I’m brewing the Storm the Bastille kit tomorrow and don’t know what temperature to pitch and finish with.
I have a 2 liter starter of Wyeast 3711 on my stir-plate right now. The temperature range for this strain is 65
77 degrees. I typically keep my wort at the bottom of the temperature range to avoid esters and fusel alcohols.
However, I’ve gathered that the flavor profile of a saison includes some esters.
I don’t understand when you are supposed to raise the temperature of a fermentation. I see people talk about it often on the forum - with the goal being to help the yeast finish their job, but how is one to know what temperature to begin and end with? After all, I’ve always been under the impression that keeping the temperature constant is very important. I have a temperature controller so any adjustment is easy to achieve.
Any experience or resources would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
I use WY 3711 for NBs’ Petite Saison. I’ll pitch the yeast at about 64°F wort temperature. I let the fermentation temperature free rise. The fermentation temperature will rise to 72° - 73° with an ambient temperature of 68°. I don’t artificially raise the fermentation temperature any higher with this yeast. My philosophy is the yeast will finish their job with a well aerated wort and the proper pitch rate. The Petite finishes at 1.003.
I don’t like the funky esters of Belgian beers. This probably influences preferring a cooler fermentation temperature to bring out the spice with WY 3711.
I pitch 3711 around 70 and let it go to even 80+ I don’t want my saison to clean, not to style in my opinion. It’s not for everyone I try to emulate allagash saison my favorite
You can go quite high with most Saison yeasts-up to the mid 80’s if you want without getting a lot of off flavors (spicy phenols and fruity esters are desirable in saisons). I like to use the Blaugies strain (Wyeast 3726, Imperial B-56 “Rustic”) that yeast likes to ferment hot-the brewer at Blaugies Chills to 77F and lets it rise to the mid 80’s to get the profile he wants. I raise the temperature over the first 24-36 hours from pitching temp to whatever I decide the peak temp is going to be.
Me did brew. About 8 weeks ago a storm the bastille. Think its almost ready to keg. Think will do it saturday. But do pitch around. 70. Yeah i know. But the temp here on island. Have no other choice. Keep temp undercontrol. For. 6 days. Swamp cooler system. Than let it go higher. This works good with the kind of yeast i use
Thank you all for your replies. I set my temperature controller at 66 and it’s churning away nicely now. I still do extract and topped the wort off right at 5 gallons. OG was way higher than expected: 1.107. Recipe estimated 1.094.
i just hope the yeast can get the FG down in the 1.000’s
