Author: Marshall Schott

If there’s one style of beer I expect to be dry as a bone and endlessly crushable, it has to be Saison. To me, there’s no other example that hits this mark better than Saison Dupont, a crisp and refreshing beer that derives its unique peppery flavor from the signature yeast used to ferment it, a yeast lauded for its classic heritage yet loathed by some for being a finicky fermenter. Homebrewers using isolates of this strain such as Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison and WLP565 Belgian Saison I have been reporting issues with stalled fermentations for years, which has led to various theories as to the reason for the attenuation issues as well as techniques for combating the fermentation foibles. Fellow experimental brewer, author, and podcaster, Drew Beechum, who is known for his love of farmhouse styles, espouses such a theory and technique.

According to Drew and some smart folks he consulted with, the popular Dupont strains are sensitive to the back pressure created by airlocks and blowoff tubes, thus performing an “open fermentation” by covering the opening of the fermentor with sanitized foil is one way he found to reduce the risk of the dreaded Dupont stall.

I’ll be honest, I don’t fall into the crowd of cool people who have a genuine passion for Saison. I like the style and all, but it’s not a favorite of mine, so in the rare occasion I brew one, I want it to be good enough that my friends and I will drink the entire batch. I’ve messed around with reliable yeasts such as Danstar Belle Sasison and Wyeast 3711 French Saison, but I avoided Dupont because I didn’t want to deal with it. This all changed when I realized an opportunity to make Drew look like an ass!

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the differences between two Saisons of the same recipe where one was fermented with an airlock, creating back pressure, while the other was “open” fermented.

| METHODS |

The last Saison I made, over a year ago, was fermented with Wyeast 3711 and came out quite good, so I borrowed that recipe and swapped out the yeast for this xBmt.

Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 11 gal 60 min 23.7 IBUs 4.9 SRM 1.052 1.006 6.0 % Actuals 1.052 1.006 6.0 % Fermentables Name Amount % Pilsner (2 row) (Gambrinus) 9.5 lbs 46.34 Vienna Malt (Weyermann) 7 lbs 34.15 White Wheat Malt 2 lbs 9.76 Honey Malt (Gambrinus) 1 lbs 4.88 Corn Sugar (Dextrose) 1 lbs 4.88 Hops Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha % Willamette 50 g 60 min Boil Pellet 5.6 Willamette 40 g 15 min Boil Pellet 5.6 Yeast Name Lab Attenuation Temperature Belgian Saison (3724) Wyeast Labs 78% 70°F - 95°F

I made a single yeast starter out of two packs of Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison yeast a couple days prior to my brew day.

The day before brewing, after gathering my entire volume of brewing liquor and making any adjustments, I weighed out and milled the grains.

My first order of business the following morning was hitting the flame under my kettle of strike water, mashing in about 15 minutes later to hit my target temperature.

This would be a standard batch sparge batch using a BIAB bag in my MLT.

Around 10 minutes into the mash, I pulled a small amount of wort, chilled it to room temp, and took a pH reading that showed I was close enough to my 5.3 pH goal.

After a few brief stirs over the course of a 1 hour rest, I collected two rounds of sweet wort and quickly brought it up to a boil, during which hops were added as stated in the recipe.

At the completion of the 60 minute boil, I very quickly chilled the wort to 82°F/28°C, which was 6°F/4°C warmer than my groundwater temp at the time.

Two carboys were filled with the same amount of wort, which was gently stirred throughout racking to ensure equal distribution of kettle trub, then a standard 3-piece airlock was placed on one while the other was covered with sanitized foil. The carboys were left to chill to my target pitching temperature of 64°F/18°C for about 6 hours before the yeast was divided evenly between each batch. When I returned early the following morning, both had developed a kräusen.

At 24 hours post-pitch, things were looking pretty similar, which never really changed.

Given the nature of this variable and the claim that reducing back pressure will decrease the risk of a stall, I took regular hydrometer measurements starting 3 days into fermentation. The foil and airlock batches looked to be chugging along similarly at this point.

At this time, I set my temperature regulator to 90˚F/32˚C and allowed the beers to free-rise to that point. I took another hydrometer measurement 4 days later that revealed a slight difference in SG I wasn’t expecting based on the back pressure theory, though I figured the airlock batch could easily make a come back. Both batches were sitting at about 84˚F/29˚C, so I gently began to apply heat over the next few days until ambient temperature reached 90˚F/32˚C; the warmest the beers got was about 87˚F/30˚C

Another 4 days and the difference remained, the foil beer trailing a bit behind the airlock batch.

Hydrometer readings 3 days later revealed the gap seemed to be closing.

I measured the SG again 3 days later, 18 since pitching, and a final time 2 days after that and saw no change, suggesting the batches were done fermenting.

I proceeded to cold crash, fine with gelatin, and keg the beers, placing each in my cool keezer on 45 psi for 24 hours before reducing to serving pressure. The following weekend, both were clear, carbonated, and ready to serve.

| RESULTS |

A total of 24 people with varying levels of experience participated in this xBmt, each blindly served 1 sample of the back pressure (airlock) beer and 2 samples of the open ferment (foil) beer in opaque cups then asked to identify the unique sample. In order to reach statistical significance, 13 tasters (p<0.05) would have had to accurately identify the odd-beer-out, though only 8 (p=0.58) were capable of doing so, suggesting a Saison fermented with the Dupont yeast under back pressure from one that was fermented with no back pressure was not reliably distinguishable by participants.

My Impressions: As far as my ability to distinguish between these beers in a “blind” triangle, I sucked at it and simply could not tell them apart. I perceived both as having a peculiarly enjoyable pineapple character with some expected peppery notes in the background. If bubble gum was there, I wasn’t picking up on it. While it met my expectation for dryness and drinkability, I wouldn’t say it was the best Saison I’ve ever made, though certainly tasty enough not to dump.

| DISCUSSION |

The results of this xBmt prove one thing definitively…

Drew is wrong and his brewing advice should be purged from the minds of anyone he has brainwashed into believing him.

Of course this isn’t true, Drew is a great guy with oodles more knowledge on brewing Saison than probably anyone I know. I’m not sure why neither of my beers experienced the oft reported Dupont stall or why the airlock beer attenuated slightly more than the foil batch, it could be that I just got lucky, or more likely some other factor that I’m unaware of was at play. Regardless, I’m inclined to view the method Drew proposes as an easy way to decrease the risk of a stalled ferment when using the Dupont strain.

It just so happens our kindred spirits in exBEERimentation over at the Experimental Brewing Podcast, Denny Conn and Drew Beechum, were playing with the same variable at the same time. Will the results from their army of IGORs corroborate those of this xBmt or will they be different? To find out, be sure to listen to the episode that drops on July 6, 2016, I’ll be on to chat about our collective findings!

If you have any experience fermenting Saison with this strain, or if you’ve come up with your own way to contend with the Dupont stall, we’d love to hear from you! Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

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