New Danstar Belle Saison Dry Yeast?

ArkotRamathorn said:

Just bottled my saison made with this. Took a hydrometer reading before the dry hop and it was down to 1.004-6 (I can never read it very well). Way lower than I thought possible with 8oz of honey malt and 8oz of oats(and a single 10 minute decoction step and an overall 150F mash temp).

I really love the French Strisselspalt hops with the honey malt and saison yeast. I get a big honey lemon punch, like a really good cup of honey and lemon tea (without astringency). Right now its slightly on the sweet side but I think the priming sugar may be skewing my judgement on this. Love this yeast and planning to use it for a dubbel/BDSA soon since I love the phenols in it (also that attenuation, I love a dry dubbel).

Edit for clarification: I miscounted my bottles and had another 16ish oz sample left in the bucket so I threw it in a plastic bottle and force carbonated it quick and drank it a couple hours later so the sweetness I am detecting is more than likely the priming sugar.

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I mashed close to 160 and it still dried out down to 1.004 or something. This yeast don't care.

skunkfunk said:

I made an RIS with this yeast. It was really weird. Matt over at http://tobrewabeer.com/ seemed to think it turned out alright, but it was definitely strange.

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I've got a scaled down version of Belgian Yeti RIS (export stout strength) brewed with this yeast which is getting really dry. I may add some malto-dextrin at bottling. I think it's over 8% right now.

rhys333 said:

Out of curiosity, how much do you pay for MO? I pay $65 for a 55 lb sack which is only $17 more than the domestic 2 Row I get. After watching the Basic Brewing videos on youtube, I'm considering a partigyle batch. Something like MO and wheat as a starting point then add crystal/choc to the first runnings for a brown ale, then sugar to second runnings for a saison. Fun experiment anyway.

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I love doing stuff like that, although I've never done a real partigyle. I usually split my runnings evenly by strength and then add steeped specialty malts, sugar, or dilute to get different beers. I think you get a bit more predictability that way. See the diversity link in my sig.

ArkotRamathorn said:

Love this yeast and planning to use it for a dubbel/BDSA soon since I love the phenols in it (also that attenuation, I love a dry dubbel).

.

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you should try combining it with a more trappist style yeast. I got great results spiking an Unibroue dubbel with a saison yeast
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=542346

Careful with the maltodextrin. I'm not convinced that this yeast won't eat it.

rhys333 said:

Since you guys bring it up, I'd really like to try a MO saison just to see what it does. Maybe 70% MO with 30% wheat. Also substantial late addition hopping with Mosaic just to really push the boundaries.

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Sounds good to me.

skunkfunk said:

Careful with the maltodextrin. I'm not convinced that this yeast won't eat it.

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I didn't think about that. I may post another thread to see if anyone else has experience.

Rhumbline said:

I thought I'd chime in with the results of my experiment. I brewed a simple Saison and did half the batch with Wyeast 1792 and half with Belle Saison.



Both are decent, the 1792 has a bit more phenolics, the Belle Saison is excellent, very smooth with lots of fruit flavors. I will be using it as my go-to for Saisons from now on.

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What temperature did you ferment at?

ChocolateMaltyBalls said:

What temperature did you ferment at?

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It was mid-high 70's to low 80's for both. I don't have temp control yet. One week primary and two secondary.

I'm going to brew a Yeti RSI clone this weekend.
For the fun of it I'm going to make 10 gallons and ferment half with US-05 and the other half with Belle Saison.

Let's see what happens :rockin:

I'm just a little worried about the alcohol tolerance.
with a 1.090 beer even with all those unfermentable I would still be looking at an 11 to 12% beer.
Can this yeast handle that?

Belle laughs in the face of your worry and ferments the bottles you put it in

badlee said:

Belle laughs in the face of your worry and ferments the bottles you put it in

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It will ferment the glass aswell? :fro::rockin:

Shenanigans said:

I'm going to brew a Yeti RSI clone this weekend.
For the fun of it I'm going to make 10 gallons and ferment half with US-05 and the other half with Belle Saison.

Let's see what happens :rockin:

I'm just a little worried about the alcohol tolerance.
with a 1.090 beer even with all those unfermentable I would still be looking at an 11 to 12% beer.
Can this yeast handle that?

