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bert_wall

bert_wall

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Thought this would be a good resource for anyone starting to work with new styles/yeast strains. I have only done Stouts and IPA's to date and lately the Saison has been creeping up on me. I can't get enough and so naturally my next batch had to be one.

Developed a recipe rooted in the "Brewing Classic Styles" Saison recipe. My local HBS helped tweak it into a partial mash and off I went.

Great brew day. Took OG @ 1.076. At this point, I should tell you that I pitched Wyeast #3724 Belgian Saison. Let it sit for almost 4 weeks in primary. Next reading @1.050. Hit the forums and realized that this can be a very finicky strain. I re-worked my temp control and let it sit another 2 weeks. Same thing @ 1.050. HBS recommended an additional pitch of Red Star (Dry Wine Yeast). After two additional weeks I finally reached a 1.025'ish reading. Patience wearing thin, I thought I might be good to bottle and did so.

That was my mistake.

Kept on hitting HBTalk and started thinking I bottled too soon. I have yet to experience a bottle bomb...and I didn't want to explain to the wife what it was. Went to open my bomber's and the hyperlinks are the result. Close call and thanks again to the HBT community for input...thinking these could have gone off at any moment.

In retrospect, I would have moved to a secondary and let it work itself out. You hear it a lot but patience is a key ingredient.

Any thoughts/recs? I know Wyeast #3724 has threads dedicated to it ha, but I think the next batch is going to be another try at this...hopefully with better results.

Cheers,
Bert.


http://youtu.be/f1-jeZufv1g

http://youtu.be/kMdAoGED2oY
 
Time will tell, open a bottle asap and check if the carbonation is right.

You can store them in the fridge afterwards to stop the yeast produicing more co2.

Put one bottle somewhere warm and where it wont do too much damage if after 2 weeks the carbonation is still normal, all you other bottles are safe..
 
doomy86 said:
Put one bottle somewhere warm and where it wont do too much damage if after 2 weeks the carbonation is still normal, all you other bottles are safe..
Click to expand...

I (luckily?) happened to be in the same room as my conditioning closet when my only bottle bomb went off. It didnt scare me, but I couldnt figure out what it was until I heard dripping sounds.

For a safe place I would recommend inside a bottling bucket (with a lid) or you could alternatively line a cardboard box with a trash can liner.

Pro-tip, the above is also a great way to keep beer cold in a hotel room without a fridge. Just line the inside of the box with a towel and you should be good to top off ice once a day!
 
I think you guys missed the videos. We can safely say the carbonation is NOT normal. Bert, be careful dude. Are those all uncapped now? If not I think you need some goggles and thick gloves.
 
Holy volcano, Batman!

I'd get gloves and eyewear and dispose of those before you have to mop beer and glass from the floor!! I've had some gushers but nothing to that extent.
 
I had not watched the videos, though I stand by my advice for a safe place :)

Those bottles in the vid are SERIOUSLY overcarbed and yea, I would go so far as to say dangerous.

Ive had a few batches that were MILDY over carbed and was able to lightly pry a corner of the cap and let some gas out every time I walked through the kitchen for a few hours, and it was still overcarbed that night when I drank what was left.

For you, if those arent cold, chill them, that should help to keep some of the CO2 in solution, however your best bet might be to pop one and quickly put it in a pitcher in the sink. Let it overflow and foam and check back on it in 30 min.
It's far from ideal, but it would at least let you drink some of your beer.
 
Ended up tossing all of them....:smack:

The remaining beer leftover after depressurizing was minimal at best. I did get a couple good swigs and all in all it had a sweeter taste than I hoped. Still had some good character from the #3724, though.

12 bombers, 24 (12 oz) bottles. I did wear some glasses and gloves when moving from fermentation closet to sink.
 
bert_wall said:
Any thoughts/recs? I know Wyeast #3724 has threads dedicated to it ha, but I think the next batch is going to be another try at this...hopefully with better results.

Cheers,
Bert
Click to expand...

Aw man, sorry about your gushers! It's never fun to watch beer (especially your own) go down the drain.

For the next time, you might try the recommendation from Drew Beechum of open fermentation. Basically, instead of an airlock, cover the opening in your fermentor with a piece of sanitized foil until fermentation is nearly complete. This apparently works like a charm (although I'm taking that on faith, as I haven't tried it myself, but I trust Drew's expertise). It is suspected that this yeast has a low tolerance for either CO2 or pressure, both of which obviously accumulate in spades in a closed fermentor.

Here's a link to Drew's guide to saisons, which includes a nice explanation of how to do this. https://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/guide-saisons-and-saison-yeasts#yeasts

He and Denny also covered this (pun definitely intended) on an episode of the Experimental Brewing podcast. Here's a link to that one: https://www.experimentalbrew.com/podcast/episode-18-saison-under-pressure

Good luck!
 
