couldnt find the Blaugies strain from Wyeast cause its seasonal. Does White Labs have one? Heard HF uses it as a primary strain for their saisons
Imperial Organic Yeast - Rustic
Morebeer carries it.
couldnt find the Blaugies strain from Wyeast cause its seasonal. Does White Labs have one? Heard HF uses it as a primary strain for their saisons
Apart from some collaborations, I havent been fortunate enough to try any Hill Farmstead beers.
From the Yeast Bay, I only personally have experience using Wallonian Farmhouse and their Amalgamation Brett Blend. Both are very good, but the Amalgamation doesnt really apply to this thread (although I have used it in a brett saison that is the best one ive tried so far). I have heard only good things about their saison blends 1 and 2 though. I think it was speculated a bit a few pages back on which strains they contain
I didn't know they use a wild yeast for their saisons. Are you sure that isn't just for brett/sours? I haven;t done any research so I have no idea.
I would think that if you are looking for a yeast character very similar to HF, your best bet would be to culture up their dregs from a fresh bottle. That, or maybe try contacting them and inquiring what yeast they would recommend using for a profile similar to their saisons.
Imperial Organic Yeast - Rustic
Morebeer carries it.
I have a brew fermenting now that's a Belle Saison/ Amalgamation blend with Nelson and Hallertau Blanc hops. More of an American Wild than a standard saison, but I have high hopes for it. I tested it yesterday and it was super fruity. I wanted to sub 3711 for the Belle, but I couldn't get it in time for the brew day.
I added 1/2 oz each of medium toast french and american oak cubes and I'm considering adding some lactic acid and white wine before I keg it. New frontiers with this one!
Amalgamation has produced very good results for me in both mixed fermentation saisons, spurs, and all Brett beers. I'm sure yours will turn out well. You pitch them together?
Amalgamation gave me straight up horse piss when mixed fermented with WL565. But... That was fermented hot so I'm thinking that had something to do with it. On the docket to try it again in secondary or at a lower temp.
Hail, m00ps! Just spent two evenings reading this thread, many thanks to all the participants for enough ideas to keep me up half the night last night thinking.
Wanted to ask for some input on something, if anybody has any to offer. I've been brewing a saison for a few iterations now using 3711 and mosaic + strisselpalt + wai'iti hops, rather happy with it. (though after this thread I won't be satisfied until I've tried it with Hothead) Also brewed a few dunkels over the past 18 months or so, ~1:1 pils and wheat, plus 5% chocolate and 3% midnight wheats.
SO last year as a winter brew I did a Dunkelsaison - brought the malts and tettnang from the dunkel, added strisselspalt and some cracked malabar black pepper and cracked grains of paradise. (and kicked it at flameout with 4oz D180 for a 3gal batch) Pretty tasty, dry as hell, peppery without overt pepper character. Tasted really good last week. (I've got 8 750s left now, tucked away for the next two winters)
Now, this year I want to do something derivative of that, but I wanted some fruit that is largely absent from previous. After reading through this thread, I'm thinking of adding in my favorite wai'iti hops at finishing and double-yeasting with 3711 and WLP500, WLP530, or WLP545. What I'm currently imagining could probably be called a dark imperial saison, or a farmhouse quad, maybe 8.5-9.5 abv.
Any thoughts? I'm switching to a BIAB formulation, (dunkelsaison was based on my older extract dunkel) and I'm also toying with the ideas of ditching the spices and adding 15-20% rye. Just not sure where to go.
I've got a small collection (14 strains including the 4 above and three bretts) of yeasts archived and reasonable WhiteLabs selection available at LHBS. No problem with ordering online, but as I plan to brew this in August I don't know that it'll be cool enough (North Carolina) for me to be willing to get yeast shipped in before I brew.
j
couldnt find the Blaugies strain from Wyeast cause its seasonal. Does White Labs have one? Heard HF uses it as a primary strain for their saisons
I haven't read through the whole thread, but have you had any experience using 2nd (or later) generation 3724/3711 slurry? I harvested slurry from my last batch, for which I originally pitched 3724, then 3711 once it stalled. This weekend I brewed an all-pilsner malt saison with styrian goldings and hallertau hops. I'm wondering what I should expect in terms of yeast character from the 2nd gen harvested stuff. I did a vitality starter with a pretty generous amount of slurry.
Also, is it safe to assume that if I keep harvesting and repitching slurry it will trend towards a 3711 flavor over time, given its attenuative properties?
Just got back from vacation and took a sample from the fermenter--this is a seriously good beer! Definitely more of a 3724 fruity flavor, but with some of the lemony, peppery notes I'd associate with the 3711. I'm glad I kept the malt bill simple and let the yeast do the talking.
I'm going to bottle this week, but I'll siphon off a gallon or so to a smaller fermenter and pitch some brett dregs (I have bottles of Seizoen Bretta and/or Prairie Ale I could crack open and use) or fruit, just for fun. Any suggestions?
