Saison

Jack, in my mind, I consider Belle to be the dry yeast equivalent of 3711. I don't necessarily mean derived from the same strain; I have no knowledge of that. Just that they create similar phenoloic profiles and ferment to a high degree of dryness. Do you think this summation is reasonable?

 

Estimating is not 100%. Especially when using adjuncts that significantly buffer your mash pH (like wheat).

 

At the very least, I would make sure my water was free from chlorine/chloramines. Saison yeasts tend to make phenols, which can combine with chlorine to make chlorophenols. Hard to say without tasting your beer, but I wonder if your saisons may have enough chlorophenols to make them taste a little off. Between that possibility, and mash pH, and overall water content, I think there's a lot for you to check out.

If you know your water profile (or start from RO/distilled), you can use BrewCipher or one of the other sheets to estimate the mash pH. You won't be able to confirm it, but it would be better than flying blind.

 

Peter,

I did not brew a traditional Saison with Danstar Belle Saison so I do not feel comfortable making a comparison between 3711 and Danstar Belle Saison. I have read a number of posts where folks opine that 3711 and Danstar Belle Saison are very similar. The best that I can say based upon my one time brewing with Danstar Belle Saison is that I did not find them to be dissimilar. For completeness I really should brew a traditional Saison with Danstar Belle Saison to really evaluate it but frankly I am not going to do that; based upon my readings and the one time I have brewed with Danstar Belle Saison I would only ever use this strain again for a Hoppy Saison like the one batch I brewed with this stain.

I would not discourage others from using Danstar Belle Saison but it just is not a 'winner' for me.

Cheers!

Jack

 

Fair enough. I similarly have minimal experience and was hoping to put my memory of that experience in broader context. I thought that you had perhaps used it more frequently.

 

@jbakajust1

A slightly conservative yeast pitch, a moderate oxygen addition to the wort post chilling, a touch of german crystal malt in the recipe, and a sparge cool enough to not bring the grain into mash out range. In other words, the sparge is acting more like a step mash and favoring alpha amylase at the end. So it's balancing out my beta favoring mash temp.

 

Did a lot of Saison using 3711, very friendly strain, excellent reusable yeast, highly versatile. I just lern how to mellow down some of it's properties by adding 2th and 3rd yeast strain on primary.