The How My Averagely Perfect Saison Turned Out Thread

I subscribed to this idea when I bottled my lagers and was quite happy with the result. I was just thinking that in our various AP polls, we never really addressed aging. With the funkified sourish beers, keeping it in a secondary during aging does allow one to adjust to taste as it ages, until you get to a point that you like. Since that's not really part of the AP model, perish the thought.

 

I brewed it a week ago, temp never managed to get over 75F but today it's already at 1.006 and the hydrometer sample smells magnificent. I never imagined my garage would stay cool in May down here.

 

Bottling day tasting sample:Chunks of yeast float at the top of the fermenter skimmed from the hydrometer and tasting sample. FG 1.002, actually dropped three points over the course of the last week, or else I made a measurement mistake.
-Appearance: pale yellow, straw, cloudy.
-Nose: Naugahyde leather, new car smell, with a little pineapple and cat pee.
-Mouth (Taste, body, etc): Very thin in the mouth, slight sweetness still detectable when I swirl it around in my mouth. Astringent finish. Alcohol taste that I thought I noticed at lasts

Personal opinion. So much about what I like about 3724 seems to be missing from this. I've had a commercial brett saison that used the same too yeasts and a similarly simple recipe (but higher starting gravity) and I liked it. This one, not so much. I'm thinking the key must be where in the process Brett is added and how much.

 

Judging a beer before it's even carbed is a moot point. This beer will hit its stride after 3-5 months in the bottle. Pre-carbed judgments are of limited value.

 

To a point, true, and perhaps more true for this one because of the nature of brett. However, I have dumped beers rather than bottle them because I did not like the taste, and I have no regrets about it. If I think a beer is destined to a loser, I don't want to waste any more effort. Furthermore, if you don't test the beer periodically to develop data points for your timeline, you will be in the dark a second time, should you decide to rebrew. But mostly, sampling at this point gives me something to post about so people like you can tell me it's too soon to worry.

 

Follow up: Fermenter now at 72F for the past week, SG at 1.004, dropped one point. Flavors continue to develop. The brett is becoming much more noticable, I'm getting hay, and general barnyard flavors out front now, and just a hint of pineapple noticeable now. I'm also getting some astringency now late in the after taste, but I'm not worried about that yet. I'm hoping the SG will drop a few more points.

 

Mine is two and a half weeks in. Still with a sizeable krausen and bubbling intermittently. Was hoping to bottle at the 3 week mark, but that is looking less and less likely. Also, don't have a SG reading because I recently broke my 4th hydrometer

 

Are you jousting with them?

 

I'm not telling you it's too soon to worry. In fact, you should be very worried right now. Your hydro sample was clearly inferior to JohnSnow's and the recipe is the same.

You can sample the beer as often as you'd like before it's ready to drink. I have found it to be a pointless exercise. YMMV

 

I just finished bottling my batch. After 5 weeks, I was down to 1.005. The sample had some good fruity esters and nice spicy notes. There was a touch of funk starting to come through, but still very subdued. I'm definitely excited to see where this goes over the next few months.

 

This is my Brix FG hydrometer, reading about 0.8 which should be around 1.003 FG. I didn't use the yeast specified in the thread, I used a combo of saison and brett yeasts from Funkwerks in Ft. Collins CO. But I hit this FG in 10 days at under 80F. I've got 5 gallons kegged, and 5 gallons racked onto 12 pounds of crabapples. I'm about to leave town for a month, it'll be interesting to see what I have when I get back home.

 

From the What Homebrew Are You Drinking? thread:
http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...g-may-2015-edition.288594/page-2#post-3681732

 

picture?

 

It looks like beer. You know? Kind of yellowish, fizzy white head. I don't have a picture.

 

Just took a gravity reading and am currently sitting at about 1.004. I really like where the flavor of this beer is headed. Already catching a good dose of the Brett surprisingly. Not overly funky but it seems to be playing well with Dupont. Very excited to see how this one ends up.

 

Ditto. I brewed this about 10 days ago and my SG was right around the same as everyone else. And I had a very similar opinion on flavor. Should be a good one.

 

Do brett beers struggle with head retention, e.g., yeast breakdown of proteins? It had a strong head when I poured, but it got thin fast.

 

Not typically.

 

I brewed mine well over a month ago, haven't gotten around to bottling. But I'm thinking it might make a good Independence Day beer anyway

 

4 weeks later... SG settled at 1.002. I bottled this past weekend. I went with 2.6 Vols for the priming calc, mainly because there was a bit of carbonation in the beer already since I closed the fermenter at about 1.004 so those last two points carbed the beer a bit. It has pretty much lost all of the pineapple flavors. But has developed a beautiful brett character. I can't wait to start cracking these things open. I'll test one on the 4th of July.