Dan Star Belle Saison fermenaton temps

I have only used Belle Saison once. Temp range if I remember correctly was between 75 and 85 (August in the house with no A/C) and it finished just fine. Went from 1.063 to 1.004 in 3 weeks.

 

My repeated experience with 3724 is that if you treat it right (proper pitch rate, oxygenation, and nutrients), it will not stall. I never take it above 80-ish degrees and it has never stalled for me. It's usually slow though.

IIRC, @Homebrew42 has fermented 3724 in the low/mid 70s without a problem.

My point is you don't necessarily have to go above the 77F upper range you found for Danstar Belle in order to accommodate 3724. I assume you'll be controlling the ambient temp inside a single chamber for both batches. Just in general, that could be tricky...if one batch is fermenting more actively than the other, their wort temps could be quite different.

 

My local homebrew club recently had a competition where we all brewed Northern Brewer's Petite Saison recipe but with the Belle Saison yeast (this yeast and recipe were required). There were about 10 entrants. All the beers turned out wonderful. The first and second place winners both started fermentation with the Belle Saison yeast in the mid to upper 60s and only let it rise to approximately 74-75 F. Mine was first place. It's kind of a slow yeast. It took 3.5 weeks to finish fermentation. Keep the temperature reasonable, and give it time, and it will ferment all the way down to about 1.002 and taste just wonderful, with the slight lemony thing and black peppery spiciness. I love this yeast and it might be the only one I ever use for saisons.

 

What was the balance of flavors for your Saison? Would you ay that the black pepper spice flavors were prominent and that the citrus flavor was subdued?

Cheers!

 

Both the lemon and pepper characters were present but neither was too powerful. Most of all it tasted like a highly attenuated Belgian ale. Very Belgiany. By that, I mean it had the typical interesting pear and fruit punchy esters as well, while not overpowering the honey graham crackeriness of the pilsner malt and low key spicy hops. It was all very well balanced. It was all present with nothing being too strong.

 

I suspect Belle Saison and 3711 are the same.

 

I have only brewed with Belle Saison once and my homebrewed Saison tasted like 3711.

Cheers!

 

So it sounds like the Belle is the French Saison yeast.

 

If not exactly the same, a pretty good substitute. I thought Belle was similar to WY 3711 in terms of flavor profile, but my one use of Belle had 80% apparent attenuation, whereas my one use with 3711 had 98% apparent attenuation. I do not have more personal data to share with you because I prefer the flavor profiles of 3724, WLP 565, and WLP 585. However, lots of people have reported similar experiences with 3711. I'm not sure my experience with Belle is similarly supported by the masses.

 

FWIW, I'd agree with your experience. If you're going to go dry, the Mangrove Jack's Belgian is my preference. If going liquid, there are so many more interesting options than 3711 nowadays, but it is super-reliable.

 

Your experience with Belle is NOT supported by the masses. Most of us get the same 98% apparent attenuation from Belle. My saison went from like 1.055 to 1.002, but it took 4 weeks to get there. How long did you let yours go? The last 5 or 10 gravity points take 3 of the 4 weeks. To anyone else who tries it...... don't rush it. It needs time and lots of it.

 

I only used Belle once and my experience was:

• OG: 1.059
• FG: 1.001
• Apparent Attenuation: 98%

I bottled after 2 weeks.

The flavor profile was very similar to 3711. As you can see above the attenuation was the same as well.

Cheers!

 

Next time, try rehydrating your yeast and watch it finish in two weeks. Muhahahaha!

 

I don't recall how long, but if it takes time it isn't like my experience with 3711 in that regard either.