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I know there's been speculation that BS is dry 3711, and when I did a Yeti clone up to 1.089, 3711 fermented out to around 1.014 and conditioned just fine (bottled shortly after fermentation ended). In a BDSA 3711 went from 1.098 to 1.005 and after aging a bit before bottling, it didn't bottle condition, so I dropped some notty slurry in the bottles and it was fine.

Shenanigans said:

It will ferment the glass aswell? :fro::rockin:

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Belle Saison will ferment your family and everything you hold dear.

In all seriousness, BS is the base in my house sour culture, and it works great.

burninator said:

Belle Saison will ferment your family and everything you hold dear.

In all seriousness, BS is the base in my house sour culture, and it works great.

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With this being part of a sour culture, I almost pity the poor bacteria. They must not have much of anything left to eat

My oatmeal saison came out very nicely. The cascade I put in at flameout goes wonderfully with the tang I get from this yeast especially as my very small bittering charge and 100g of caramunich left just a tiny bit of sweetness. Beautiful clear golden color. However, I overshot my efficiency by a good bit and it's about 6.5% ABV and goes down reaaaaaal easy so it's dangerous stuff.

Because of that SWMBO has asked me to make a 4% ABV session saison. The problem is to make a low alcohol saison with this crazy yeast you'd have to start with a crazy low OG or a lot of sugars even this yeast can't ferment (which'd be badly off style).

Am eyeballing:
-Pilsner (adjust to get 4% ABV when I sit down to do the math and take into account that the brewing programs underestimate this crazy yeast's attenuation).
-Pound of wheat.
-Pound of light Munich (to get at least a LITTLE malt flavor, or maybe Vienna?).
-Just about zero bittering charge.
-Flameout/dry hop with some combination of Bravo/Summit/Cascade, leaning towards Summit (got open 1/2 bags of those three and want to use it up) and get basically all the IBUs I need from the whirlpool to get some hop taste to give it some flavor while still keeping IBUs dead dead dead low because they'd overwhelm something as light and dry as this looks to be.

Going in the right direction? Haven't seen many recipes for session saisons about. Want to avoid spices as spiced beer gets on my nerves (can't even enjoy rye beer let alone actual spices).

Bosh said:

With this being part of a sour culture, I almost pity the poor bacteria. They must not have much of anything left to eat

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indeed. they must be starving in there. i wouldn't expect much sourness from a 3711-primary'ed beer. but maybe that's intent here?

Bosh said:

With this being part of a sour culture, I almost pity the poor bacteria. They must not have much of anything left to eat

My oatmeal saison came out very nicely. The cascade I put in at flameout goes wonderfully with the tang I get from this yeast especially as my very small bittering charge and 100g of caramunich left just a tiny bit of sweetness. Beautiful clear golden color. However, I overshot my efficiency by a good bit and it's about 6.5% ABV and goes down reaaaaaal easy so it's dangerous stuff.

Because of that SWMBO has asked me to make a 4% ABV session saison. The problem is to make a low alcohol saison with this crazy yeast you'd have to start with a crazy low OG or a lot of sugars even this yeast can't ferment (which'd be badly off style).

Am eyeballing:
-Pilsner (adjust to get 4% ABV when I sit down to do the math and take into account that the brewing programs underestimate this crazy yeast's attenuation).
-Pound of wheat.
-Pound of light Munich (to get at least a LITTLE malt flavor, or maybe Vienna?).
-Just about zero bittering charge.
-Flameout/dry hop with some combination of Bravo/Summit/Cascade, leaning towards Summit (got open 1/2 bags of those three and want to use it up) and get basically all the IBUs I need from the whirlpool to get some hop taste to give it some flavor while still keeping IBUs dead dead dead low because they'd overwhelm something as light and dry as this looks to be.

Going in the right direction? Haven't seen many recipes for session saisons about. Want to avoid spices as spiced beer gets on my nerves (can't even enjoy rye beer let alone actual spices).

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I've done a session saison a few times with 3711 that I like:

OG: 1.035
FG: usually 1.004

32% Vienna
32% Wheat malt
20% pils
10% Munich, Toasted, Amber, something with malt character
4% special B
2% acidmalt (for mash pH)

19 IBU with even additions of cascade or similar at 90, 15, 5 minutes. I've also split the late additions with some willamette or saaz. A bit of lime zest will not go amiss either.

