what was your temperature profile in the fermentation? can you share it??
In the low 60’s to start (using a bag chiller and frozen 2 liter water bottles) then rose up to high 60’s to 70 or so to finish off after about five days. Still in primary, but expecting to rack soon.
I was thinking the same thing.
Update - Well the first hydrometer sample was taken as I racked to the keg. It smelled and tasted great to me - the beer started at 1.061 and finished at 1.004. I am no expert at giving flavor descriptors, but it tasted a bit of pear and maybe some grape or similar fruit. I realize now looking back on the OG that the beer is not a Belgian strong golden, but rather a stronger Belgian Blonde. I can’t want to taste it carbed up - to get a better representation of the beer.
Interesting description. Between the flavor and attenuation it almost sounds like a Saison strain.
I guess I had it in the primary a little over a month - just got around to kegging it; maybe that long in the primary had the effect of keeping the yeast working a bit longer? I did remove it from the chiller bag after a few days, which might have further roused it at that point. I have no way of knowing when it finished, because I didn’t check the FG until I racked it and it was in a bucket in the basement.
All things considered, it turned out pretty well for not being really cold fermented, but that is just based on a hydrometer sample that I shared with SWAMBO (who thought it was great, but she had been drinking a glass of wine and said it might have influenced her taste).
I recently used this yeast with a recipe that won me a gold for a Belgian golden strong. Decided to try this instead of White Lab 500 since I normally use dry yeast except when I doing Belgians.
Anyway fermented at 64 degrees. Was hoping for a pear taste. Didn’t get it. It leaned towards pepper but even that was not pronounced. Fermented dry; about 10% abv. All in all, not impressed. More than likely going back to white labs for this style.
Now this is really starting to sound like a Saison strain. Maybe it has potential as a co-pitch with 3724 instead of the usual 3711.
I agree. So far I’m not buying the ‘Abbey’ thing based on the descriptions guys are giving of their beers. Sounds more like it has some pseudo-Saison character to me.
I hate to say it, but as a carbed sample last night, I wasn’t really happy with it. I think it is an abbey style yeast, not a saison…my problem really is with its use for a Belgian Golden. The Beer had Belgian sugar at high Krausen or just past that point. The flavor is somewhat Trappist-like, but kinda “flat”, without much in the way of esters, other than a subtle pear note. I am going to let one warm up quite a bit and see if that has any effect. All things considered, I would say that the flavor profile lacks the complexity that I have come to taste with the liquid yeasts that are Trappist originated. My recipe was basically Pilsner 8 lbs, Wheat 2 pounds, lightly hopped with Hallertauer and Hallertauer Mittelfruh, but I don’t recall the specifics on that presently. I may try it in a Dubbel to see if there is any better result.
I tried in a dubbel. I don’t like it. It’s just not a nice blend of flavors. There’s too many sharp edges with this yeast. It’s just odd. I remember Fermentis trying to call that S-33 yeast a “belgian yeast” too. It wasn’t. This, Abbaye yeast, doesn’t have any qualities that I would even begin to say are “Belgian.” I tried it in the recommended range, at about 68, and finally ramping up to 72F at the end.
This isn’t the most helpful description of it, but I just don’t know what to say about it other than it’s just odd. If you’ve tried that T-58 yeast, you’ll get it. That’s another weirdo yeast. Sour, pepper, weird. Abbaye isn’t like T58 in any way, except both are weird.
For some reason I am the eternal optimist with these dry yeasts and I am continually disappointed. Of all the ones I tried, and I have tried tons of them, the ones that I like the best are the least marketed and least popular.
Safale K-97 for instance. Fantastic alt yeast. Really awesome. Clean, crisp, malty. Everything you want in an alt yeast. I would use it for a cream ale, maybe a festbier, biere de garde, dry stout maybe, kolsch. Very nice yeast.
Not to get too far off the mark here since we’re talking about the Fermentis Abbaye, but they make good products, but they insist on selling the good yeasts like S-189, K-97 in 500g bricks only. I heard that K-97 is coming out in homebrew sachets someday soon, but for how many years have people been buying the half kilo bricks and repacking it? At least a decade. As a business, take a hint!
I just used this yesterday to bottle condition a Saison. I will report back in a couple of weeks.
There are a couple of homebrew shops that repackage the S-189. I’ve used it to good success in a marzen and recently ordered five more packs from Atlantic Brew Supply. They have a USPS option on shipping so that’s pretty low cost for a few packs of yeast
Thanks for sharing! I see that they have k-97 too. I hear that is good for kolsch so I would like to give it a try
I saw that Danstar recently released a similar yeast. Does anyone know if it’s the same strain?
http://www.danstaryeast.com/company/products/abbaye-belgian-ale-yeast
Oh crap, you’re right… I’m pretty sure I’ve been getting the two mixed up. I took a bunch of notes and now I don’t know which notes are applicable to Safbrew vs. Danstar. Ugh, why do they do this to us, and both come out at the same time…
I brewed a Belgian blonde with it about a month ago. The fermentation was straight up sulfer. Like more sulfer than I’ve ever experienced. After crashing I racked into my keg for carbonation and I still was getting sulfer albeit much less. I just tried it tonight after two weeks in the keg and I’m still getting sulfer. There are some fruity esters and phenols there but I can’t say much about them because the sulfer is still pretty distracting. I’ll give it a few more weeks and report back.
Sulfur should normally age out within a month or so. Just needs some time.
Bumping this thread to just add that this brew definitely rounded out better than expected with e few months in the keg. I think this does have a saisonish tendency. That somewhat cardboard-but-not lightly black pepper note has come out a bit. All in all not nearly as bad as I thought earlier.
So after a couple more weeks the sulfur has faded out. The esters and the phenols are light. Which leads me to my problem with dry yeast. There really isn’t enough information about how much yeast is in a package. The manufacturer website says “at least” 70 billion cells. And mr malty says 220 billion. So who really can say how much you pitch. I usually get good results with Belgian beers when I under pitch a little.
That said I’ll enjoy the beer while it’s on tap but I wouldn’t consider entering it into a competition.