Vent them.

Every day crack the cap and bleed off some gas. Might take a week of doing this daily but it will get the pressure down and save your hard work. You could probably get by venting them every other day.

Just keep it up until the pressure subsides.

Been there, done that.

All the Best,
D. White
 
Saw this thread on the newsletter. The last (and only) batch I bottled after being impatient due to a stuck fermentation turned almost into bottle bombs. I read enough to know I could slowly vent the excess carbonation but what I wasn't expecting was a really unpleasant off flavour that I'm assuming occurred because the yeast began to feed off of the residual sugars as well as the new sugars. Cider/apple juice was what I could detect. Dumped the whole batch after two months and no sign of improvements.
 
bert_wall said:
Ended up tossing all of them....:smack:

The remaining beer leftover after depressurizing was minimal at best. I did get a couple good swigs and all in all it had a sweeter taste than I hoped. Still had some good character from the #3724, though.

12 bombers, 24 (12 oz) bottles. I did wear some glasses and gloves when moving from fermentation closet to sink.
Click to expand...

Just reminds me of Strange Brew where Bob and Doug take the truck load of "Tainted" beer home. So what if it turns you into a mindless subjective zombie for a while....

I had a single bottle bomb while I was in the next room. It was loud and I knew what it was right away because it was an otherwise empty room. Surprisingly not as much of a mess as I expected. No other bottle burst and at least I don't remember any having excessive carbonation.
 
Damn. Hope you didn't get hurt!

So here's something that hasn't been discussed yet. What fermentation temp did you use? I wonder if part of your high FG issue (1025) is that the temp didn't get high enough for the yeast to fully ferment out. With a Saison yeast, your FG should be more like 1006 or 1007 or so. That's why you had the bottle bombs.

Get yourself an Inkbird 308 Temp Controller (about $30) plus a heat wrap (like the one from The Weekend Brewer on Amazon, about $25), and you have a full temp control setup (for ales at least, not lagers). That should help the beer ferment out fully. Also, be sure to take FG readings 2-3 days apart at the end. If the numbers are different, that means the beer hasn't finished fermenting yet. Saisons can take awhile to ferment out, I'd wait at least 2.5 weeks before even checking a gravity. Also, next time you can also try Wyeast 3711, that yeast is a beast!

Edit: Also, Saisons are often high carbed, 3 or even 4 volumes of CO2. I've carbed up to 3 vols in a regular bottle but I wouldn't go higher than that. If you want that classic effervescent Saison carbonation, buy yourself some Belgian bottles (maybe that's what you had?) and you can carb up to 5vols or so I think.
 
dwhite60 said:
Vent them.

Every day crack the cap and bleed off some gas. Might take a week of doing this daily but it will get the pressure down and save your hard work. You could probably get by venting them every other day.

Just keep it up until the pressure subsides.

Been there, done that.

All the Best,
D. White
Click to expand...



This is a great way to end up with lots of pointy shrapnel in your arms. I speak from experience. Also, once you "crack the cap"how do you reseal it? It would go flat or gush out anyway . . . .
 
bert_wall said:
Any thoughts/recs? I know Wyeast #3724 has threads dedicated to it ha, but I think the next batch is going to be another try at this...hopefully with better results.
Click to expand...

If it was me, I would aim for OG around 1.050 and mash at 148, pitch around mid-60s and let it ride a couple days at room temp and then ramp it to 75-85. Let it be for 3-4 weeks and you should be excepting gravity around 1.002-1.006. I did 3 subsequent batches with the last one going from 1.078 to 1.004 (IIRC) in 3 weeks. If it does stall, you can pitch WY3711 to finish it up.
 
I normally try to make a few bottles at the end of my bottling day and make "T" on them as testers and open them each one week apart to see how carbonation is going.
 
I lost an entire case of English Brown Ale because I bottle to soon. Weird thing is though, it was almost a year before the bottles exploded. Scared the living hell out of me. There was glass and ale all over the cellar floor.
 
fmontez1 said:
This is a great way to end up with lots of pointy shrapnel in your arms. I speak from experience. Also, once you "crack the cap"how do you reseal it? It would go flat or gush out anyway . . . .
Click to expand...

How do you reseal it???? Simple you use your bottle capper and press the caps back on the bottle. Or use new caps.
 
Brownalemikie said:
How do you reseal it???? Simple you use your bottle capper and press the caps back on the bottle. Or use new caps.
Click to expand...

I dunno, from watching the videos posted, it doesn't seem like cracking the cap is going to work, also not worth the risk of putting a bottle cap opener on a primed bottle bomb.

All that uncertainty led me to force carb with a tank, no more guesswork.
 
bert_wall said:
Ended up tossing all of them....:smack:
Click to expand...