I know the grain bill looks nothing like a crisp, dry beer, but 3711 and BS are so beastly that I do everything I can to retain some body and malt backbone while cutting the OG down so low. 4% SPec B may seem like a lot, but that's because the OG is so low. If you scaled up to a normal OG, the addition of base malt would bring it to 2 or 3%. Even mashing this at 160, It still dries out and isn't heavy on the palate, and it keeps the ABV low so it's not too dangerous of a brew.

Bosh said:

With this being part of a sour culture, I almost pity the poor bacteria. They must not have much of anything left to eat

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sweetcell said:

indeed. they must be starving in there. i wouldn't expect much sourness from a 3711-primary'ed beer. but maybe that's intent here?

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I'm co-pitching everything, and in the last couple of batches, the lacto has gotten a good head start. Because the yeast dries out the beer so thoroughly, any sour presence comes through quite clearly. One recent beer came out almost overly sour and extraordinarily dry.

I'm trying a Saison with 10 lbs of Vienna to get some body. It also has .5 lbs carapils and 1 lb honey. Just pitched the BS 10 min ago. Think it'll work?

MannyEdwards said:

I'm trying a Saison with 10 lbs of Vienna to get some body. It also has .5 lbs carapils and 1 lb honey. Just pitched the BS 10 min ago. Think it'll work?

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My very first Belle Saison was a Vienna SMaSH. Came out tasting a bit like an estery APA. About the same color too.

tennesseean_87 said:

I've done a session saison a few times with 3711 that I like:

OG: 1.035
FG: usually 1.004

32% Vienna
32% Wheat malt
20% pils
10% Munich, Toasted, Amber, something with malt character
4% special B
2% acidmalt (for mash pH)

19 IBU with even additions of cascade or similar at 90, 15, 5 minutes. I've also split the late additions with some willamette or saaz. A bit of lime zest will not go amiss either.

I know the grain bill looks nothing like a crisp, dry beer, but 3711 and BS are so beastly that I do everything I can to retain some body and malt backbone while cutting the OG down so low. 4% SPec B may seem like a lot, but that's because the OG is so low. If you scaled up to a normal OG, the addition of base malt would bring it to 2 or 3%. Even mashing this at 160, It still dries out and isn't heavy on the palate, and it keeps the ABV low so it's not too dangerous of a brew.

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Sounds great. Will go with something along those lines. Can`t seem to find Special B in Korea but I do have some leftover Caramunich and I can order 120 lovibond crystal malt...

Special B is a super dark crystal malt often used in dubbels and quads and gives that dark fruity, plumy, raisiny flavor. There's so little here that it gives just a hint of that flavor and comes out a nice amber color. I imagine a C120 sub would be really similar.

MannyEdwards said:

I'm trying a Saison with 10 lbs of Vienna to get some body. It also has .5 lbs carapils and 1 lb honey. Just pitched the BS 10 min ago. Think it'll work?

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IME the mash temperature and yeast selection seem to be more conducive to the body of the beer. Vienna is all about malt character it seems to me. Ive found that using a decent amount of flaked wheat, oats, ro rye helps in saisons to work against the high attenuation levels. WY3711 also is a very good choice for a fuller bodied saison since it seems to leave contradictory silky body despite the low FGs. Belle saison hopefully would do something a bit similar

m00ps said:

IME the mash temperature and yeast selection seem to be more conducive to the body of the beer. Vienna is all about malt character it seems to me. Ive found that using a decent amount of flaked wheat, oats, ro rye helps in saisons to work against the high attenuation levels. WY3711 also is a very good choice for a fuller bodied saison since it seems to leave contradictory silky body despite the low FGs. Belle saison hopefully would do something a bit similar

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+1

I have only used it one time but I definitely noticed it with my saison. 8 oz of oats, 16oz of red wheat, and a single decoction, BS took it from 1.062 down to 1.004 and a really highly force carbonated sample, still had an enjoyable amount of body. The bottle conditioned bottles will probably be different but I cant imagine it losing a ton of body.

tennesseean_87 said:

Special B is a super dark crystal malt often used in dubbels and quads and gives that dark fruity, plumy, raisiny flavor. There's so little here that it gives just a hint of that flavor and comes out a nice amber color. I imagine a C120 sub would be really similar.

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Yup, think I'll go with that. Many thanks. That's penciled in for my next brew after my black saison I pitched yesterday.

On the Vienna front, I decided I'd rather not wake up an extra half hour early to get my brew day done before the kids woke up and didn't use any pilsner and instead went with 50/50 2-row and Vienna for my base malt along with a full pound of Black Prinz for a 5 gallon batch.

