Saison Yeast - White Labs 565 vs. 566

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DiegoProf

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Hi all,

I'm going to be brewing my first saison in a few days, and am wondering if anyone out there has experience with both White Labs 565 (Saison 1) and the 566 (Platinum Saison 2). White Labs' website describes the former as producing "earthy, peppery and spicy notes," while the latter is supposed to give "more fruity ester production" and is described as being "slightly phenolic." In addition, the 566 is said to ferment slightly faster, and at a slightly higher optimum temperature.

Any thoughts? I'd be interested in hearing differences in attenuation/floculation or other fermentation qualities, as well as flavor/aroma differences. I'm especially interested to hear what temperatures people have fermented at with these yeasts. A buddy of mine likes to use the 565 in a heated chest freezer set to 95 degrees F!

-Matt
 
I haven't used the yeast that you mentioned but i did use the wyeast farmhouse ale on a saison recently and i will second your friends opinion on fermenting at a higher temp. the higher that you can get it the more bubble gum and spice you will get out of the yeast. I just kegged mine tonight and it is pretty tasty. I ended up fermenting in my attic because i couldn't get the temp up anywhere else in the house. I wasn't able to really control the temps so much & think that one day it got up to about 98 or 99 deg up there but the beer fermented out to where i wanted and didn't develop any off flavors. I will be able to better determine in a couple of days when it is carbed up what the final product will taste like. I would recommend a long secondary at room temp to help the flavors meld together. I had mine in the secondary for about a month. As far as the attenuation goes you should be golden as long as you give it appropriate time to ferment. My OG was 1.074 and it fermented out to a 1.009. if you are brewing an All Grain I would suggest a lower mash temp, maybe around 146-148 for about an hour and a half, it will help to produce more fermentable sugars an help to get the dryer beer that a saison should be. The saison and farm house strains are very resilient and hearty in the right conditions.

I hope that my drunken ramblings made sense. my recipe is in the data base, follow the recipe link under my name.

Cheers
 
I have used WLP565 a couple times. I absolutely love the flavor that the strain gives off, spicy, fruity, peppery describe it perfectly, exactly what I want in a Saison. Only problem is that I cannot get over 60% attenutation with it, even with huge starters in beers that start at ~1.070. I drank one beer at 1.040 and had to finish the second with another yeast strain. I will figure this strain out someday, ferment at high temps though is what I have heard, I have gone up to ~80*F, have heard of people going up to 90 though.
 
ColoradoXJ13 said:
I have used WLP565 a couple times ... Only problem is that I cannot get over 60% attenutation with it, even with huge starters in beers that start at ~1.070. I drank one beer at 1.040 and had to finish the second with another yeast strain.

Yeah, I've heard this about the 565. Not sure if the same is true of the 566. The White Labs web site does recommend using another yeast to dry it out, once fermentation is about 2/3 complete. I picked up a packet of coopers dry yeast for the job.
 
I just finished up a Saison with WL565, and thought I had 1.02 FG. I'll check the FG again this weekend to see if my first reading was off, per the suggestion that this only gets to 1.04. It seemed fairly dry.

I fermented at around 75 degrees.
 
JeffNYC said:
I just finished up a Saison with WL565, and thought I had 1.02 FG. I'll check the FG again this weekend to see if my first reading was off, per the suggestion that this only gets to 1.04. It seemed fairly dry.

I fermented at around 75 degrees.

It is completely dependent on your original gravity, and about a million other factors...I just said that in that particular brew I did, it only got to 1.040, in a second brew it got it down to 1.024, and a pacman yeast cake brought it to 1.012.
 
It is completely dependent on your original gravity, and about a million other factors...I just said that in that particular brew I did, it only got to 1.040, in a second brew it got it down to 1.024, and a pacman yeast cake brought it to 1.012.

Thread is a bit dated but I'm having similar attenuation issues so thought I'd resurrect this one. I let it ferment around 76 to try and bring out the flavors of the yeast. I also made a half cup DME starter (with wyeast nutrient) 2 days prior to pitching but I guess I should have stepped it up a few times because fermentation seems to be almost done after only three days and was not very vigorous. So for those of you thinking of using this yeast you might want to make sure you make a big starter.
 
I used 568 recently and it went from 1.057 to 1.016 and got stuck there. I pitched in some S-05 from another brew and got it to 1.012...
 
565 always seems to stall, but will pick back up after some dormant time. I've never had it finish above 1.020. That makes me wonder about mash temps. I always mash saisons really low so they end up bone dry. However, doesn't hurt to finish with something clean once it stalls. Most of the flavor profile comes from the initial fermentation anyway.

Even though in general I'm a white labs guy, my preference for saisons is the wyeast French saison now.
 
565 always seems to stall, but will pick back up after some dormant time. I've never had it finish above 1.020. That makes me wonder about mash temps. I always mash saisons really low so they end up bone dry. However, doesn't hurt to finish with something clean once it stalls. Most of the flavor profile comes from the initial fermentation anyway.

Even though in general I'm a white labs guy, my preference for saisons is the wyeast French saison now.

it picks back up after dormant time? what kind of lag time are you talking between when the krausen dies out to reaching a reasonable FG? (i will probably just pitch some washed wlp001 eventually)
 
it picks back up after dormant time? what kind of lag time are you talking between when the krausen dies out to reaching a reasonable FG? (i will probably just pitch some washed wlp001 eventually)

Can't say for sure. The advice I was always given was to give it time. I've notice it pick up after 2-3 weeks, but most of us aren't that patient
 
i just did a 10 gal batch of saison. 5 gal wlp 565 and 5 gal wyeast 3724. 4 days in to the ferment and the 565 is at down to 1.015 and the wyeast is up at 1.035 from an og of 1.066. i started the ferment at 65 and have ramped up to 80 now. the they both are still going pretty strong.
 
I ran into a similar problem with my current saison using the 565. It seemed to ferment heavily for 2 days and stopped dead. The other bucket (I split a 12gal batch into two fermenter and pitched both with the same starter) is going like crazy. :tank:

Despite the fact that I clearly didn't kill the yeast, I opened up the bucket and checked gravity -> it's down from 1.068 to 1.02 already. Very odd.
 
This is sort of an old thread, but I just want to say for anyone else who has this problem and finds it that the 565 strain is MEANT to be used in conjunction with another yeast strain to ferment it out (per Chris White). The 566 is meant to be standalone and can attenuate just fine. It won't be uncommon at all to have a fermentation stop pretty high with 565.
 
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