Belle Saison and Brettanomyces

[Talgrath]

Hi all,

So summer has arrived in the Seattle area, driving the heat up to the 80's, with no AC if I'm going to brew beer it has to be one with a high tolerance for heat. I love saison beers, so I've been reading up on them as much as possible. Some people seem to swear by Brettanomyces in their saisons, others seem to think a straight saison yeast will do just fine. Additionally, having never fermented beer at temperatures this high (successfully, at least) I'm a bit wary of the idea fermenting with a yeast I haven't used before at a high temperate. I did some digging into technical documents and Belle Saison (http://www.danstaryeast.com/products/belle-saison-beer-yeast) seems like a good option, it likes higher temperatures (the document specifies 63F or above) and some people say they get good results with it.

So, all of that out of the way, I have a couple of questions. First, has anyone gotten good results with Belle Saison in the mid 80's to low 90's? Secondly, is Brettanomyces necessary to add to the mix for a good saison? About how much of a vial (i've only found them liquid) should you mix in with traditional yeasts for good results? Thanks in advance and cheers.

 

[Warthaug]

Brett is not required, and you generally need prolonged ageing to get their character to really shine through - I.e. summer will be over.

You do need to worry about temps with saisins - too much heat too early on can give you too many esters, making for an overly-fruity brew. Generally, you want to start In the 18-22c range (high 60's to low-70's), and then start ramping up to there higher end.

I messed this up with my last saison, and while the beer is ok, it's too fruity (even for a Saison).

Bryan

 

[Talgrath]

When you say start, do you mean the starting temp from chilling, or do you mean first few hours sort of thing? The only way I'm getting the room temperature down that low to start is if I finish at midnight or later.

 

[Limestone_Cowboy]

pretty sure he means first few hours of the pitched ferment (like 0-12) to keep the temp downward, and then let to go to where ever it goes, and that being in the 80's. So it might involve a water bath at first and then a place outside (or somethig akin) to finish. ymmv. I've been reusing saison yeast lately and I've had some decent success by keeping the pitch rate on the lower side. The point being, a slow start is a good start, because its a vigorous yeast once it gets going. You don't want to be in the position of trying to reel in the temp early on.

 

[Warthaug]

The first 24-36 hours. Ester precursors are produced in that time period, so that's when you need the control. The wet t-shirt method is probably good enough.

Bryan

 

[brewjack]

I've got a brett-saison type thing fermenting now. I intentionally pushed the temperature high to get the yeast to finnish up well. I started a thread about the temp concerns with pushing the brett that high. OldSock, aka themadfermentationist seemed to think that the high temp on the brett was risky; some strains dealt with it well while others threw off lots of rubber flavors.

I'd pushed mine into the mid-low 90's and at my last gravity reading, it was tasting pretty good (tho I always find it hard to judge until the beer is fully carbonated).

One thing I'd worry about more then the temp getting too high, is too much change in temperature from day to night. Saisons really need to finish dry to be any good IMHO and a drop in temp could stall a fermentation early. I'd consider putting your fermenter in a large bucket of water to insulate it.

 

[Talgrath]

Thanks folks, that clarifies things a bit, I already have a big 55 gallon tupperware that I keep the beer in to prevent messes, I'll just fill that up with cold water and then let things go and see how it goes. I think I'll forgo the Brett for now.

 

[Talgrath]

Well, my cold water turned warm pretty quick, the temperature jacked up into the mid 90's which got the water up into the 80's and the beer up higher than that during fermentation. I just bottled the beer today (no space to store bottles due to a large beer backlog...not exactly a terrible thing) though and it smells and looks like a saison; the only thing that bugs me is that I apparently got 95%(!?!) attenuation from the yeast, jacking my 6% or so saison up to about 8%...but I've read that this may not be 100% correct as other things might factor into a lower gravity. Either way I'll update this post when I taste the beer in a week or two.

 

[brewjack]

95% actually sounds good to me. I always have to brew saisons with much lower OG's because of that crazy attenuation they often have. BTW saison yeast strains often produce glycerine during fermentation so even tho the FG may be close to water the beer itself wont come across as watery.

The temperatures of your fermentation sound great to me.

 

[Talgrath]

So I just tasted the beer after about a week and a half in the bottle, it's pretty good (though it smells better than it tastes); there's a little too much alcohol flavor in it but overall I'm very satisfied for a first attempt. I've got another batch fermenting right now, so we'll see how that turns out. I'm thinking of making a high alcohol (like, 11% or so) version, but we'll hold off a bit on that decision.