And damn, that's got to be the tastiest 24 hour fermenter sample I've ever tasted. Nice rich roast going beautifully with the Vienna without getting in the way of the Saison yeast flavors at all.

We'll see how it shapes up. Maybe oats/wheat/something next time. A nice creamy dark saison would be nice.

I love this yeast!

Seriously, this yeast is boss. 10 days in bottles, it definitely needs more time but it's already carbonated, I can see this beer being really awesome. I pitched warm, I think I pitched at 85F and managed to keep it in the low 80s. Short dry hop with French Strisselspalt.

It has the SWMBO seal of approval which is really hard for a 7.5% abv beer (she's very sensitive to fusels). There's a peppery zip right at the start with lemon and ginger. I will say I detect some green/grassy notes from the dry hop but I know that will drop out with some time. I can't wait to see how this conditions in 2-3 months.

I give all credit to the yeast.

ArkotRamathorn said:

I love this yeast!

Seriously, this yeast is boss. 10 days in bottles, it definitely needs more time but it's already carbonated, I can see this beer being really awesome. I pitched warm, I think I pitched at 85F and managed to keep it in the low 80s. Short dry hop with French Strisselspalt.

It has the SWMBO seal of approval which is really hard for a 7.5% abv beer (she's very sensitive to fusels). There's a peppery zip right at the start with lemon and ginger. I will say I detect some green/grassy notes from the dry hop but I know that will drop out with some time. I can't wait to see how this conditions in 2-3 months.

I give all credit to the yeast.

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Yeah, awesome yeast if you hate fusels. I pitched this yeast once at 95 degrees (was in a hurry to get to work and brew day went long) and not even a hint of them.

Brewed my second saison today using Belle Saison yeast:

3 gal batch, 15 minute boil

3lb extra-light DME
1lb wheat DME

1.5oz Saaz @15
1.5oz Saaz @5
1oz Saaz whirlpool

pitched yeast at 80F at 11:30am, came home to find my airlock full of wort and krausen at 7:30 pm! This is one feisty yeast!

I used this yeast in a saison with Nelson hops throughout, finished with hibiscus. I get a nice pepper note coming through the tropical/wine notes of the nelson and the tart sweetness of the hibiscus. It was pretty boring on its own so I hit it with some Brett C.

Pitched this is a 1.090 Belgian Dark Strong, did a 50/50 split with 3068, I know neither is truly Belgian but I had 3068 on hand and at high temps seems to act like a Belgian yeast. Never if it doesn't come out to a true to style BDSA it will be tasty and dry (much unlike previous horrible sweet rocket fuel I've tried to make in the past).

I just ordered everything to make my annual rye saison we call, Ryse On! I usually use 3711, but this year I'm trying Belle Saison. I hope it works, since this my wife's favorite beer I make.

6lbs FrancoBelges Pilsen
2lbs dingemans Munich
2lbs flaked rye
1lbs Local Honey
.5oz magnum @60
1oz Styrian Goldings @15
1oz Amarillo @FO

drives_a_bike said:

I just ordered everything to make my annual rye saison we call, Ryse On! I usually use 3711, but this year I'm trying Belle Saison. I hope it works, since this my wife's favorite beer I make.

6lbs FrancoBelges Pilsen
2lbs dingemans Munich
2lbs flaked rye
1lbs Local Honey
.5oz magnum @60
1oz Styrian Goldings @15
1oz Amarillo @FO

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Sounds great, at what stage do you usually add the honey?

Flame out

Just got an honorable mention in a competition on a saison using belle saison and then soured with Brett and bugs. Definitely is a solid yeast

The past Friday I brewed 6 gallons and spilt it into to fermenters. Using the more classic grain bill of 95% Pilsner and 5% Munich. My OG was 1.062. I diluted one fermenter down to 1.052 and put a liter of white grape juice concentrate in the other after fermentation got going. Held ambient temp in mid 60s for 2 days before letting it go to 75 degrees. The low strength version has little airlock activity while the fortified one is still going. I'm thinking of hitting the grape concentrate one with white oak and bottle aging until Thanksgiving.

Has it been revealed where this yeast originated from?

This past weekend at a sort of informal 'people's choice' beer competition a master judge happened to be in attendance and tried my honey saison. Said the spicy-estery yeast character reminded him a lot of a Duvel, unfortunately with 8oz of honey malt and 16oz of honey added at flame out he could not detect the honey character.

