ramping temperature on a saison?

[belsonc]

Hey all -

So, in a lot of the reading I've done about making saisons, one of the schools of thought is to start the temperature out cool, then raise it up slowly. Unfortunately, I don't have that whole "slowly" option available to me - it's either all or nothing. ;-)

I've read about people bringing the temperature into the high 80s/low 90s - and when I got home from work today, I saw my apartment was 95 degrees. My question, for anyone who's followed this school of thought, is whether 95 is too high - would I be better off leaving it where it is now, at a constant (very) high 70s/low 80s? I wouldn't mind bringing it up here into the heat, since I believe it's supposed to help it dry out some more (along with patience), but I don't want to do more harm than good...


(And before I forget, it's Wyeast 3522 - the Belgian Ardennes yeast - says it's best between 65-85.)


Thoughts? Opinions? Miscellaneous ramblings?

-CB

[Mad Scientist]

Wow...95 in Long Island...you guys must be cooking...meat falling off the bone, stuff like that....

I thinkyou'll want to keep it a bit cooler, I'd be shooting for 80-ish...keeping it in a tub of water will help...look up the wet T-shirt method

[belsonc]

Big plastic tub and the wet tshirt over the fermenter to wick away the heat - got it. :-)


And yeah, we're cooking around here - I've decided screw my electric bill, I can't sit here in the dark, not moving, no lights on, and dripping sweat anymore. Just not worth it to me. :-)

[markaberrant]

3522 is not a saison yeast, it should be fermented as you would any other belgian yeast (start out low to mid 60s, let it ramp up into low 70s to finish). If you let a yeast like that go too high, you will get hot fusels.

Now depending on which saison yeast you use, some of them can go up to about 90F and not throw fusels.

[belsonc]

Hm - this was the one that came with the Northern Brewer Saison kit, so... little late to do anything about that now. ;-)


Think I'll just leave it where it is at the moment... might do a Belgian Strong Dark Ale on top of it for my brother in law, but that's a post for a different part of this website. :-)

[markaberrant]

Hm - this was the one that came with the Northern Brewer Saison kit, so... little late to do anything about that now. ;-)


Think I'll just leave it where it is at the moment... might do a Belgian Strong Dark Ale on top of it for my brother in law, but that's a post for a different part of this website. :-)

That kit looks like a Belgian Pale Ale more than anything. Wrong yeast, and the all grain kit even includes crystal malt, which doesn't belong in a saison. Not saying it won't be good, just not really a saison.

[cul8rv8]

I put my Saison in my garage about 3 weeks ago, it was around 90 degrees constant in there. Then when we got to where the temp was going up, about a week later, I moved it inside to a coat closet on an outside wall. That closet kept around 80 degrees. It was in there for about 2 weeks, and I racked to a glass carboy yesterday. Turns out it still has one more blip to go on fermentation (was down from 1.052 to a 1.012, I am expecting a 1.011), so now I have it at my house temp of 73, my fermometer shows 76, so I'm happy with it. I will say the sample I took at racking tasted exaclty like I wanted, fruity, slightly spicy, slightly sour. Just perfect.

However, I am using Wyeast 3724, the Saison strain. Looks like the 3522 has a high end limit of 85 degrees.

[markaberrant]

I put my Saison in my garage about 3 weeks ago, it was around 90 degrees constant in there. Then when we got to where the temp was going up, about a week later, I moved it inside to a coat closet on an outside wall. That closet kept around 80 degrees. It was in there for about 2 weeks, and I racked to a glass carboy yesterday. Turns out it still has one more blip to go on fermentation (was down from 1.052 to a 1.012, I am expecting a 1.011), so now I have it at my house temp of 73, my fermometer shows 76, so I'm happy with it. I will say the sample I took at racking tasted exaclty like I wanted, fruity, slightly spicy, slightly sour. Just perfect.

However, I am using Wyeast 3724, the Saison strain. Looks like the 3522 has a high end limit of 85 degrees.

What was your recipe? With that yeast, it should finish under 1.010. I made 2 saisons last year with that yeast, the OGs were 1.057 and 1.065, both finished at 1.008.

[dparsons]

Hm - this was the one that came with the Northern Brewer Saison kit, so... little late to do anything about that now. ;-)


Think I'll just leave it where it is at the moment... might do a Belgian Strong Dark Ale on top of it for my brother in law, but that's a post for a different part of this website. :-)

Seems any time you buy a recipe kit, they have assumed you don't know what you are doing and have made "simplifications" so that the beer comes out. You aren't likely to find much that is non-standard in a kit, and if a beer style requires non-standard techniques the kit will bypass it.