Good question, I just found a few mentions of it online and thought that it had been determined. Could be Allagash though. Guess I'm going to have to buy some beers from Allagash and Ommegang and compare
Glad the thread was able to help you out man
If you are wanting to make a fruity dark saison, I'd try a combo of WLP500 and WY3711. WLP500 has always given my great dark fruit, plum, raisin flavors. My only issue with it was that its attenuation wasnt quite high enough. I had a couple dubbels in BSDAs come out too sweet in the finish for me so I found myself design super dry grain bills for those types of beers. WY3711 will definitely solve that issue and, IME, works great in darker variations of saisons to make it distinctly saison. You may want to skip the spices though to prevent too much going on, but thats just me
What's the IBU on your beer? I ask because I'm about to do a saison and wanted to pull a gallon off to pitch dregs into but I'm concerned about IBUs. My recipe as of right now has about 13-15 IBUs. Any problem with the lacto in the dregs?Just got back from vacation and took a sample from the fermenter--this is a seriously good beer! Definitely more of a 3724 fruity flavor, but with some of the lemony, peppery notes I'd associate with the 3711. I'm glad I kept the malt bill simple and let the yeast do the talking.
I'm going to bottle this week, but I'll siphon off a gallon or so to a smaller fermenter and pitch some brett dregs (I have bottles of Seizoen Bretta and/or Prairie Ale I could crack open and use) or fruit, just for fun. Any suggestions?
I have a good beer store near me. Do you recommend any commercial saisons as a way to educate myself on what a Saison "should" taste like. I realize that is a silly way to phrase it. I just want to have an idea of kind of what it generally will taste like. I haven't had many Saisons in my life, maybe just Dupont I think and the handful that I have tried to brew.
What's the IBU on your beer? I ask because I'm about to do a saison and wanted to pull a gallon off to pitch dregs into but I'm concerned about IBUs. My recipe as of right now has about 13-15 IBUs. Any problem with the lacto in the dregs?
Granted, I could pull a gallon straight from the boil before adding any hops. But I wanted to let it ferment out with sacc some before I pull off and pitch dregs. Thoughts?
What's the IBU on your beer? I ask because I'm about to do a saison and wanted to pull a gallon off to pitch dregs into but I'm concerned about IBUs. My recipe as of right now has about 13-15 IBUs. Any problem with the lacto in the dregs?
Granted, I could pull a gallon straight from the boil before adding any hops. But I wanted to let it ferment out with sacc some before I pull off and pitch dregs. Thoughts?
What's the IBU on your beer? I ask because I'm about to do a saison and wanted to pull a gallon off to pitch dregs into but I'm concerned about IBUs. My recipe as of right now has about 13-15 IBUs. Any problem with the lacto in the dregs?
Granted, I could pull a gallon straight from the boil before adding any hops. But I wanted to let it ferment out with sacc some before I pull off and pitch dregs. Thoughts?
Thanks m00ps. Speaking of stepping up...I've read about people stepping up dregs. Am I correct in thinking of it as simply continuing to grow starters and add them to more wort until you have a big enough starter built up? Logistically speaking, does this simply mean, pitch dregs to wort, let it ferment out some, then dump that concoction into more fresh wort to double/triple/whatever the amount, and continuing this process until you have the amount you want?Lacto might be a bit inhibited by 15ibus, but brett is perfectly fine at any level. Commercial dregs are generally much more aggressive and hardy than a pure commercial bacteria strain though. I wold go for it. I gave zero thought to the ibu levels for the first couple sours I did, but I used all stepped-up dregs
Thanks m00ps. Speaking of stepping up...I've read about people stepping up dregs. Am I correct in thinking of it as simply continuing to grow starters and add them to more wort until you have a big enough starter built up? Logistically speaking, does this simply mean, pitch dregs to wort, let it ferment out some, then dump that concoction into more fresh wort to double/triple/whatever the amount, and continuing this process until you have the amount you want?
Thanks again. Your "usual rule of 1g/ml" does that mean for normal starters you use 1 gram DME per 1 ml of water?? I just looked back at my notes from the last time I did a starter for a clean yeast and I used 1 cup DME and 4 cups water (gave me gravity of about 1.020 - 1.025...too high for dregs?). Then I looked at notes I made a while back for making a starter with dregs and those notes say 12g DME and 200ml water. You know your stuff backwards and forwards and have helped out more of my beers than you probably even realize so I'd like to mirror your process as best as possible.Usually, you want a pretty low gravity wort to help the yeast get started. I will cut my usual rule of 1g/ml down in half.
If I doing an individual bottle, and not combining several different beers at once, I like to do the first step in the bottle itself. I'll sanitize the lip inside and out, carefully pour out the beer, and add 100-200ml and cover it with foil. Shake it periodically and you should see some signs of foaming from fermentation within a few days.
