Saison with Wyeast 3724 - 94 degrees ideal?

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TristanL

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Good Evening,

I'm making a Saison (aka Tres Bon Saison) with Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison™. The package says the temp range is up to 70 - 95. The temp is 94, double checked with two thermometers. It's in the range, but is it ideal? If not, what temp should I shoot for?

A little more information for those who wish to read my verbose ramblings!:

Brewing went great on Saturday.

Grain bill:

12.75 lbs Pilsner
.75 lbs of Munich
.5 lb Melanoiden

14 lbs

Hop Schedule:
.8 oz Pearl at 60 minutes,
1 oz Saaz at 15 minutes
1 oz of Tettnang

Mash in with 20 qt of water at 156. Mashed started higher than I waned around 152. I added a gallon of cold water and got the temp down to around 145. I took a temp at the end of the mash and it was 140 degrees. I'm thinking this should produce a very attenuable wort!

FG was 1.063 (1 point over my target of 1.062 with estimated efficiency of 70%).

Chilled wort down to 78 degrees. Pitched a starter (1 pint + smack pack, which was roughly 73 degrees) at 6:30PM. There were signs of activity several hours later (bulbing and quite a bit of krausen).

On Sunday, I placed the carboy in a water bath. Prior to this, the thermometer (sticker type adhered to the carboy) was reading 77/78 degrees.

I added 5 gallons of 95 degree water inside my 15 gallon aluminum pot I use as a hot liquor tank in my all grain brewing set up. I have a 200 watt aquarium heater inside. The thermostat is set to 85 on the heater.

Last night, this morning and tonight the temps have been really steady around 94 degrees and I am seeing roughly 15 bubbles per minute. The krausen has started to recede.

I'm only a few days in. I am ready to wait as long as I need to to get this beer down to 1.006 ideally. I plan to wait a total of three weeks and then check my gravity.

I've done a lot of searching on google and here on HBT for information on various yeast strains and strategies. Just want to give this beer ideal conditions!
 
you're certainly going to get the maximum flavor production from this yeast... which probably won't be a bad thing. i think since the krausen is starting to recede, what has been done at 94 is done. lowering the temp now will not keep it from producing the flavors it already has.
 
Just an update. Got some cool weather last night and the temp of the water bath was around 85 degrees this AM. I turned the aquarium heater up slightly to compensate.

I've heard this yeast is somewhat sensitive to temp fluctuations. Hopefully this yeast still performs as intended.
 
RDWHAHB - yeast is pretty tough. Just make sure to let the yeast do a good job of cleaning up and you'll have beer.
 
While yeast is pretty tough, Saison yeast can be finicky little SOBs. Keep that temp up and give it plenty of time to finish. In the future, I would try to avoid 10* swings overnight.
 
I used this yeast and fermented at 74degrees. it took 3 weeks to reach final gravity, and on days 14 and 15, I swirled the carboy to get the yeasties back in the game.
 
Based on the two batches I did with this yeast, I'd say 94 is pushing it. I think you will get some fusels, hopefully not too many.

Let us know how it goes.
 
Looks like things are sitting pretty at 89 degrees right now. I swirled the wort around a bit yesterday. The fermentation still appears to be "going."

I'm almost tempted to take a gravity reading on Sunday. :D No matter what, I'll be keeping this in the primary for a minimum of three weeks.
 
I'm almost tempted to take a gravity reading on Sunday. :D No matter what, I'll be keeping this in the primary for a minimum of three weeks.

Why? Would you like to disapoint yourself?

It ain't done, it ain't close. Forget about it for a month+.

Think about the next brew, OK.:D
 
Why? Would you like to disapoint yourself?

It ain't done, it ain't close. Forget about it for a month+.

Think about the next brew, OK.:D

What a sneaker! Get back to the wedding festivities! :)

Update:

This afternoon the temp was at 95. I decided to move the carboy/water bath down to the basement where the temps are more stable (67-68 degrees). This is what I should have done in the first place, but oh well, live and learn.

As of right now the temp is 90 degrees. I'll check in on it tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure now that it's in the basement I won't have to babysit it any longer.

The plan is to follow James' good advice above and "forget about it for a month +."

On an off note, brewed with my FIL again today. He did a American Pale Ale extract batch. Everything went well! :mug:
 
Update: As of July 4th gravity was half way there in the 1.030s. It's now at 1.025 (1.020 at 88 degrees) after one month. Tasted a sample (warm) and it's nice and fruity! Obviously still very sweet.

Going to check it out in another month and see where it's at!
 
I would rock the fermenter and get some yeast back in suspension.

Great Advice! I rocked the fermenter quite a bit on Thursday when I brewed the Jamil's Red Rocket clone. I needed the aluminum pot for heating water.

Do you think I should shake it while the airlock is out so I get some additional O2 in there?
 
Great Advice! I rocked the fermenter quite a bit on Thursday when I brewed the Jamil's Red Rocket clone. I needed the aluminum pot for heating water.

Do you think I should shake it while the airlock is out so I get some additional O2 in there?

NO!!! You don't really want to get more O2 in it at this point..in the first 24 hours yes...after that not a good idea unless you want wet cardboard instead of saison.

And don't "rock," just swirl it gently .

I posted a couple minutes ago who I brought my stuck at 1.019 saison down to 1,009 here;

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/1453532-post2.html
 
pitch in a packet of your favourite dry yeast (ale yeast)to finish the job - it will not much affect the fruity saison flavour.

You think Safale US-05 would do the trick? It's a fairly good attenuator.

EDIT: I think I'm going to wait as intended and take another reading in a few weeks. I'd rather just let this beer develop and let the original yeast do it's job unless it's not moving for an extended period of time. If that's the case; I may look into pitching more yeast.
 
On 8/8 I gave the carboy a good swirl. Wow, it really kicked off again. Airlock activity every 7-8 seconds. I'm hoping this batch will be down to 1.008 or 1.006 by the time it hits 8 weeks in the carboy!
 
Yesterday was the 8 week mark. Checked the gravity and it was at 1.009. Wow, delicious beer. Fruity, complex, great dry finish. Going to give this another week and see where I'm at. I shook this a bunch and it's bubbling every 20 seconds. I hope it will get down to 1.006. Either way I plan on kegging it on Saturday or Sunday.

Just as an aside, Saturday I brewed a French Saison (La Flacid Frog Saison). The recipe was created by my main man James (Rooting). I'm using the Wyeast French Saison. My airlock is rapidly bubbling at this time (68 degrees). I've heard great things about this yeast.

This version is meant to be a traditional saison, small beer, at around 3.5% ABV. I ended up 8 points over on my gravity. Looks like it won't be a small beer afterall. :)
 
Wow, just kegged this Saison today. Final Gravity is 1.008. I wanted to get down to 1.006, but I don't think this yeast wants to go any farther after 9 weeks.

This beer tastes amazing. Hints of pinnaple and other fruit I can't pinpoint. It's malty, it's got a great body. After cold conditioning I'm thinking it will be even better.

On a side not, I transfered the French Saison to the secondary today and dry hopped. It's at 1.004! It's spicy, nice and dry, but still young. Should be a great beer!
 
8 weeks? Wow. I have read all the horror stories about slow 3724 but my old experience with the yeast has been awesome. Brewed up a 90% pilsner /10 % munich with a 150f mash. 1.5 liter starter into a 1.052 wort. The yeast brought it down to 1.002 in 5 days @ 77f ramped up to 86f. Delish!
 
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