn't get to check on it again until yesterday afternoon when the airlock was going nuts. Since then though it has drastically slowed down and when i pop the top on the fermenter there is a REALLY strong smell (stronger than normal) and it kinda smells like the rhino fart smell you normally get from Apfelwein fermentation (that's the best way i can explain it). I used the WhiteLabs Belgian Saison Blend WLP568 yeast with it. Only thing i'm worried about is it just seems like TOO fast fermentation. Has anyone ever seen theirs take off and slow down within 48 hours? That just seems a bit too quick. And the smell kinda worries me too. I know right now it's too early to worry so for now i will RDWHAHB! . BTW, the raspberry chocolate stout i have on tap now still has at least two more weeks to age in the keg before it's ready and my friends tried it on friday and one ordered himself a kit right after he tried it and told me to brew it for him! lol He even ordered two cases of bottles for me to put it in for him! He (and this is also my opinion) said it was one of the best stouts he's ever had!

That does seem too quick, the saison that I did kept on rolling for almost 3 weeks before it finally stopped. But I used wyeast 3724, so I can't really say if that would be comparable to your yeast strain. What was your ferment temp? that could be part of the reason for the fast ferment if it was really high.

Fermenter has been sitting at a constant 70 F. Just took a reading to see where it was at (i know it's too early but i was trying to see if it's really near the end) and it's still at 1.043 so it's not even close to finished. Just kinda weird that it took off so quickly and now it's at a stand still. What temp do Saison's ferment better at? And i heard that the 568 is not a good strain for Saison's. The airlock activity now is maybe like 1 or two bubbles about every 10 seconds vs the 2-3 per second yesterday afternoon.

Well from what I have heard about making Saison, you want to use higher ferment temps. We are talking up to 85 degrees. So what I would do if I were you is ramp up your ferment temp to 80 or above, a couple of degrees at a time, so that you are at 80 or above by the end of the week.

Now as to WLP 568 being a bad strain for saison, I have never used it but from what i read on the white labs site and what i have heard about saison fermentation from the Jamil show on saison, that the white labs saison 2 and saison blend (which you are using) were just created to address a problem that was typically encountered with their original saison yeast, where fermentation would stick about 3/4ths of the way through. So these 2 strains were developed to be easier to reach full attenuation without having to resort to pitching a second yeast strain or anything like that.

But don't take my word for it, I highly recommend that you listen to the jamil show episode on saison, it is an excellent show, and Chris White from white labs comes in and discusses many of these saison yeast issues. I found it extremely informative.
Heres the link if you don't know about the jamil show
http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/jamil.php
the saison show is 9/10/07