Its best if the bottle sat overnight in the fridge to get the most compact yeast cake as you can
I think it's 0.1g/ml, that would be about 1.035-1.040, with 20g DME in 200ml, so 12g in 200ml is a bit over half. (1g/ml would be over 1.350 OG! pretty viscous...)
j
Thanks again. Your "usual rule of 1g/ml" does that mean for normal starters you use 1 gram DME per 1 ml of water?? I just looked back at my notes from the last time I did a starter for a clean yeast and I used 1 cup DME and 4 cups water (gave me gravity of about 1.020 - 1.025...too high for dregs?). Then I looked at notes I made a while back for making a starter with dregs and those notes say 12g DME and 200ml water. You know your stuff backwards and forwards and have helped out more of my beers than you probably even realize so I'd like to mirror your process as best as possible.
Not an update on my blending experiments, but an interesting thing I noticed on these "young" saison yeast flavors.
A KY brewery released a canned saison a few months back. Naturally, I jumped on it as soon as I saw it at the store. They don't print their canning dates, but Im sure it was pretty fresh since the owner of the store is very on point about stuff like that and constantly gets new stuff from them before I even hear about it.
Anyway, I didn't really like it. It had way too much bubblegum/clove/banana for a saison. Same tastes I get sometimes when I try mine too early. So, a few months go by and I saw it on the shelves and decided to try it again. All of those flavors were gone and it tasted much better to me. Just to be sure, I asked the owner if he'd ordered any more and it was a new batch, but that wasnt the case.
So my takeaway was that these "young/green" saison flavors are very normal. Give it time fi you are worried
Y'all are making me want to bottle my first saison instead of keg it. I've never bottled an entire batch, only individual bottles with the Blichmann from the keg when I want some bottles. I was planning on kegging this saison and bottling roughly the whole thing. But now I'm considering bottling. If for no other reason than to say I've done it and know how to.
The priming sugar calcs are pretty spot on? I worry about bottle bombs. But I swear I'm convinced that 99% of bottles that others gave me that were bombs were a direct result of not fermenting long enough as opposed to incorrect priming sugar calcs. Agree? Disagree?
Excellent advice as always, m00ps. I wish we were neighbors.FWIW, I stopped kegging my saisons and other belgians entirely. I've tried +6mo ones old bottled naturally and bottled from keg (CO2 purged w/ beer gun) and the naturally carbed ones hold up much longer IME. Hell, I have a few that are 18 months old and still held up better than the ones I bottled from the keg. That being said, if you just want to drink it all on tap, go for it. I bottle them because I like to give stuff out and be able to transport easily
I haven't had issue with priming calcs. I had some batches overcarbed early on, but I attribute that to not dialing in my volume being bottled. The rule of thumb I use now is the wort level minus 0.5gal due to trub loss. But I always take a look at how much trub there is and try to guess from there at the final amount that makes it into my bottling bucket.
For saisons, I usually aim for 2.8 vol co2. You can go higher, but I've read rules of thumb that you dont want to exceed 3.0 in most 12oz longnecks/shortnecks. I figure at +3.0, any small defect in the bottle may cause issues
The one thing I dont entirely understand is the temperature calculation you input. I always just use 68-70F, as that is the room temp its sitting at when I bottle. But I read everywhere that you are supposed to use the HIGHEST temp it ever achieved during fermentation. For me, thats about 92F. But when I tried this, I got very overcarbed bottles. Plus, the other stuff i've fermented at room temps and primed to the same 2.8 turn out very similar to the 92F saisons. I dunno, maybe it has something to do with the 3-4 days they sit at room temp before bottling. Maybe this equalizes the already dissolved CO2 levels.
FWIW, I stopped kegging my saisons and other belgians entirely. I've tried +6mo ones old bottled naturally and bottled from keg (CO2 purged w/ beer gun) and the naturally carbed ones hold up much longer IME. Hell, I have a few that are 18 months old and still held up better than the ones I bottled from the keg. That being said, if you just want to drink it all on tap, go for it. I bottle them because I like to give stuff out and be able to transport easily.
Excellent advice as always, m00ps. I wish we were neighbors.
Point of note here: after primary, I plan on racking on top of raspberries for a bit before bottling/kegging. My questions:
1) Will fruiting this beer have any effect on bottling or do I need to take that into account when calculating my priming sugar?
2) How long should I leave it on fruit? I assume the addition of fruit may kick up some more fermentation (I'm using 3711). Just not sure how long I should leave it on fruit.
I have a good beer store near me. Do you recommend any commercial saisons as a way to educate myself on what a Saison "should" taste like. I realize that is a silly way to phrase it. I just want to have an idea of kind of what it generally will taste like. I haven't had many Saisons in my life, maybe just Dupont I think and the handful that I have tried to brew.
Good call. I'll have to think about it. I need to get a 6.5 gallon carboy anyway so maybe this will be the kick in the pants I need to go ahead and snag one.Except for the fruited sours, every fruit beer I've done I have racked onto the fruit and left it for 7-10 days before bottling. As long as you let the eyast ferment any fermentable sugars in the fruit, it wont affect priming
Word of caution though - Usually you want as little headspace as possible for a secondary. For adding fruit (depending on the sugar content of the fruit I guess), you want some decent headspace to account for the fruit itself and the additional fermentation. I had 1gal of headspace in my last blackberry sour and the blackberries foamed up and clogged the blowoff. Just keep an eye on it is what im mainly saying
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