"Interesting" saison yeast behavior... any thoughts?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

bloodorange

Member
Joined
Jul 4, 2007
Messages
13
Reaction score
0
Hello, fellow brewers,

Mr. Bloodorange and I brewed a Saison on Labor Day (three weeks ago). We used a Wyeast 3724 Activator pack plus a tiny little starter from a Dupont bottle. (We were drinking it and feeling ceremonial!) This was all a little seat-of-the-pants, so our Dupont yeast didn't really get "started" like it should have had we planned better. We sterilized the bottle opening, mixed it with a little boiled wort and let it sit in a sanitized bottle with airlock overnight--didn't have time to visibly do much of anything. But anyway...

Fermentation started like gangbusters, and our outside temperatures stayed quite high (upper 80s) for the first week+. Have I mentioned our apartment is barely insulated? The wort has been fermenting quite happily, even though the outside temperatures have dropped into the 60s and low 70s over the past week or so.

This morning we get back from a weekend out of town and the airlock is bubbling once every 5 seconds! Before the weekend, it had been holding steady around 20-22 seconds since the initial activity. I know that this yeast is supposed to slow down and eventually finish, but I didn't expect the activity to pick up so much. Seems especially odd given the moderate drop in ambient temperature.

Obviously I'm happy to let it finish whatever it's doing, but I'm worried that something undesirably funky is going on. Has anyone else experienced multiple yeast strains causing revived fermentation using Wyeast 3724 or a Dupont culture? (Aren't they supposed to be the same yeast anyway?) Does this sound like wild yeast flying around the apartment (we haven't brewed here or baked bread in a while, so seems unlikely), or bacterial activity? Our tubing has been recently replaced and we like to think we are sanitary.

Whew, OK, this is long. Wanted to give as many details as I could. Any thoughts? Should I just be pleased that it wants to finish out?

thanks for reading :)
 
Saison yeasts are crazy. I used WLP566 the first time and fermentation was done in 2 days. Pitched the cake into a winter saison and fermentation is still going 2 weeks later.

It could also just be CO2 offgassing, but like I said: Saison yeast = crazy stuff.
 
Thank you all for the feedback. Seems like the yeast really is as weird as everyone says--I'll keep you posted...
 
Just wanted to cap off this thread by saying that we let the yeast finish out (and after that revived fermentation, it really cleared up), just tasted a bottle last night and it's a DEAD RINGER for Dupont. So have faith--and patience!
 
Didn't want to start a new post, so I will add to this one. I have a rye saison that I will soon move to secondary. The yeast is a culture from a Saison Dupont bottle. Going as expected so far, started big and taking a while to finish. I have heard that SDp yeast is possibly a mix of multiple different strains, so who knows how off this was by bottle culture. Anyway, my question is this; has anyone had experience harvesting yeast from primary for future batches using SDp yeast bottle cultures? My worry is that if it is indeed multiple yeast strains, that some probably eventually dominate and may get a surprise next round.
 
Back
Top