swinginchandra
Active Member
Hi Everybody!
First of all, I've gotten such great use out of reading this site and all the advice on it! Would never have made it through the first few batches without all your help. However I have a problem I'd love some advice / thoughts on now!
So about 2 weeks ago we brewed a Saison using 565 & California Ale Yeast.
It was a Partial Mash - using the simple partial mash technique from this forum, the grain bill / mash schedule as follows:
3# light dry extract
1# vienna malt
1# victory malt
.5# flaked oats
1# honey
2# pale malt
2# pilsner malt
.25# wheat
Hops: don't remember offhand, centennial for bittering, EKG for flavor / aroma. Mostly EKG, target IBUS: 35
60 minute boil, added honey at flameout. Also, it's a basil Saison, so we added a buttload of basil at flameout, if that matters.
Expected OG 1.06 Target OG below 1.01
Mashed between 143 /145 for 90 minutes.
Made a 550 ML starter of the Yeasts
(we used 2 strains at the suggestion of LHBS, because of 565's propensity to crap out)
So fermentation:
Took off quickly, and decently enthusiastically, although no blow off or anything. It was fermenting at about 78 / 80 for the first 3 days - after which the temperature dropped to 74, and all appearance of activity ceased. We took a gravity reading, and it had dropped to 1.02! Yay. Left it for another week, knowing the temp was too low for the saison yeast, but thinking the Cali Ale Yeast would finish it out.
After 1.5 weeks, we took another gravity reading, and unfortunately it was exactly the same... 1.02, so we decided we had to heat the carboy back up, to get that saison yeast going. We roused the yeast, and used a hot water bath to bring the temperature up to over 80 degrees (from 72). The yeasties just took off! Tons of airlock activity, even after a few hours (so not just released Co2, or whatever, and I could see the yeast swirling around like crazy, coming to the top, it looked like the beginnings of a new krausen was even forming).
But here is the weird part - the next morning, all though the carboy was still well in the 80's, and the yeast was still suspended, there was no activity at all, and you could see the yeast starting to drop out again. Took a gravity that night to see how much their frenzy of activity had done, and BOO it was still at exactly 1.02!!!
Roused the yeast again, added more hot water to the bath, with no crazy results this time...
So I'm wondering, was there somehow actually no fermentation with all that perceived activity? I thought I had waited long enough that what I was seeing wasn't just the by product of moving around, and heating up and such.
I know that saison yeasts have a tendency to stop and start, so we're just going to try to be patient, and keep the temperature up, and take another reading next week.
Also, went ahead and brewed a small batch of Edworts Haus Pale Ale on sunday, so if worse comes to worst, we can just rack onto the cake from that next week.
Does this all sound OK? Any comments - specifically on the percieved activity with no actual fermentation... Or any other potential sources of issues you could see with this procedure?
First of all, I've gotten such great use out of reading this site and all the advice on it! Would never have made it through the first few batches without all your help. However I have a problem I'd love some advice / thoughts on now!
So about 2 weeks ago we brewed a Saison using 565 & California Ale Yeast.
It was a Partial Mash - using the simple partial mash technique from this forum, the grain bill / mash schedule as follows:
3# light dry extract
1# vienna malt
1# victory malt
.5# flaked oats
1# honey
2# pale malt
2# pilsner malt
.25# wheat
Hops: don't remember offhand, centennial for bittering, EKG for flavor / aroma. Mostly EKG, target IBUS: 35
60 minute boil, added honey at flameout. Also, it's a basil Saison, so we added a buttload of basil at flameout, if that matters.
Expected OG 1.06 Target OG below 1.01
Mashed between 143 /145 for 90 minutes.
Made a 550 ML starter of the Yeasts
(we used 2 strains at the suggestion of LHBS, because of 565's propensity to crap out)
So fermentation:
Took off quickly, and decently enthusiastically, although no blow off or anything. It was fermenting at about 78 / 80 for the first 3 days - after which the temperature dropped to 74, and all appearance of activity ceased. We took a gravity reading, and it had dropped to 1.02! Yay. Left it for another week, knowing the temp was too low for the saison yeast, but thinking the Cali Ale Yeast would finish it out.
After 1.5 weeks, we took another gravity reading, and unfortunately it was exactly the same... 1.02, so we decided we had to heat the carboy back up, to get that saison yeast going. We roused the yeast, and used a hot water bath to bring the temperature up to over 80 degrees (from 72). The yeasties just took off! Tons of airlock activity, even after a few hours (so not just released Co2, or whatever, and I could see the yeast swirling around like crazy, coming to the top, it looked like the beginnings of a new krausen was even forming).
But here is the weird part - the next morning, all though the carboy was still well in the 80's, and the yeast was still suspended, there was no activity at all, and you could see the yeast starting to drop out again. Took a gravity that night to see how much their frenzy of activity had done, and BOO it was still at exactly 1.02!!!
Roused the yeast again, added more hot water to the bath, with no crazy results this time...
So I'm wondering, was there somehow actually no fermentation with all that perceived activity? I thought I had waited long enough that what I was seeing wasn't just the by product of moving around, and heating up and such.
I know that saison yeasts have a tendency to stop and start, so we're just going to try to be patient, and keep the temperature up, and take another reading next week.
Also, went ahead and brewed a small batch of Edworts Haus Pale Ale on sunday, so if worse comes to worst, we can just rack onto the cake from that next week.
Does this all sound OK? Any comments - specifically on the percieved activity with no actual fermentation... Or any other potential sources of issues you could see with this procedure?