Saison yeast help

3724 makes a great saison. Short of using lacto or pedio, you can add 2-3 ounces of acid malt which should give it a nice tartness.

 

Belle Saison is pretty boring in my opinion. I agree that 3724 makes a tasty saison if you are patient. Do a starter, manage your fermentation temps and be willing to wait a bit, and you are basically guaranteed a good saison.

I just had an Orval tonight and was reminded once again how awesome that beer is. One thing you could do is dump some Orval dregs into your next batch, might get you closer to saison greatness.

 

Don't forget that Orval adds dregs to late secondary if you want that barnyard funk.

 

I actually just had the same thoughts as the OP last night drinking an Arthur. I love the spicy notes and tartness without excessive barnyard flavors. After a far less than extensive Google search, I believe Hill Farmstead's culture has some lacto that provides the tartness. Can anyone confirm/refute this?

 

Hill Farmstead uses WY3726 Farmhouse Ale as their house strain. Also Lacto and Brett. Get a pack of the 3726 and a bottle of their beer, pitch dregs at same time as Sacc, and let em ride for a couple months at room temp.

 

If you're looking for only saccharomyces then I'm partial to WY3711, but others mentioned 3724. Worth a shot, but if wanting a little tartness try adding some dregs from HF bottles like others mentioned. you can also add some tart fruit late in fermentation to get a little tartness.

I love orval, such a great beer and I don't drink enough of it anymore it seems like.

 

I am building up dregs from a bottle of clara right now. The starter smells sour and funky, the yeast isn't doing much. I'm gonna check gravity tonight and see where I am at. If I can't get this built up in time to pitch as a primary I will probably primary with wlp witbier yeast and pitch this into secondary.

 

and almost on cue my starter has come alive. Yeast went bonkers yesterday, 4 days into building up, and a pellicle is doing its damndest to form in between the evening stir and the morning stir.

 

Has anyone used or heard of any experiences with Yeast Bay's Farmhouse sour blend? The description from YB says the 2 sacch strains "will combine to create a delightful ester profile of grapefruit and orange zest, accompanied by a mild earthiness and spiciness." It also contains some lacto. This sounds right on for a Hill Farmstead-like brew.

 

I thought I remember seeing somewhere that HF uses a lager strain for bottling. Maybe it's different for different beers, I'm not sure. Have you confirmed by chance?

 

The starter has taken off. Lots of activity, went mt vesuvious on me when I swirled it this morning. Im thinking its ale yeast.

 

Slight correction as I double checked where I saw that info. It was a homebrewer's twitter account regarding him harvesting the yeast from a bottle of Everett. Shaun Hill confirmed that the bottling yeast strain was either American Ale yeast or a wine yeast (depending on the bottle's vintage).

So this might not apply to Clara bottles but might be good to know too. Please let us know how it turns out for you.

 

As of right now when my starter off gasses there are certainly familiar aromas of clara in there. It's very fruity, slightly sour, and a touch bready. Honestly, I have never, EVER, wanted to taste test a starter until this morning. Probably going to dial back the IBU's to 10ish on this recipe to let the lacto have a fighting chance and ferment this out with this stepped up one more time. It will be months before I can report anything back, but I feel this is going the direction I want. If this turns out well, and time and money permit a sample may be going out to get cultured and slated...

 

SFACRKnight - what was the turnout of your beer? I'm interested in brewing a funky saison myself but I think I'll do a 1 day kettle sour to build up lacto and then brew and ferment it as a normal beer so I don't have to wait for months for the slow bugs to do their thing.

 

Hey jbakajust1! Is this from a reliable source? Or is the method you quote something that has produced very HF like results? Their saisons are ridiculously easy to drink!

 

I can't remember the source for the 3726, but I do know that the special collabo with Blaugies wasn't too far off from there standard Saisons, and the 3726 is said to be the Blaugies strain. I had also heard somewhere that they might actually be using an ECY strain for primary. I did read on another BA thread that they use a killer strain for bottling to kill the primay Sacc strain. Their standard Saisons that I've had don't exhibit enough sourness to contain pedio which is why I stated Lacto. Their Lacto and Brett blend should be fairly easy to obtain from the bottle.