White Labs 565

I brewed my first Saison 8 days ago and it appears that fermentation is already complete... Impossible?

I brewed Jamil's Saison from BCS and the OG was 1.063. After 6 days in primary I tested the gravity and it was 1.006 with an ADF of around 90%. Before I brewed I heard stories that this yeast stops at 75% no matter what. Do you think my gravity reading is off?

I started fermentation in my chest freezer germ chamber at 68 F and let it rise naturally over the first few days to 73 F. From there I ramped it up a few degrees a day until now where it is at 81F.

I forgot to mention that I used White Labs 565.

Your gravity seems a little low, but without your recipe it is hard to say (i.e. sugars often lead to higher-than-expected attenuation). did you correct your hydrometer for temperature? Your apparent attenuation is 90%, your actual attenuation (estimated) is 73%.

Bryan

It is possible that you've already reached your FG.
That being said, I've racked beers early and haven't been happy with my initial beer. I'm always happiest with my beer when I've let it sit in primary for at least three weeks, sometimes four.

Bryan,
I did add 1lb of cane sugar to the boil for this recipe. I also roused the yeast a few times throughout fermentation by swirling the carboy if I noticed fermentation was beginning to slow.

I'm assuming that was a 5gal batch. If so, that's not a lot of sugar and I doubt that it would give you that low of an FG. was this all-grain or extract based? If all-grain, what was you mash schedule and grain bill? 8 days is a pretty normal fermentation schedule for a beer of this strength; I've had some of higher gravity hit final gravity in 4-5 days!

Regardless, my advice would be to monitor the gravity over the next couple of days - if the gravity hold steady for 3 days its done fermenting. But as JohnnyO said, its probably too early to transfer. Even though the sugars appear to be gone, the yeast can still clean-up a lot of the fermentation by-products, to give you a better tasting beer. For a beer of the strength of this one, I'd leave it in the primary for a total of 10-14 days before kegging or transferring to a secondary.

Bryan

Bryan,
Thanks for all the help with this. This was an all grain brew and here is the recipe I used:

10.5 LBS Pilsner
.75 LB White Wheat
.75 LB Munich

I mashed for 90 minutes at 147 and held at 165-166 for 15 minutes for the mashout. I'm never able to hit 170 on my mashouts... With all the advice I've seen, I'll leave it in primary at 80 for another week or so. Should a cold crash be performed before transferring to a keg?

I also forgot to add that I started with a 6.75 gallon boil but only ended up with about 3.75-4 gallons in my fermenter. It was my first brew using my new pump system and I didn't account for the wort loss. Also, I made two starters from my vial of 565 as the viability rate was shown at 25% on Mr. Malty's calculator. I made a 1 Liter starter about a week out and then another 1 Liter starter with that slurry. I then pitched the entire second starter into my carboy.

My WLP565 went from 1.060 to 1.007 in 10 days. This includes the sugar addition I made at 24-36 hours into ferment. The yeast had already chewed it to 1.010 by that time.

Yeast can't count . They ferment til they're done.

I'd say your OK - that long of a mash can easily make a very fermentable beer. I brew in metric, but if I recall your temps should give a more fermentable mash. I'd let it sit a bit,then keg/bottle/secondary.

As for cold-crashing, you can but it generally doesn't do much for wheat beers. They're supposed to be cloudy - and there aren't to many things in this universe (aside from filtration) that'll get them clear.

Bryan