Wyeast 3724 Advice?

[secret_pint]

Wyeast 3724 advice

Hi, would appreciate some experienced input here if possible as this is my first time using a Saison yeast. I see threads about this everywhere but I guess every case is somewhat specific so re-posting.

We had been reading loads about 3724 being notoriously sticky in mid fermentation and from some reading I had done, it appeared to need an elevated temperature level for fermentation to succeed.

I had read a blog post from a brewer who said he had had great success from pitching at 86F and keeping it there.

Our temperature control is ok, it consists of one of those submersible aquarium style immersion heaters - but I tested it on a volume of water last week and it held decently at 84-87F when set right.

I pitched last night at 86F at about 7pm, my gravity was 1.08. The fermentation room is about 72F.

I have a temperature probe in the fermenter that records the temperature every minute and posts to a graph online so I can monitor.

So I woke up this morning at 6am and noticed that the wort temperature had held at around 86F until 2am and then in about 20 mins, it shot up to 105F in the space of 20 mins.

I checked the fementer at 7am and the heater was not pressing against the probe or anything so the liquid actually was this temperature.

There was about 2-3 inches of Krausen on top of the wort which suggests that it did begin to ferment incredibly vigurously but there didn't seem to be any airlock activity in the 10 mins I was beside it this monring. Is it logical to attribute this temperature jump to the exothermic reaction of the initial vigourous fermentation coupled with my heater? Theres no way the heater could have heated the wort that quickly by itself, it's just not powerful enough.

I switched the heater off at 7am and now its 9.30am and from work I can see the wort has cooled to 97F and is trending down slowly - again, I think this inidicates fermentation has stalled a bit?

Any negatives from this? Have I ruined this in anyway? Any advice for me at this stage?

I probably should have left the heater off until I got through the first few days of fermentation.

If I bring it back to 86F and shake the yeast up, will we be grand?

 

[corn]

I say it is likely the heater was in a heat cycle and the exothermic took place at around the same time. The two resulted in a temperature spike that you may not normally see. At the end of the day if fermentation evidence is there, then ride it out and see what happens. Most likely all is well.

 

[turkeygecko]

Are you certain the temp reading equipment didn't fail? Unless the wort volume was much less than 5 gallons, rising 20 degrees in 20 minutes is pretty crazy, and frankly, hard to believe. I mean, think about how it takes to heat strike water with a gas flame directly on your kettle.

In any event, if there's any strain that can handle fermenting >100, its 3724. Good luck!


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

 

[davejanssen]

From what you wrote, it sounds like your heater and probe are in the same liquid. But it also sounds like your probe was measuring the beer temp. Do you have your heater is inside the carboy rather than in a water bath around it? I agree that rising 20 degrees in 20 minutes is pretty unlikely so I think either you had a probe failure, your heater came into contact with the wort (or was close enough that in a heat cycle it got an unrepresentative measurement), or somehow you were not getting an accurate reading when it was reading 86F.