[1] This kind of over-fermentation can be caused by bacterial infections. If you have any doubts about the sanitation of any tubing you might be using, I would recommend tossing it all and buying new tubing.

[2] How much, if any, sugar did you use at bottling?

[3] As I read it above, it seems like you bypassed secondary fermentation and went straight to bottling. That's probably not a good idea if you are working with very rich wort. Very few strains of yeast will fully digest all the sugar in a single fermentation vat.
 
NVbrewer said:
[1]

[3] As I read it above, it seems like you bypassed secondary fermentation and went straight to bottling. That's probably not a good idea if you are working with very rich wort. Very few strains of yeast will fully digest all the sugar in a single fermentation vat.
Click to expand...

latest
 
dapaterson said:
I don't understand. How can you still have beer left a year after brewing? I'm lucky to make it 3 months...
Click to expand...

Where did I read, I think in Radical Brewing, something to the effect of:

"Your homebrew is generally finished conditioning and ready to drink when you open the last bottle."

So true. Patience grasshopper. Its so hard to condition for two or three months, but I learned its actually essential (especially with anything with an OG over 1.060) after finding a few abandoned strays of my thought-to-be "flawed" beers months later that were, at that point, professional-quality, flawless beers. Books and software that say "your beer is ready to drink as soon as its carbonated" are short-changing you. IMHO, that's rarely if ever the case.

My first or second batch ever was a Lagunitas IPA clone that ended up as an unintended batch of strawberry ale, where I added gently-boiled diluted strawberry honey to the secondary after missing mash temps and not letting it just sit to finish conversion. It tasted like a 3% ABV beer after primary, so I tried to juice it up. After a few weeks in the bottle it was far too sweet and frankly overpoweringly strawberry-flavored, so it almost went into the trash. Thankfully I couldn't bring myself to do that, because when I opened a bottle six months after bottling (intending to dump it to reuse the bottles!) it was amazing. It was definitely the best batch of my entire first year of brewing. Horrible after a month, excellent after six. A similar thing happened with my first IIPA.

But back to the point of the thread, for gushers, try near-freezing them for a few days to stop the yeast activity, then cold conditioning / lagering for another few weeks, then open a bottle while its still very cold (for safety) and see how that goes. You may be able to salvage them, they may even turn out great. I did that when I over-carbonated my Christmas beer last year and it worked out fine. I look forward to the six bombers I saved for Christmas this year!

Also, for saisons, don't forget to ferment at slightly above-ale temps, particularly if you're not hitting your numbers. Palmer, Mosher, or Jamil wrote 24-28 C is proper.
 
Very good point. Living in central California, I've had similar issues by conditioning for a few days in a room that was a tad bit too warm after fermentation which had been kept at acceptable temps. I've learned to sample one everyday after day 3 and chill them when carbonation is where you want it.
 
@bert_wall
Re: Your original post

You were probably unaware of WY3724 (DuPont Strain, WLP565) being a notorious staller, only to take you by surprise when it finally got its act together and fermented your batch out after all. Pitching the wine yeast was totally unnecessary, since they generally cannot ferment maltotriose and have a difficult time even fermenting maltose, the sugar backbones of your beer. I have a really hard time when a homebrew shop recommends this nonsense, and ultimately may have misguided you. But no-one should bottle a 1.025 Saison, that's entirely on you. Glad no-one got hurt.

==> Stick to HBT for advice, next time.

Those vids are awesome! You're very brave handling those bottles on the brink of explosion with bare hands. I'm surprised they didn't explode as soon as you applied stress on the necks with the bottle opener. Some top quality bottles you've got there!

Sorry to hear you only got a mere sample of them. I bet they were tasty!

WY3726 PC is a similar strain, but not as finicky as 3724. Sadly, it's not around often enough.

Are you going to try this recipe again?
:mug:
 
Last edited:
dapaterson said:
I don't understand. How can you still have beer left a year after brewing? I'm lucky to make it 3 months...
Click to expand...

That particular batch worried me. So I stuck in a corner and forgot about it. The bottles exploding solved that mind slip quickly.
 
IslandLizard said:
@bert_wall
Re: Your original post

You were probably unaware of WY3724 (DuPont Strain, WLP565) being a notorious staller, only to take you by surprise when it finally got its act together and fermented your batch out after all. Pitching the wine yeast was totally unnecessary, since they generally cannot ferment maltotriose and have a difficult time even fermenting maltose, the sugar backbones of your beer. I have a really hard time when a homebrew shop recommends this nonsense, and ultimately may have misguided you. But no-one should bottle a 1.025 Saison, that's entirely on you. Glad no-one got hurt.

==> Stick to HBT for advice, next time.

Those vids are awesome! You're very brave handling those bottles on the brink of explosion with bare hands. I'm surprised they didn't explode as soon as you applied stress on the necks with the bottle opener. Some top quality bottles you've got there!

