Seconds attempt at a more aggressive Saison.

[drakeskakes]

My first saison turned out really good, by my amatuer standards. However it tasted just "standard." It as very drinkable and got very good reviews. The first keg got crushed at a gathering, but I had some bottles I conditioned for 3 months, and it didn't change much. If anything it just cleared up a little bit.

I decided to take a stab at a more agressive flavor profile. 565 wasn't as spicy as I had hoped.

My grain bill is the same, just added adjuncts.
Here are my concerns.
1) Mash temp held at 148 for 30 mins then started to drop. I brought it up to 152 and that held for about 15 minutes until it really started to drop (my buddy felt like stirring it while I was running an errand down the street). I already maxed out the Mashtun Volume so I couldn't bring it up anymore. The last 15 minutes it sat at around 141 (75min total mash time).
Will this be an issue? I batch sparged for 20 minutes at 154.

2) I'm fermenting in my garage. Avg day here is about 71 right now and I have it wrapped up in 3 heavy fleece blankets to lock in the warmth. Sticky side temp shows it holding in the mid to high 70s range

3) I really want to dry this beer out and was thinking of adding store bought wild yeast about 8days after initial pitch. Or, harvest Brett from my favorite beer Rayon vert

4) Socal has a bunch of really good local honey. I was reading up on the benefits in a saison to dry it out even more. What about adding 2# of local wildflower honey to the fermenter? I'm 48 hours in, so I would probably need to do it in the next day or two.
Any ideas?

Here is the recipe.

 

[skibb]

1) No. You want to get a saison crazy dry - mashing in the 140's, and for an extended period, is really how you would want to mash this beer to make it as fermentable as possible.

2) WLP565 is my favorite saison yeast but unless you have proper fermentation temperature control, you will have a very hard time getting any spicy profile out of it. If you pitch and ferment at 71 F you will get a mouthful of esters. When I brew with this yeast, I pitch at 62 F and let it free rise to 65 F for the first 48 hours. After that I cap my fermentation chamber at 90 degrees and let the yeast take it all the way up there on its own (and trust me it rockets up to that temp).

3-4) Most saison recipes use simple sugar sources to get their characteristic high attenuation, 565 is certainly a strain that will benefit from this (as opposed to something like Wyeast 3711, which will eat through absolutely everything). Adding brett to the secondary will help dry this beer out but probably not as much as an addition of simple sugar would. Adding both together would likely get this beer bone dry.

 

[BrewNow]

++ Most saison recipes use simple sugar sources to get their characteristic high attenuation ++
May be the key for what you are looking for. Try adding 7-10% of just plain table sugar to the grist. Add the last 10 minutes of the boil and be sure not to scorch it!

 

[motorneuron]

(4) In general, the higher your OG, the higher your FG. When people say that adding sugar to a recipe dries it out, that usually means that they're replacing some existing grain (maltose) with simpler sugars that are guaranteed to ferment and have no associated body (longer-chain dextrines). Adding sugar or honey to the beer now won't dry it out more; it'll just up the ABV, and might even slightly raise the FG (though higher FG is not as likely with saison yeast, especially if you rouse the yeast when you add sugar or add it early in fermentation).

(3) You could use brett to drop the FG, but if you don't want horse (which you may--you said you want to be "aggressive" here) you could instead add some Wyeast 3711. That stuff is magic. It's fine to mix it with your WLP565, even if you're going to reuse--they're both saison, after all. Make a little starter and pitch the 3711 whenever you want. But be sure to make sure your fermentor is hot enough--3711 likes it hot! (high 70s is fine)

 

[drakeskakes]

1) No. You want to get a saison crazy dry - mashing in the 140's, and for an extended period, is really how you would want to mash this beer to make it as fermentable as possible.

2) WLP565 is my favorite saison yeast but unless you have proper fermentation temperature control, you will have a very hard time getting any spicy profile out of it. If you pitch and ferment at 71 F you will get a mouthful of esters. When I brew with this yeast, I pitch at 62 F and let it free rise to 65 F for the first 48 hours. After that I cap my fermentation chamber at 90 degrees and let the yeast take it all the way up there on its own (and trust me it rockets up to that temp).

3-4) Most saison recipes use simple sugar sources to get their characteristic high attenuation, 565 is certainly a strain that will benefit from this (as opposed to something like Wyeast 3711, which will eat through absolutely everything). Adding brett to the secondary will help dry this beer out but probably not as much as an addition of simple sugar would. Adding both together would likely get this beer bone dry.

Thanks for taking the time to answer in depth, it definitely cleared some things up.

For a 10g batch do you think 2# of honey is a good starting point? Also, which strain of Brett do you think works best for a Saison. I was thinking WLP670.

