first all grain brew; saison recipe critique

Wyeast 3724 makes a tasty Saison but that yeast can be fussy. I would suggest a 2 liter starter.

Cheers!

 

+1 on Wyeast 3724 being fussy. I just finished a Saison with it, and took 8 weeks to finish. Also, I would skip 2ndary and just pitch the dregs in primary. Or for a more subtle funk, add at bottling.

Recipe looks really solid though, will be tasty.

 

What temperature did you ferment? Did the fermentation stall?

Cheers!

 

I like that yeast, and I pitch a single smack pack with a vial of whatever brett I want. I DO NOT ramp the heat way the hell up as it has produced some nasty phenols for me in the past, and the brett will dry it out nicely. Don't piss with brett in the secondary unless you want to wait forever to get that it's there. By then your hops will have faded anyway. If you cant find hallertau blanc, nelson throws some whit wine flavors as well.

 

Looks good to me, I recently brewed a session saison with 2L pitch of DuPont dregs that I grew up. Let it ferment on my South FL patio, came out nice & funky. I say, bring the heat.

 

. . . and I thought I fermented DuPont yeast hot. I usually take my saison up to the mid 80s and never had a problem with stalling. Regarding pitching 3724; I would look at the date on the package and use a calculator to make a starter that yielded ~205B cells.

Not sure what 3 weeks in a secondary will contribute that you won't get in a bottle. What I would do is split off at least a few bottles (sans Orval) to drink in 6-8 weeks. Call it a test or call it something good to drink earlier.

As this is your first AG batch recommend you spend some time determining how much to sparge to your brew kettle. Lots of good references on boil-off rates, hop absorption, trub waste, etc. Try to have a good estimate and means to measure the wort quantity to the kettle. Good luck.

 

3711 and don't change a thing.

 

I ferment my saison with 3724 and brett drie at 80 until I hit fg, and then it conditions for 2 months at room temp. After that I dryhop for 5 days and *BOOM* juicy ass saison.

 

Nelson is great in a saison. I have a recipe in our database here with nelson in a saison that is very, very white wine like.

 

I believe but can't prove that White Labs 566 is Brasserie de Blaugies yeast, which would in turn mean that it derived from Dupont--it seems to be agreed that Brasserie de Blaugies originally got their yeast from the nearby Brasserie Dupont-- but adapted/mutated at Blaugies to a yeast which is much less finicky and works well at lower temperatures than 3724 requires but retains some of that Dupont character w/ slightly different (and fruitier IMO) phenols...

I have cultured directly from La Moneuse bottles and I have used WL 566 and I believe the result to be close enough to the same that I think these strains are one...

To me this yeast is more expressive than 3711 but almost as easy to work with.

So I would suggest trying this one.