quest for peppery notes from yeast

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Sipina

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Greetings!

I am on a little journey trying to make a rich/complex and a refreshing belgian saison style beer with good drinkability.

So far I've tried the Belle saison from Lallemand and BE-134 from Fermentis. I do like both of these yeast. Of these two ime BE-134 is surely more complex. From belle saison I mostly got nice belgian style fruity notes; and with BE-134 I am also getting a nice belgian profile with lots of fruit and also spicy notes - these spicy notes are of the clove type - which are fine, but not what I am looking for ultimately.

I would love to get any tips from experienced members on which strain of yeast to choose and which fermentation temperatures to use or any other tricks to really get those peppery notes from the yeast.

Have a great day!

EDIT: Right now I am in the process of trying out the Mangrove Jack's M31 yeast for the first time. I will write down any findings in here as well.
 
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Greetings!

I am on a little journey trying to make a rich/complex and a refreshing belgian saison style beer with good drinkability.

So far I've tried the Belle saison from Lallemand and BE-134 form Fermentis. I do like both of these yeast. Of these two ime BE-134 is surely more complex. From belle saison I mostly got nice belgian style fruity notes; and with BE-134 I am also getting a nice belgian profile with lots of fruit and also spicy notes - these spicy notes are of the clove type - which are fine, but now what I am looking for ultimately. Of these two ime BE-134 is surely more complex.

I would love to get any tips from experienced members on which strain of yeast to choose and which fermentation temperatures to use or any other tricks to really get those peppery notes from the yeast.

Have a great day!

EDIT: Right now I am in the process of trying out the Mangrove Jack's M31 yeast for the first time. I will write down any findings in here as well.
I'm on the same quest. Only one I've had that went into the direction was unfortunately a liquid strain, Imperial yeast rustic. Very good one, but liquid.

I'm looking forward to hearing what others have experienced with other dry yeasts.
 
I see you mentioned dry yeast. I have tried the Belle Saison and experienced mostly clove. I have not found the pepper in the dry yeast I've used. If you are able to get some liquid types I recommend Wyeast 3726. It has the pepper but is a diastaticus strain. Also Wyeast 3724, the Dupont strain is a good one but takes a long time to finish out unless you can get the temp up around 90 degress. I've not tried the WY 3724 personally so not sure if it has the pepper. I'm going by what I've heard from other brewers.
 
One way to add pepper notes to a beer is to, shock, add pepper! I have not done it myself, but I have had Saisons that had black pepper added and it does add a pleasant note. I am not sure how much is needed. It is cheap and easy though.
 
Speaking only for myself, "peppery" as a description in a saison, is not the same as real pepper. It goes into the same direction, but tastes different. It is an aproximation to be able to describe what one means. So using real pepper wouldn't really get me what I am after.
 
I would love to get any tips from experienced members on which strain of yeast to choose and which fermentation temperatures to use or any other tricks to really get those peppery notes from the yeast.
As far as fermentation temps go, you want to keep temps in the lower range so that the phenolic character is pronounced and does not get trampled by the esters that get generated at higher temps. WLP565 fermented at 66F will have more pronounced phenolics than if fermented at 76F or warmer.

As far as how phenolics tastes, everybody perceives flavors differently. To me, the "clove" character from a Saison yeast (or at least what I think people describe as clove) has very little resemblance to actual cloves. On the other hand, the pepper characters from a Saison yeast do actually closely resemble black pepper, just without some of the brighter notes from fresh ground peppercorns.
 
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