BeerBorg

I’m not really a fan of saisons, but I bought a Brewers Best kit for Belgian Stout to make for a friend’s husband. If I decide I like it, he only gets half. In the kit is Lallemand Belle Saison. On the Lallemand website it says to rehydrate. In the Brewers Best instructions is says to sprinkle it on top, DO NOT REHYDRATE. So who do I listen to? And if it doesn’t really matter, I wonder why they all-capped that. Anybody had any experience with this yeast?

I have used it once in a saison and I loved it! I can't imagine why you would need to rehydrate it, as it a beast of a yeast dry. I sprinkled it dry and got nearly 100% attenuation. I plan on making a saison in the next couple of brews, and I'll be using Belle.

I've used it both ways and didn't notice a big difference, I think the rehydrated might have taken off a little faster. What Temp. are you going to pitch and ferment at?

I've always just chucked in the Bella without rehydrating it.

I don't mean this to scare you but just so you know what your dealing with here:

If you fermentation temperatures are warm at all, it is going to ferment out BONE DRY. As in it might attenuate 97%+. I've had 1.05ish batches without any added sugar adjunct go down to 0.98is territory with it. It chews through stuff that other beer yeasts won't touch except for Wyeast 3711 (I think it is derived from the same yeast strain).

Maybe at very cool (63-64?) temperatures you could get it to leave a few points in there. Bella does not need really warm temps to ferment out, the batches as above I fermented 66-74ish (free temperature rise). So I would not worry about it getting stuck... more just a matter of how much ester production you want, and maybe preserving a few points of gravity...

To me I would think Bella would make a stout like the Dupont "Monks Stout". Which was so bone dry and light bodied it was like drinking a strong golden infused with charcoal. Which sounds bad, but it wasn't as bad as it sounds. But it wasn't something I'd want every day.


If I was making Belgian Stout I'd use 3787. I think stouts should have some body and some hints of residual sweetness - even dry Irish stouts have a hint. With bella you are going to have none, unless you are throwing in a bunch of crystal or lactose, and even then I think it will seem less then you would think - Bella might even chew up some of that stuff.

The kit contains 1 lb. extra dark belgian candi syrup and 1/2 lb. maltodextrin. Will that make a difference? Can I just keep an eye on the gravity and rack it off at about 1.010 or so?

The maltodextrin will stay in there and give it body/mouthfeel and extra final gravity points, but very little sweetness.

Candi syrup will make it taste Belgian like, stone fruit/raisin, etc, and help with head retention but won't provide body and only a hint of sweetness. If I was making Belgian Stout I'd certainly use dark candi syrup, so that's good thing.

So it will still taste dry, but it won't be as thin as I feared it could turn out.

Racking it isn't going to stop it from fermenting out all the way, it will just slow down the process. You'd still have to let it ferment out or get bottle bombs or more fermentation in your keg which might turn out messy. You'd need to filter out all the yeast to actually stop it. That or pasteurize it.

So I'd just let it go until it's done.