how much sugar do you guys put in a saison?

I don't use any sugar in my saisons, but that is with other strains of yeasts. FWIW, my last two batches of Ardennes yeast had 80% aa, mashed at 147/155 and 152, ferm at 72 with a rise.

 

I usually don't put any. Easiest way for me to make a saison 'drier' is to just mash low and slow with a stepped temp rise during fermentation.

 

I usually don't add any sugar. But when I did a Saison Dupont clone, including "refermentation," the amount of priming sugar needed to hit the target CO2 level was enough that it was a fairly significant contributor to the ABV and had to be planned for rather than being an afterthought.

While working on that recipe, I had a bit of an a-ha moment when I realized the priming sugar contribution was needed to make the numbers work in a supposedly "all malt" recipe. IIRC it was around 9 ounces of corn sugar in a 5.1 gallon batch.

 

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. 0-10%. @ghostinthemachine was unhappy with 1.007 fg but to my way of thinking, this is sufficiently low and I've found Saison tasty at this gravity. My first 3711 beer took me by surprise. I used sugar in the 5-10% range, og In the 1060-70 range, and had a beer that finished at 1.000. It was too boozy for me.

 

I don't either, the yeast takes it low enough by itself.

 

No need, now that I revealed my secret to an ultra dry saison. FWIW, I just reviewed my beersmith files. In 2010, I used 1 lb of turbinado, 10 lbs Belgian pils, and 2 pounds of flaked rye, and an oz of turbinado for autumnal color (7.6% sugar by weight, contributing ~12% of the gravity). I had a 75% efficiency which was high for me back then. OG was measured at 1.065 and fg at 1.000.

One possibility for not liking this is I remember it being a little fusel-y, maybe due to excess FAN. My notes indicate I used 1 tsp of yeast nutrient in that batch but nowadays my assumption is there is plenty of FAN in the wort and I don't use yeast nutrient in beers.

FWIW, I have a lower gravity saison (maybe more of a grisette) on my agenda, and a pack of Mangrove Jack French Saison dry yeast that I will throw at it. I expect it will be dry.

 

I'll be using it at lower, northern WI temperatures.

 

Definitely depends on the strain. I like my saisons dry. 3711 I won't use any. I've used up to 1 lb candi sugar in the last 5 min of boil before for a rye saison that turned out well. Saison blend II from yeast bay took it down to around 1.005. I don't think I'd go any more than 1 lb of sugar though for a saison.

 

Another 'vote' that whether to use sugar or not is yeast strain dependent.

Cheers!

 

I put 5% in my most recent Saison (kegging this weekend). I have a blend of 90% Belgian and 10% French and the last Saison I brewed finished up at 1.005. This one hit 1.000 in 4 days. I like my Saisons to be bone dry.

 

The dark grist was probably at fault for this. How much vegetal matter (amount of hops) did you have in the boil? Also, did you add any spices? A grainbill would also be useful.

Even if you use POF+ yeast strains, phenolic precursors are what causes vinyl phenols, like 4VG (clove), to form. More precursors, more phenolic flavors and aromas.

 

None in my last batch