saison racking question

[Tomfolli]

Hey y'all,

Been fermenting a saison for 3 wks now, sitting on my back porch wrapped in a towel in the new orleans heat, so it's been going up and down between about 85 and 95 the whole time. I thought it would be ready to bottle, so i started transferring to my bottling bucket before i took the FG reading. It's at about 1.02, which is too high for a saison, but I transferred anyway and got it off the yeast cake.
My question is this: Do I need to add another yeast pack, or will the amount of yeast in suspension that got transferred multiply and be enough to continue fermentation? going out of town for a week in a few days and planning on bottling when I get back, so in about 10 days. What do you all think? thanks in advance for the help!



-Tom

Ready to drink:
-Witbier (WY3068)
-Witbier (WY3333)
Conditioning
-India Red Ale (London III)
-Saison/IRA Hybrid (US-05)
Fermenting
-Sasion
Next up
-Chocolate Oatmeal Stout
-Autumn Ale

 

[GarageDweller]

what yeast did you use?

 

[Tomfolli]

Wyeast belgian Saison. I actually just dumped the trub cake back into the beer that I had transferred. I figure that will get more yeast back into suspension to kickstart the rest of fermentation and I think the risk of any off flavors is minimal. Yeast is pretty good at cleaning up after itself.

 

[AmandaK]

Wyeast 3724 is infamous for stopping if it isn't happy.

If you actually let it ferment out completely, your biggest worry will be oxidation from all the moving and dumping and transferring.

 

[SamBrewer]

It happened also to me, that strain seems to stop fermentation activity when it reaches 1.020, usually you have only to wait another couple of weeks...

 

[arnoldk2]

I just did a saison. I used wyeast's french saison yeast. I pitched at 65 degrees and let it work its way to 75 degrees. The O.G. was 1.060. After one week I took a reading and it was 1.006. I decided to crash cool the beer and keg it. This beer has a unique flavor to it. This is one of my favorite beers that I brewed and I will brew it again soon.

I also think you may have some oxidation issues if you didn't take care when adding the yeast cake back to the beer. I wouldn't worry to much though. RAHAHB.

 

[Tomfolli]

what does oxidation impart to the beer? like what off flavors? just skunky/stale? also, when I transferred, because I knew i wasn't sure what to do and knew i'd have to think about it, i airlocked the almost-empty bucket with the yeast, and i only waited about ten minutes before I decided to just dump it back in. hopefully the oxygen exposure was minimal, and i have some bubbling now, so hopefully it's beginning to purge whatever oxygen was left in the top 3-4 inches of the fermenter, again minimizing oxygen exposure. I'll keep y'all posted, updating in about ten days when i take my next gravity reading and hopefully bottle.

cheers and happy brewing

 

[emjay]

what does oxidation impart to the beer? like what off flavors? just skunky/stale? also, when I transferred, because I knew i wasn't sure what to do and knew i'd have to think about it, i airlocked the almost-empty bucket with the yeast, and i only waited about ten minutes before I decided to just dump it back in. hopefully the oxygen exposure was minimal, and i have some bubbling now, so hopefully it's beginning to purge whatever oxygen was left in the top 3-4 inches of the fermenter, again minimizing oxygen exposure. I'll keep y'all posted, updating in about ten days when i take my next gravity reading and hopefully bottle.

cheers and happy brewing

Oxidation tastes like wet paper/cardboard, sometimes sherry-like.

 

[progmac]

if i am understanding you correctly, the saison is back on the original cake. Is that accurate?

You should be fine. Use your brewing know-how and do nothing (to paraphrase a post from the other day).

My last saison took about 25 days to ferment out. it goes gangbusters and then goes to a once-per-30-second bubble or so and does that for weeks

the french strain that someone else mentioned (3711) finishes out much faster. a good choice if you're in a rush

 

[MrOrange]

the french strain that someone else mentioned (3711) finishes out much faster. a good choice if you're in a rush

I just used this strain and it did finish quite fast. The only issue I have run into is that it needs a bit of time to bottle condition. After 3 weeks there is still a hint of green apple coming through in the nose, but it is much less than what I smelled when I opened one at 2 weeks to check carbonation. Other than that it produces some awesome flavors.

 

[Tomfolli]

Just got back from my trip, it's been sitting on the original cake for 10 days after transfer, and it appears as if no more bubbling happened. so, i guess I'm gonna transfer, take a gravity reading, and if it's still where it was, I'm gonna go buy a new yeast packet and try again! I'll keep you posted on how it turns out.
cheers!

 

[tbrown4]

Kind of not on topic...

Were you fermenting outside? I was thinking of giving that a try.

 

[Tomfolli]

just transferred to get it off the original cake, smells very alcoholic, gravity at 1.01, which is dry enough for me, so i'm going to bottle tonight. i'd do it now but I have work in 45 minutes and I'm not that speedy haha. yeast did some weird thing that it didn't do during the first fermentation: it clung to the sides of the bucket that had been submerged in the beer... not too worried because the beer still smells okay and tastes fine, so we'll see what happens...
wish me luck