[quote=“andymag”]Well I let this saison brew settle out in the primary for 12 days and took a gravity reading yesterday. To my surprise and disappointment, the gravity was 1.040 (The OG post boil 1.072). I was not too pleased as many of you can guess. So, in a panic, I went to my local HB shop and purchased one WYeast 1056 American Ale and did a direct pitch (after the packed swelled) without a starter. My hope is that over the course of the next several days I can get this monster to dry up a bit and get it down to perhaps 1.015 or less. At which point I’ll dump my trub and let it clean up a bit for a few weeks than move it to cold storage in the keg.
Question, am I way off base with what I did? Is there a good possibility that I am going to have an extremely low alcohol, highly malty saison? One that is only suitable for my vegetable garden?
Being that I am using a Minibrew Conical fermenter, I can dump the trub after 7-10 days and let it sit for awhile. Does anyone else use this vehicle for fermenting? If so, would there be a chance that this beer can dry up further after the trub is dropped? In my case significantly?
:cheers: [/quote]
why not sour it or add some brett? That will chew through it and dry it up and you will have your strong saison that you wanted
“why not sour it or add some brett? That will chew through it and dry it up and you will have your strong saison that you wanted”
It may be too late now as I cannot get back to my homebrew shop till later this week. Also, would Brett change the flavor profile to something less desirable for a saison?
I am also concerned that once I introduce brett to my brewery, I may never get rid of it. Is this true?
[quote=“andymag”]“why not sour it or add some brett? That will chew through it and dry it up and you will have your strong saison that you wanted”
It may be too late now as I cannot get back to my homebrew shop till later this week. Also, would Brett change the flavor profile to something less desirable for a saison?
I am also concerned that once I introduce brett to my brewery, I may never get rid of it. Is this true?[/quote]
Saison and brett go hand in hand.
A few days is not going to hurt anything.
Soft equipment I would keep seperate to be safe
Patience, grasshopper. You seem to be rushing things. The saison yeast is not done fermenting after just 12-14 days. This yeast finishes slow and will likely need a full 4 weeks to finish up. Reference my previous post dated “Tue Jul 23, 2013 3:26 pm”. You can heat it up to help speed things along. You could also stir the trub back INTO suspension to wake up the yeast that has become buried at the bottom. I would definitely NOT remove the trub at this time as it will only stall your fermentation even worse than it is right now. The 1056 yeast addition probably did nothing for you. You’ve got like a billion saison yeast cells in there but only a small percentage of 1056, so there is a lot of competition in there right now. Patience.
If you were to add Brett (which I would NOT do), it will permanently contaminate any plastic or rubber (“soft”) components, as grainbelt indicated. So be careful if you decide to go that route.
[quote=“dmtaylo2”]Patience, grasshopper. You seem to be rushing things. The saison yeast is not done fermenting after just 12-14 days. This yeast finishes slow and will likely need a full 4 weeks to finish up. Reference my previous post dated “Tue Jul 23, 2013 3:26 pm”. You can heat it up to help speed things along. You could also stir the trub back INTO suspension to wake up the yeast that has become buried at the bottom. I would definitely NOT remove the trub at this time as it will only stall your fermentation even worse than it is right now. The 1056 yeast addition probably did nothing for you. You’ve got like a billion saison yeast cells in there but only a small percentage of 1056, so there is a lot of competition in there right now. Patience.
If you were to add Brett (which I would NOT do), it will permanently contaminate any plastic or rubber (“soft”) components, as grainbelt indicated. So be careful if you decide to go that route.[/quote]
I really should have listened to you from the start. I did, like a fool, dump my trub. I am going to try and rouse them a bit with a gentile shake of the fermenter and let it sit for a few more weeks like you originally suggested.
I will keep you posted with the outcome.
I hope I didn’t kill any chance this beer had of being good with my impatience. The reason I added the WYeast 1056 after two weeks was that I was following Jamil’s direction on his Saison recipe. I guess at this point I just have to wait and see. I am going to avoid going the Brett route as I am fermenting in a plastic mini conical and do not want to run the risk of that becoming a “Farmhouse” only fermenter.
There is still hope. Just needs a few more weeks to know for sure. You could also throw in some of that chemical known as “yeast energizer”. It has saved my butt on more than one occasion for stalled fermentations. Works like magic.
Yeast Energizer? Interesting. I never heard of it, but now I am intrigued. The directions state to add 1/4 tsp per gallon of wort. Is that directly pitched in, or does it have to be boiled into water, cooled, then pitched?
Just throw it in. Doesn’t need to be boiled or anything. It looks like a salt but I believe it is made out of dead yeast cells, so it has everything the yeast needs to be healthy. It will dissolve on its own pretty quickly without any special treatment.
Just bottled my dry-hopped saison yesterday. The base beer had a definite sipcy character, and the dry-hopping subdued that. Its pretty hoppy right now but I know it’ll tame down after a few weeks and hit a sweet spot.
Checked my gravity yesterday. I hit 1.009 for my assumed final gravity. I plan on letting it clean up a bit more for a week and moving to the keg to cold crash then carb.
[quote=“andymag”]Checked my gravity yesterday. I hit 1.009 for my assumed final gravity. I plan on letting it clean up a bit more for a week and moving to the keg to cold crash then carb.
Thank you all for the input and help.
This forum is great.
:cheers: [/quote]
Not trying to be picky, but if you actually measured it, your Final Gravity is not longer assumed. Assumed would be what you or your software “think” it might stop at.
[quote=“560sdl”][quote=“andymag”]Checked my gravity yesterday. I hit 1.009 for my assumed final gravity. I plan on letting it clean up a bit more for a week and moving to the keg to cold crash then carb.
Thank you all for the input and help.
This forum is great.
:cheers: [/quote]
Not trying to be picky, but if you actually measured it, your Final Gravity is not longer assumed. Assumed would be what you or your software “think” it might stop at.[/quote]
Assumed meaning that after three weeks this is where I am at, but I am going to let it go another week and do another reading. This could of course drop a little more. I do not expect it to, therefore it is assumed.
