Saison primary fermentation

I was thumbing through an older issue of Zymurgy that was talking about placing a sanitized piece of foil over the carboy for primary fermentation when making a saison as the yeast strain doesn't like high pressure.

Has anyone every done this? Or reversely, has anyone used a standard airlock when making a saison and with what result? If it will come out OK with an airlock I would prefer this method as I don't necessarily trust a piece of foil to stay on my carboy for 2 weeks.

I've only ever used an airlock with the saison strains. Turned out fine. Rouse and degas everyday until you hit your target FG. 3724 likes to get stuck. 3711 however likes low temps and ferments out fine without any special care.

I use a piece of foil on every brew. That is until the krausen starts to drop. Then I replace it with an airlock. I also keep it out of the way of people/pets, so as not to disturb it either, especially when it only has a piece of foil on top. Never had any problems doing it this way, so if you choose this path, I am sure you'll be fine.

I can't imagine it takes very much pressure to push a bubble out of the airlock.

pabloj13 said:

I can't imagine it takes very much pressure to push a bubble out of the airlock.

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You might be surprised. If you've tried to make a still wine, an airlock is a very bad thing. The pressure on the airlock is equal to the pressure on the wine/beer/whatever. Some of the CO2 will inevitably be reabsorbed into the liquid.

Whether or not that's enough to hurt beer is a different issue, but I would argue any amount of CO2 in solution will negatively impact fermentation, so anything that decreases CO2 in solution is good.

Nateo said:

You might be surprised. If you've tried to make a still wine, an airlock is a very bad thing. The pressure on the airlock is equal to the pressure on the wine/beer/whatever. Some of the CO2 will inevitably be reabsorbed into the liquid.

Whether or not that's enough to hurt beer is a different issue, but I would argue any amount of CO2 in solution will negatively impact fermentation, so anything that decreases CO2 in solution is good.

Click to expand...

Interesting.