Though still, this yeast, fermented high, will give a definite spicy yeast character. It's definitely not a subdued saison yeast.

The Duvel comment has been causing my brain to itch.
Has anybody brewed with that strain? Does id it the crap out of next to all of the gravity points,like Belle?
Said; I do not care where it comes from. I love it.
But that bugger of a comment has me wanting to know,for the sake of knowing.

ArkotRamathorn said:

Has it been revealed where this yeast originated from?

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common thinking is that it's the same strain as 3711 French Saison (origin: Brasserie Thiriez). same (kinda boring) ester profile, it attenuates just like it...

badlee said:

The Duvel comment has been causing my brain to itch.
Has anybody brewed with that strain? Does id it the crap out of next to all of the gravity points,like Belle?

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the Duvel strain is a good attenuator, but it's not a crazy one like BS. Duvel beer is very dry because of the high amount of sugar used. i get a pear ester from the Duvel strain that i definitely don't get from BS/3711.

sweetcell said:

common thinking is that it's the same strain as 3711 French Saison (origin: Brasserie Thiriez). same (kinda boring) ester profile, it attenuates just like it...



the Duvel strain is a good attenuator, but it's not a crazy one like BS. Duvel beer is very dry because of the high amount of sugar used. i get a pear ester from the Duvel strain that i definitely don't get from BS/3711.

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Yeah Duvel and BS/3711 are very different. Duvel is definitely apple/pear focused and BS/3711 is very rooted in "saison" esters with 3711 being more lemony and bright, BS having mroe of a balance between citrus and spice

I definitely didn't intend to imply BS was the Duvel strain. I was curious if we knew it was 3711/French origin or closer to a Belgian origin.

The high ferment temps and slight underpitch and warm pitch temp probably played a big role in creating a more 'Belgian' ester profile. I have this saison entered into the Badger Brewoff with the judging being this weekend so I'll report back how a BS saison with high ferment temps does in BJCP competition (the Duvel comment came during a somewhat informal competition that happened to have a master judge in attendance).

I just took a gravity reading from my Rye Saison...1.002!! Ends up being 6.6% and 30ibu. The sample is delicious!! I'll let it sit a couple more weeks and keg it up.

I was curious what was written on homebrewtalk about Belle Saison yeast and I saw this thread lasted for three years and had 64 pages of posts. Whoever started this discussion must be some kind of brewing master. A veritable genius. Probably really handsome too. A legend?

Legend in his own mind is more like it. Ahem. Getting back to earth, I thought I should get over my embarassment and say that I finally got around to using it. Long story short -- I like it.

Long story long, I cobbled together the following recipe:

5 Gallon yield, Brew in a Bag

5 lbs pilsner malt
1 lb white wheat malt
1 lb Vienna malt
8 oz oatmeal
8 oz buckwheat (kasha)
12 oz rye berries (I meant to use 8 oz but got a bit to much from the bulk bin)

Cooked up the oats, buckwheat and rye until soft, added a bit more cool water until the temp was 153F and mashed with the rest of the malt at 153F for an hour. How much water total in the mash? I lost track, sorry.

Pulled and squeezed the bag then boiled for 90 minutes with 1 oz Saaz at 90 minutes and 1 oz at 10 minutes.

Cooled to 70F, rehydrated the yeast per instructions, and did a half-serious job of sloshing to aerate before tossing in the yeast. Stuck the fermenter in a styrofoam cooler to keep the temp up. OG was 50.

I looked at 12 hours and the airlock was bubbling. I worried a bit that I should have used a blowoff tube but it wasn't necessary. Temp rose to 78F, then bubbling stopped after 4 days, gravity continued to drop a bit until it hit 06 after a week, and let it sit for another week and then bottled with 4 oz white sugar.

Early tastings say it's quite nice. I'm terrible at describing beer, so I'll use vague terms here. The yeast has a nice noticable Belgiany presence, but isn't slamming you with massive spice and phenols and all that.

I share what other people have said about it as far as making a dry beer -- there's no significant sweetness or maltiness -- but it hasn't left the beer unidimensional -- you can still taste a cereal grain contribution from the oats, buckwheat and rye. Nice head, very refreshing, cloudy straw yellow color. I look forward to drinking this when the weather turns hot.