Saison beginner questions

That sounds awesome!

When are you brewing the next one?

 

Not a bad idea on waiting for the ambient temp to increase, definitely a money saver.

Those are some of my favorite beers to drink, however I have had some real trouble brewing them AG for some reason! I can do Ales/SMaSH no problem, but once I set out to make a complex IPA it turns out bad. Haha. Just a little curse on my homebrewing I guess.

You should be able to brew some economy beer. Once you get the infrastructure bought, it's super cheap to brew in my opinion! Not factoring in time of course. I have had great success with brewing Hefe's and Ales from extract.
I saved 12oz and 22oz bottles for a while and cleaned/sani'd/stored them. It's a pain, but a right of passage I now dump the bottle in a bucket of cleaner as soon as it's drank/poured. Way cuts down on cleaning time. I now Keg and bottle from there for storage.

I'm not sure if you will gain much savings from lowering from 5 gallons to 2-3. Since you buy the extract in "bulk." I always found that I needed a bit more or less than what I could buy in 5lb bags, or 3.3 lb tubs. Storing LME never seemed to work for me either.

Anyway - Cheers! It seems that you have caught the bug!

 

I have a question...I have a Saison in the fermenter now for the past 11 days. Airlock bubbles have slowed down considerably but not stopped yet. Going to let it sit for 10 ish days at 79 degrees then keg it with priming sugar. Maybe honey from this years bee hives.

I will put a spunding valve on the keg and let it naturally carbonate for 2 weeks. At what psi should I set the valve? I was thinking 15 psi. Does this sound like the way to go?

 

15 psi is going to be too low at anything close to room temp. The right pressure setting for the spunding valve depends on how many volumes of CO2 you want and the temperature the carbonation is happening at. Consult the kegging pressure/temperature/CO2 volume charts. They're all over the internet and the relationships between the numbers are the same for naturally carbonating as they are for force carbonation.

ETA: If your beer's fermentation is finished, and you add the right amount of priming sugar to reach the CO2 level you want, you don't need to spund at all. The keg can be sealed (just like a bottle).

 

Thanks...I guess 3.2 is the level for a saison so that's what I'm going to shoot for. I'm planning on letting the beer sit on the yeast cake for a couple days after ferment is done to help it reabsorb off flavors? I have read I need about half the sugar to prime in a keg as opposed to a bottle. Is this true? And what kind of pressure will the beer produce if I really over do it on the sugar? Just curious. Thanks for your time answering a newbie.

 

This is generally a good idea. But it's better to use your taste buds rather than a calendar to help you decide.

No. Where did you read that?

As long as you use the appropriate amount of sugar for your actual (not planned) beer volume for your target CO2 level, and assuming fermentation was actually completed first, you won't overdo it. If you're curious about what kind of pressures you'd get if you mis-measured the beer volume or the sugar, just tweak the inputs on a carbonation calculator to see what the CO2 volumes will be. Then take that CO2 volumes number and consult a kegging chart to see what the pressure would be at any given temperature. In case you are wondering, you would have to screw up really badly to get anywhere near the max pressure rating of a corny keg.

 

Thanks this helps a lot, I appreciate your advice.

Cheers.

 

One more question...hehe...should I mix my yeast cake into my beer before I rack into my keg? It will be in the carboy for 3 weeks when I rack. Will it still carb to level is I just rack my clear beer?

 

No.

 

Yes.

 

Sweet thanks!!!

 

Are you using the Dupont strain?

 

wlp 568

 

So yes. Some people think it has issues with co2 toxicity. I'll be curious how spunding goes.

 

WLP568 is a blend. That said, I have carbonated to about 3.9 volumes in a closed keg with the Dupont strain, with no problems. That's a lot of CO2. (3.9 was the target. It didn't get "stuck" there.)

 

As i was thinking about this I don't ever recall anyone complaining about "stuck" bottle conditioning.

 

It was suggested that I don't need a spunding valve as the keg can take any overpressure. Should I put a valve on anyway?

 

If you were bottling this, would you be expecting excess pressure?