Saison with wlp565 yeast

[Turfgrass]

So, It’s been 8 days into fermentation and my new Tilt hydrameter suggest fermentation has completed. I was expecting a stall from what I’ve been reading and maybe raising temps I to the 80’s. I pitched high (72) bc my thermometer was a bit off and have been at 75 for the last 3 days. The temp has been consistent dispite showing a degree high than set today. Any recommendations as where to go from here? My first saison.

 

[Kickass]

To help understand your concerns, are you worried you over attenuated because you were counting on a stall? Or are you worried you fermented too warm? Or are you bottling and trying to determine if it'll start fermenting again? Need a little more info but I'd venture to say, based on these assumptions and that your processes were sound, you're on your way to a well made saison.

 

[Turfgrass]

I’m new to saison yeast and the beer brewing process, so I was just looking for some direction. Lots of thread discussing high temps and stalls. I wasn’t sure if I should raise the temperature or if that’s just for getting out of a stall fermentation. Guessing I’ll just rack to a keg in another week for conditioning.

 

[Kickass]

Sure thing. The temp raise probably to keep it going but also for specific flavor profile. What was your original gravity reading and final gravity?

If your attenuation is within the range white labs notes then you're likely done or very close to fully fermented. When using a yeast stain I'm not familiar with I find that it's helpful to look and see what others are getting for attenuation.

I haven't used WLP565, so as far as temp and corresponding flavor profile go I'll let others weigh in. While waiting you might be able to do a little looking. In general, you have a lot of temperature leeway in using French and Belgian yeast strains.

 

[Turfgrass]

I don’t know the OG as I’m getting use to my system and evaporation rate was higher than expected. The tilt hydrameter was reading 1.039 less than a couple days into fermentaion.

 

[Kickass]

When you dropped your hydrometer in what was the reading? Additionally, what is it now?

Are you familiar with calculating attenuation?

 

[Turfgrass]

The gravity was 1.041

No I’m not.

 

[Kickass]

Piecing this together, correct me if I'm wrong. After you boiled and cooled your wort you dropped your hydrometer in. That read 1.041? Then after several days it dropped .039 points? So now it's reading 1.002? I'm not saying these are incorrect but I'm skeptical and I'll share why in a second.

Always take an original gravity OG reading. To avoid temperature corrections do this once you've cooled to calibrated hydrometer temp, unless tilt does auto corrections. Then several days later once the gravity is holding at the same spot this is you final gravity FG.

With these numbers you can determine % attenuation and % ABV.

FG/OG =% of sugar remaining.
2/41 = .0487 = 4.87% sugar remaining. This means your yeast converted almost 95% of the sugar. 95% would be your attenuation.

OG-FG*131=ABV
1.041-1.002=.039
.039*131=5.109% abv

The reason I said I'm skeptical of your gravity readings is because white labs says wlp565 attenuates 65-75%. According to the numbers you provided, 95% seems really high.

Now, practical application. If your gravity reading remains steady for several days and it's within, or very close to the, numbers the yeast manufacturer suggests then your fermentation is done. If you're bottling this is an import point to get to before bottling to avoid bottle bombs.

There's a little that goes into all this but these basics should get you going. Do some looking on here and google to get a better foundation.

 

[Turfgrass]

Piecing this together, correct me if I'm wrong. After you boiled and cooled your wort you dropped your hydrometer in. That read 1.041? Then after several days it dropped .039 points? So now it's reading 1.002? I'm not saying these are incorrect but I'm skeptical

I forgot about the OG initially and then dropped the tilt hydrameter into the carboy within 24 hours and it reported 1.041 and declined to .998 over 7 days.

 

[GRJBowers]

In a thread about the Tilt hydrometer, people have reported fermentation gunk clinging to the Tilt. This gives an artificially low gravity reading. You can take the Tilt out and clean it off and it will give you a more correct reading, but that kind of defeats the purpose of using it in the first place I suppose. In any case, once the Tilt reports stable gravity for a few consecutive days, you can take a proper hydrometer reading to see what the gravity is.

 

[Turfgrass]

In a thread about the Tilt hydrometer, people have reported fermentation gunk clinging to the Tilt. This gives an artificially low gravity reading. You can take the Tilt out and clean it off and it will give you a more correct reading, but that kind of defeats the purpose of using it in the first place I suppose. In any case, once the Tilt reports stable gravity for a few consecutive days, you can take a proper hydrometer reading to see what the gravity is.

Yes, I was thinking of that myself. The gravity has been stable for three days. I’m going to leave it alone until Friday and then transfer to a keg for a couple weeks.