Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale

I lived and fermented in the attic of a poorly insulated house for a year.  In the summer, it was well above the temperatures recommended for brewing for ordinary yeast, but a pro-brewer I met in a homebrew shop gave me a tip.

He said that one of the breweries where he worked would ferment at "blood warm" temperatures with a version of White Labs Saisson yeast (WLP565).

I brewed a nice Saisson as my first attempt at all grain brewing using that yeast in > 80F temperatures.  I think it is one of the few yeasts that doesn't produce offensive flavors at those temperatures.

Belgians are famous for high temp fermentations.  If I am making a saison, or any other sort of Belgian, I find that summer is the best time to abuse/do it.  80-82 degrees do wonderful things to that style (lots of esters and fruitiness) and those Belgian yeasts can take that sort of punishment. 

Saisons are funky, though.  When I met Garrett Oliver he told me that the saison strains that homebrewers get are good, but they can just poop out before they hit terminal gravity.  There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason as to when it happens or when it doesn’t.  That's why he recommended having a neutral backup yeast (like a California strain) to complete fermentation and dry the saison out if it quits early.

Good to know.  I've played around with making Belgian styles probably about 6 or so times, and one conclusion I've come to (with unusual certainty) is that fermentation temperature and the yeast strain creates the style.  It is really amazing how much temperature can influence these yeasts.  I'll probably take your advice and try that saison yeast this summer.  I had one bad experience with fermenting at higher temps that I think is worthy of noting.  Wyeast used to make a Canadian/Belgian yeast (Unibroue brewery strain, 3864) that is now only an occassional seasonal offering.  This yeast can put off HUGE amounts of phenols at higher temps.  I mean to the point where it becomes barely drinkable.  Most of the other yeasts I've tried have behaved well at higher temps, and sometimes really need the higher temps to produce the desirable spiciness (Wyeast 3522 for example).  FYI, the book "Brew Like a Monk" is excellent for more information about Belgian yeasts, the strains used by the different breweries, fermentation temps, etc.

White Labs provides data sheets with descriptions of aromas and flavors produced for narrow temperature ranges.  The data sheets have historically been non-obvious on their website, so I usually use a Google trick.  Try searching e.g. "wlp500 pdf site:whitelabs.com", which restricts the search to their website.  This link should appear : http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/belgianchart.pdf.

The same trick will yield other data sheets, once the desired strain is known.

I find this rather useful when I try to pick strains for ideas I have.

Generally, I don't try for specific styles or to mimic specific beers.  I have ideas about what I like, and I'd rather try some Frankenbrew that no one has ever tasted before.  So far, it has worked one way or another every time.

Most of my beers ferment at the temperature of my house (so, 68 - 75+ F), and since I almost always use Belgian strains, things work out well. The flavors aren't harsh, and the Belgian yeasts make the brewery closet smell good.

After listening to Jamil's Saison show, which by the way is a veritable treasure trove of wisdom, I realized that digital temperature control was the next logical step in my brewing--even before going all-grain. My Saison was pitched at 67F from a 2L starter and was ramped up to 85F over the course of a week. After working its way down to 1.020 it got lazy. And I mean super stubborn. So I sat on it, gave it time, told those little yeasties that I needed them to finish what they started, and lo and behold, about three weeks later they chomped that thang down to about 1.010. Yippeee! No re-yeasting for me. Just a vigorous pitch and precise fermentation control. I'd love for your feedback and constructive critiques... so let me know how we can get together and drink some belgo-brew. Can you tell that I'm hooked on this style? 

I wish I'd made it to Mike's for the Brooklyn Dinner. Maybe we could invite him back.

That's sort of interesting.  My saisson improved in bottles over the course of a year (after a year was up I was only down to a few bottles, and they were drinking well, so I don't have anymore).  Maybe something similar happened to my beer, since I know I undershot the classic OG range, as it was a first time brewing.  My second attempt had a better OG, but I didn't like the beer as much.  Maybe I just didn't let it age.  Some buddies of mine who had traveled to Belgium and France and sampled saissons said it was dead on for the style.  *shrug*  I might try to screw with the recipe again this summer.

My take on improving brewing is that partial mashing and quality liquid yeast make a world of difference in the complexity of the resulting beer.  I'll keep all grain brewing because it's fun, but I'm not convinced that all grain is recommended or necessary to generate great beer.  About the yeast, I figure that better quality yeast is more forgiving of temperature variation, or at least, I don't mind what results.  My temps don't swing hard anymore anyway, since I moved, and fermentation happens in a closet at about a constant 70 F, next to the keg fridge.

Build yourself a cheap lagering unit that can be used for maintaining ale temperatures as well.  I am fermenting an IPA right now at 60 deg. F.

http://www.absbrew.com/index.php?act=viewDoc&docId=7

This can also be done for a more expensive Sanyo 4912M model fridge that can also be converted to a kegerator.

I never used to worry about ale ferments, but for those ales that don't favor well with high temp esters, it works great. Especially if you are fermenting in such extreme conditions.  My life, weathering the elements. (Outdoor brewer, wife kicked me out of the kitchen).

Lagering for less is right on. I haven't ventured into lagering as of yet but it does look appealing. Last night I tried Victory's Baltic Thunder and was impressed. I'll post a review. It lagered-out character made me want to give the method a try. With Belgo-styled brews I like to ramp up the heat thus the digital controls but if you don't make too many then you can definitely get away with 65-72 ambient temps and of course the yeast will always churn out some extra heat of its own.

I'm looking forward to trying everyone's beers--that's what this is all about!

My lager fridge was done on the cheap.  I traded a friend an old electric guitar that I had not used in years for his tall dorm fridge.  It is a GE of some unknown model that stands about 3.5 feet tall.  I then unscrewed the freezer part (which is an upside down "U") and very slowly twisted it upside down.  You have to do this very slowly or you may kink the the freon line and cause your fridge not to work.  I then remounted the freezer part so now, and it now has enough space for my 6 gal carboy, so long as I use a blow off tube and not a normal airlock.  I bought a $40 plug in thermostat and I was good to go.  I have to set the thermostat about 8 degrees cooler than the actual temp in the fridge, because the freezer part (which cools the whole unit) is so close to the top of the fridge.  I may install a small fan in there to move the air around better, but this works for now.

I'm currently fermenting in a closet, which is serendipitously near the AC unit and its thermostat, so basically, I just choose yeast that works at 68-72 degrees F (so fermenting at 70-74).  That's been working well.  Generally, I'm disinterested in lagers.  There's some flavor in a lot of them that turns me off.  There are notable exceptions.  Namely, I would brew A LOT of a good Herold Bohemian clone, except that Google seems blissfully unaware of a clone recipe.