[Mad Scientist]

Seems any time you buy a recipe kit, they have assumed you don't know what you are doing and have made "simplifications" so that the beer comes out. You aren't likely to find much that is non-standard in a kit, and if a beer style requires non-standard techniques the kit will bypass it.

Before I stopped using kits and just made my own recipes, I always found Austin Homebrews kits to be style accuarate.

[MrNate]

Wow...95 in Long Island...you guys must be cooking...meat falling off the bone, stuff like that....

:D Yeah, but it's the humidity that makes it so bad!

[Mad Scientist]

:D Yeah, but it's the humidity that makes it so bad!

Hehe...we don't have that here, but we did go through a spell of 110 degree weather about a month back...

[beerking]

The humidity really does make a difference. During my sentence...er deployment, to Kuwait in '06, summer temperatures regularly hit the low 120s during the day, frequently even the upper 120s. During that time, the dew point ran between 27 and 42 (yes, that is in Farenheit). Quite honestly, for 120s, it really did not seem all that bad. I preferred it to what we have in No VA today (forecast high 97, dew point ~75).
One day the temp got to 136 (that is ambient air temp, not the temp of pavement). That was just awful, low humidty or not. I was out and about a lot (Army helicopters are not airconditioned) escorting a VIP, and at the end of the day I had a touch of heat exhaustion. Fortunately, sipping a bottle of cold Gatorade and resting in a cool room worked fine. I caught it in time.

[cul8rv8]

What was your recipe? With that yeast, it should finish under 1.010. I made 2 saisons last year with that yeast, the OGs were 1.057 and 1.065, both finished at 1.008.

I started with this: http://www.realbeer.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=17739&highlight=saison

But here is the recipe that I used. I certainly won't mind if it goes further, I'm just basing the 1.011 off what BeerSmith told me. My efficiency was way down this time, I modified it in the recipe so the OG was on the button.


BeerSmith Recipe Printout - www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Willis & Harriet's Farmhouse Ale
Brewer:
Asst Brewer:
Style: Saison
TYPE: Partial Mash
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.31 gal
Estimated OG: 1.052 SG
Estimated Color: 5.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 27.6 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 57.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
3.50 lb Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 46.67 %
2.25 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 30.00 %
0.75 lb Wheat Malt, Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 10.00 %
1.35 oz Fuggles [4.60 %] (60 min) Hops 22.7 IBU
0.45 oz Fuggles [4.60 %] (15 min) Hops 3.7 IBU
0.40 oz Saaz [3.60 %] (2 min) Hops 0.4 IBU
0.50 oz Fuggles [4.70 %] (2 min) Hops 0.7 IBU
1.00 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
0.50 lb Candi Sugar, Clear (0.0 SRM) Sugar 6.67 %
0.25 lb Corn Sugar (Dextrose) (0.0 SRM) Sugar 3.33 %
0.25 lb Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (1.0 SRM) Sugar 3.33 %
1 Pkgs Belgian Saison (Wyeast Labs #3724) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: My Mash
Total Grain Weight: 3.00 lb
----------------------------
My Mash
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
90 min Step Add 3.00 qt of water at 158.3 F 145.0 F

[belsonc]

Well, for what it's worth...


(Side note - I've always had a problem getting my FG down as far as it should be - most of my beers finish somewhere around 1020ish. Remember that, you'll be tested on it later.)


So you know the saison/BPA I started this thread about? I decided to leave it downstairs, where my stick-on thermometer is reading about 78 degrees. And the gravity reading from the sample I took tonight? 1014. The lowest reading I've gotten out of a beer so far. :-D Temperature adjusted, it comes out to about 1.016, but still - nice and low. And I'll have a nice yeast cake to do the BSDA for my brother in law that will be following this one up. It's a takeoff of a beer I did last year, but I'm bringing it more in style and less of a kind of "Well, that's kind of a Belgian..." :-)

So I'll either bottle it this weekend or next weekend - I'm not terribly worried about clarity for this beer, since it's just for me (and not for a competition or anything like that). Just thought I'd share my good beer night with all you guys. :-)

[Mad Scientist]

...Remember that, you'll be tested on it later....

I forgot to study last night...was drinking beer instead, you think I'll make it out of the test OK?