woohoo! saison temp!

Okay because my brewhouse area (the landing of the basement stairs) has been pretty cool lately, it's getting wintery up here in MN, and I'd had a lot of diacetyl in a recent pale ale, I put a space heater on the landing. After the diacetyl went down in my pale, and I had moved the saison into the place, I left the heater on, keeping the brewhouse area around 80-84 the last couple days.

Saison has been steaming away. I thought I'd draw off a sample and it's gone from 1.055 to 1.012 in 44 hours. AND... it's a hundred and one (101!) degrees! AMG panic! :cross: lolz

I know everyone's always saying RDW about saison temperatures but most of those threads I've found have been reassuring around temps in the 80s. I know active fermentation can hike the internal temps but I hadn't anticipated 16 degrees hotter than ambient. MY question isn't "amg is my beer going to fail?" after all the sample tastes good and I'm confident I'll get those peppery notes and all the fun that comes with it. My question is: do I keep the pressure on, so to speak? Or should I back off on the space heater now? I mean, 101 seems SO warm I don't want to shock my poor little 3724s with the "normal" temps...yeah now "normal" of mid 80s is significantly cooler than what's happening inside this batch right now.

I'm using plastic for a primary this time, but I'm kinda kicking myself cuz I'm dying to know what it looks like in there.

Thoughts? keep it hot? cool it off?

Saw a thread the other day where someone let there saison get to 100+ and was NOT happy with the results. IMO, keep the yeast warm enough to keep them going. I assume at some point you will see diminishing returns with increased temperature. If the yeast are active at 80-85 why not leave them at that temp?

Ichthy said:

Saw a thread the other day where someone let there saison get to 100+ and was NOT happy with the results. IMO, keep the yeast warm enough to keep them going. I assume at some point you will see diminishing returns with increased temperature. If the yeast are active at 80-85 why not leave them at that temp?

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Well i thought they WERE at 80-85, because the room temp was 79-85. Like I say, I hadn't counted on the interior of the fermenter going 15-16 degrees above that.

Sorry if I sounded snarky. My suggestion was perhaps too implicit. I would recommend getting your fermenter back to the low 80's.