Suddenly! Saison

[mashani]

@Inkleg, everyone is giving you good advice.

I like both yeast rules saisons and also late hopped saisons.

Most of my Saisons fall in the 1.04 to 1.056ish range. I've brewed them as low as 1.036 but I like them a bit bigger then that. The thing to consider is that the real Saison yeast strains ferments the heck out of stuff, 90%+ attenuation is not unusual. So you abv is higher then you would expect, and session beer gravity is well... lower then you are used to. Now there is nothing wrong with a 1.07 big saison once in a while, but it's a winter beer, for sipping. My last one started at 1.048 and finished at 1.002.

if you like the taste of the Dupont, then you want a yeast that is more bubblegummy then French saison or Bella saison... if you can't get the once a year yeast, then Wyeast or Whitelabs Belgian Saison is the thing to use there IMHO. Problem with that yeast is it's finicky as heck***. I would start fermentation in the 70s with it and let it free rise... and then once it slows down, ramp up to 90 or more... really. You don't need to go that high with the French / Bella saison, but the Belgian strain is weird. I know someone who let it get over 100 when finishing in his attic and he still made good beer. Which is scary.

*** EDIT: Finicky as heck = it gets to 1.02ish and then stops working. It will usually restart if you raise the temps into the 90s and/or feed it a bit of sugar. Some folks pitch a second Belgian strain, but as far as I'm concerned that's a disaster waiting to happen. Belgian Saison is NOT DONE just like French saison until you are in the crazy high attenuation range. If it wakes up in your bottles due to higher conditioning temps, that's bad... I've never had it stick as long as I pitch it warm, do NOT try to control it's temp, LET it free rise, and do what it wants, and then crank up the temps into the 90s to finish.

[DaYooper]

Ditto the Belgium strain. I was elated when the Bella dry came out and worked like a champ. My Belle Of The Ball started <I believe> at around 1.056 and the hydrometer at bottling (unadjusted) was 1.002. I started probably at ambient (70 or so) and ramped up two degrees per day to the mid to upper 80's. The hydro sample tasted wonderful - now I have to wait the 2-3 weeks like a good little boy to try one.

[Rebel_B]

Ditto again! I used the Wyeast Belgian on a Saison in July and just as Mashani described it 'hung'. Finally, after 6 weeks in a fermenter it got down to 1.007. It is bottle conditioning (bottled on 8/24/13) right now... Samples tasted awesome. The Danstar Belle is easy in comparison.

[mashani]

I'm loving everything I made with the Bella this summer. It's going to be my go-to summer yeast I think.