I'm going to participate in the Del Mar fair homebrew competition. I'm in now way expecting to win, but it would be nice to get some un-biased reviews of our beers and also meet some other local brewers. My concern is that I've read it takes a few months to really have a drinkable beer with Brett, the Competition is June30 and needs to be in Bottle June 1st. I wonder if that's enough time to make this beer worth drinking.

 

[motorneuron]

I'm going to participate in the Del Mar fair homebrew competition. I'm in now way expecting to win, but it would be nice to get some un-biased reviews of our beers and also meet some other local brewers. My concern is that I've read it takes a few months to really have a drinkable beer with Brett, the Competition is June30 and needs to be in Bottle June 1st. I wonder if that's enough time to make this beer worth drinking.

All the more reason to go with Wyeast 3711 as your drying agent, rather than Brett! If you pitch it now and the beer stays hot, it'll probably eat its way down to the 1.00x range.

 

[drakeskakes]

I still would like the chance to try this batch with brett...but will follow your advice. If I pitch the 3711 now, with the honey I'll give it 10days before going into secondary. What about splitting the batch into two carboys, one with brett one without (to compete with). Is a third yeast going to just ruin the batch? Can the 565 and 3711 be harvested or is that a one time deal?

 

[motorneuron]

No reason you can't harvest the 565 and 3711 as one cake. If you keep harvesting repeatedly, you may wind up with a different mix each time, because of differing flocculation/multiplication rates. But you will still have a saison mix, so it won't be a real problem.

Although I don't use secondaries in general, I would definitely not use one with the 3711 if you are trying to get the gravity as low as possible. Keep it on the main yeast cake until you bottle if you want maximum attenuation.

I like the idea of bretting one and letting it sit for a while--that's what you have to do with brett, after all. And no, it shouldn't ruin the batch; it's normal to have both s. cerevisiae and brett going in the same batch, and two types of s. cerevisiae won't really change that. I don't personally have experience with brett in saison, though. It might have less to eat than normal if your beer is already pretty attenuated. Might be best to split your batch into two carboys before adding the 3711 to one of them--that way you can harvest the combined saison (3711+565) from one carboy, and leave the brett to do its thing in the other.

 

[drakeskakes]

THe LHBS only had one package of 3711 left, so I went for it, even though its a 10g batch. I figured that since it's been in primary for 4 days and the OG was only .050, it should be plenty to chew through the remainder. I held off on the honey however. I had a good feeling about the original flavor profile and don't want to mess it with anymore. Today was nice for fermenting too. As I mentioned I don't have a fermentation chamber so I set this next to my garage door inside my garage which faces west and gets a solid sun most of the day.

I put my themometer inbtween the layer of blankets and the keg and it was reading in the high 70's most of the day and peaked around 81. It's now 11pm and chilly out, but the thermometer is still reading 76. If this can keep up for another 14 days I'll be one helluva happy camper.

:fro:

 

[skibb]

Without a starter I would absolutely add some sort of simple sugar source for the yeast to consume/grow. You are throwing it into a hostile environment; sugars are scarce and the ones that are consumable require much more energy to metabolize b/c they are very likely the more complex ones left over. You threw them into a nutrient deprived and toxic environment full of alcohol - most yeast in this situation are very likely to just fall to the bottom and do nothing.

Whenever you pitch yeast to finish a fermentation you should always make a simple starter and get them active (high krausen) before tossing them into unfamiliar territory.

 

[drakeskakes]

Without a starter I would absolutely add some sort of simple sugar source for the yeast to consume/grow. You are throwing it into a hostile environment; sugars are scarce and the ones that are consumable require much more energy to metabolize b/c they are very likely the more complex ones left over. You threw them into a nutrient deprived and toxic environment full of alcohol - most yeast in this situation are very likely to just fall to the bottom and do nothing.

Whenever you pitch yeast to finish a fermentation you should always make a simple starter and get them active (high krausen) before tossing them into unfamiliar territory.

Good information to know, I had no idea. I went ahead and dropped in just under 3lbs of local wildflower honey. Hopefully it'll be fine. I peeked in and there is a really good krausen layer on top. I guess I'll know in two weeks :cross:

 

[bboyeruga]

Good information to know, I had no idea. I went ahead and dropped in just under 3lbs of local wildflower honey. Hopefully it'll be fine. I peeked in and there is a really good krausen layer on top. I guess I'll know in two weeks :cross:

Did you heat/dilute the honey with water? I'm interested in doing this for my saison this week and was wondering how you did it.

If you did heat it, do you let it cool before putting it in or just dump it in hot to avoid contamination?

Thanks!