Sorry to hear you only got a mere sample of them. I bet they were tasty!

WY3526 PC is a similar strain, but not as finicky as 3724. Sadly, it's not around often enough.

Are you going to try this recipe again?
:mug:
Click to expand...

Agreed with all, but is WY3726 "Farmhouse Ale" the one you meant to recommend?
 
Sillybilly said:
Agreed with all, but is WY3726 "Farmhouse Ale" the one you meant to recommend?
Click to expand...

Oops, I meant WY3726, yes! I'll correct the original reply.
Although it's a different strain than WY3724, with a different flavor profile, it makes a tasty Saison. Use higher ferm temps to bring out a more funky character.

It looks like WYeast removed WY3726 from being a strictly seasonal PC release into regular circulation. That's good, should be somewhat easier to obtain now!

Some of my latest, (now) favorite Saison yeasts are East Coast Yeast's ECY08 (Saison Brasserie) and the Bretted version of it, ECY03, containing the Fantôme Brett strain. That 100% Brett isolate has only been released once apparently, and is difficult to source now.

When working with Brett, you do need to make sure your cleaning and sanitation regimen is solid, so it doesn't unintentionally show up in later fermentations... I do NOT use separate equipment for Brett, but do clean and sanitize well, and never encountered any problems. When in doubt use separate (cold side) equipment.
 
I never had a bottle bomb until this year when I tried my first hard cider with champagne yeast. Accidentally left a couple bottles on top of the kegerator before leaving town for work for a couple weeks. I never considered that the kegger vibrated slightly when it kicked on....shook those bottles up pretty good. My wife heard what she thought was a gun shot, and found cider and glass all over my office. Glass from the bottle shredded my wall paper and embedded in the oak door trim. I found little brown pieces of glass all over the place for months! Just glad no one was standing nearby when she blew!
 
I bottled a brown ale a couple of weeks ago, and just 'tried' (aka was thirsty) one. I pried the top off and "guuuusssshhhh..."

Nothing like the YouTube video, but it did leave less product for me to enjoy. What's funny is, the initial fermentation process was the most active I've ever had. As a matter of fact, it was so active that the airlock was filled with crud (still kept the StarSan in there though). Seemed like a typical fermentation period after that. Primed with less than the suggested amount of table sugar for carbonation, and still the gush. I threw a 22oz'er in the fridge this evening...so tomorrow night I will see if I need to vent and re-cap the rest.

Always a learning process...
 
AJinJacksonville said:
I bottled a brown ale a couple of weeks ago, and just 'tried' (aka was thirsty) one. I pried the top off and "guuuusssshhhh..."

Nothing like the YouTube video, but it did leave less product for me to enjoy. What's funny is, the initial fermentation process was the most active I've ever had. As a matter of fact, it was so active that the airlock was filled with crud (still kept the StarSan in there though). Seemed like a typical fermentation period after that. Primed with less than the suggested amount of table sugar for carbonation, and still the gush. I threw a 22oz'er in the fridge this evening...so tomorrow night I will see if I need to vent and re-cap the rest.

Always a learning process...
Click to expand...
I had the krausen come out my airlock with my batch of IPA. Turned out I didn't leave enough headspace in the carboy. This batch also took a long, long time to finish fermenting. I think it was 1.5 weeks in the end. Still in the carboy though...
 
Well this never happends to me due to bottling straight from the keg to the bottle via couner pressure system. The beer is already carbonated and chilled to 1.5C to avoid likley frothing but that is what the counter pressure is for.
 
fmontez1 said:
This is a great way to end up with lots of pointy shrapnel in your arms. I speak from experience. Also, once you "crack the cap"how do you reseal it? It would go flat or gush out anyway . . . .
Click to expand...

I've been gone for a while.

One, you don't lift the cap to the point of damaging it. Like someone else said, you re-crimp it to re-seal it. Easy Peasy. I could probably lift a cap enough to vent gas and it would seal well enough to hold pressure just releasing it back down.

Two, the INSTANT you vent that gas the pressure in the bottle drops.No more bottle bombs. More gas will come out of solution and pressure will build again but at the moment it's safe. If you're really worried you could take an oven mit and cut a hole in it for just the bottle neck to fit through while you vent them. If they blow, they are not getting through a good oven mit.

It's really not that hard, or dangerous. Just have to exercise a little caution. The few bottle bombs I've had primarily blew the bottom off the bottle. The bottle did crack but I did not have glass shards stuck in the cardboard box it was in.

I put a lot of time and effort into my beer. I'm willing to take some steps to salvage a batch. Just me though.

All the Best,
D. White
 
Like DWhite says, you could just lift the cap enough to release some pressure, then simply use your bottle capper to re-cap the bottle with the existing cap.
 

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