i’m brewing up a saison and im debating on which yeast to use if you have any experiences with these yeasts please share i was looking at WLP565 WLP566 and WLP568. The saison will be made with ginger so im looking for a spicy beer
These are both strains from Dupont (the blend is just both 565 and 566), which are notorious for long finishing times, dropping out early, needing relatively high temperatures to finish, and just overall needing a lot of TLC.
If you don’t have the means to tightly control your temps (within 2 deg F) up to 80F, I would suggest using Wyeast 3711 - French Saison either with or as a replacement for the Dupont strains. This yeast is a champ and gives off (among others) great black-pepper flavors and aromas.
I’ve struggled with the DuPont strain more than once. It can make great beer but it definitely can be finicky.
In the future, I will most likely be using the French Saison strains just to avoid the hassle.
Im definitely going to go for the french saison. I knew some of the WLP yeasts are weird and i had never used any of those, so i just wanted to see what people who had used them thought. Thanks for the insight
I really like wlp565. Especially for fruity style Saison. BUt I have to agree that the wyeast French Saison strain is by far the easiest to use. Will dry the beer out easily, won’t stall and has nice peppeR and fruit overtones.
Ok well I’m looking for spice > fruit anyways
I know it’s not a real popular yeast, but T-58 is such a champ and it’s cheap as heck. It’s not a great attenuator, so you have to use a bit more sugar than you would otherwise. I made two saisons back to back with T-58 and 3711, and the wife and I both prefer the T-58 version. YMMV and so on.
I have some T-58 in my dry yeast stash, so maybe I’ll give it a run soon.
I’ve not been happy with dry yeasts lately, though.
All of the Fermentis yeasts work pretty well. S-04 has been consistently great for me. I mostly use T-58, which is also consistent. S-33 has been hit or miss, and I’ve had horrible luck with the Danstar yeasts. I decided to give Danstar another try, and used Windsor on an ESB. I had to rack onto a cake of US-05 to finish fermentation. Windsor stalled around 1.030, and it only started at 1.050. Not great performance.
I think the mistake people make with T-58 is to ferment too hot. I’ll ferment at 60* for the first week, then take it out of the freezer and let it fully attenuate at room temp. If you ferment it too hot it gets weird and solventy.
YMMV, but I prefer T-58 to the Duvel yeast (1388/570) in light-colored Belgians. I prefer peppery and clovey to fruity. While it works OK, I don’t think it’s the best for darker Belgians, so I’ll use liquid strains for my dubbels and BDSs.
My experience with 3711 is that it finishes dry, but has a slick mouthfeel to it, which I don’t really care for. I have used 565 and will agree it is a pain to use, but I think it makes a superior product.
Not to thread hijack, but while we’re on the topic of T-58 I had a few things I was wondering about. Do you adjust your pitching rate for bigger beers? For example, if you used it for a big tripel in the 1.080+ range, do you pitch 1.5 or 2 packs, or is one pack usually sufficient? Also, does it respond well to temperature adjustments in order to tweak the ester/phenol balance, or is it unforgiving once you get much higher than the low 60’s? In other words, can I ferment at 58 for clove/pepper & push it to 64 for fruit, or does it get solventy above 60?
I generally follow the “standard” 0.75m/ml/*P pitching rate. So pretty much whatever MrMalty tells you to use. I always do my sugar additions once fermentation is well underway, so I don’t usually have to use more than one pack. I do 19L batches, and 1 pack will get you up to about 1.060 for the base beer. I recommend doing it this way because T-58 is an average attenuator and quicker flocc’er, so it’ll take some babying and rousing to get it to finish below 1.010.
I get a lot of clove, and some pepper at 60*. I don’t think it’s particularly fruity, even at higher temps, and then you’ll get a lot of solventy off-flavors. I haven’t tried all the temps between 60 and 70, but I think anything over 64* would not be a great idea. I usually set my freezer for 58* and the fermenting beer is usually a few degrees warmer.
Some people like a lot of higher alcohol in their Belgians, so you might find a little higher temps less objectionable than I do.
Seems like I recall de struise uses T-58 for all their beers.
They use T-58 as a base for their house yeast. They have some wild yeast and bugs too, IIRC. I’ve never had their beer, but people seem to enjoy it a lot. I find it interesting that Pannepot is their most famous beer, since I think a BDS is the worst Belgian style for T-58.
Yeah, I knew they added some sort of culture too. Forgot to mention that. Pannepot is pretty good. Long time since I had it. Still have the bottle though, so it must have been pretty good. 
I’ve struggled with getting my saisons to really finish dry enough, and I’ve used all the “usual” saison yeasts, and a few of the typical Belgian yeasts. So far the best “saison” I’ve made was 1/2 “normal” saison, dry hopped, and 1/2 dry mead (1.000), also dry hopped. I’m a firm believer in brewing to taste, not to style, so I’m happy with it. The wife said it was one of the best things I’ve ever made, and she doesn’t praise my brewing unless it deserves it. She’s usually the first one to tell me when my beer turns out not-so-great.
There seems to be a 20% ceiling for sugar additions. Homebrewers don’t seem to like going over that, but the saison I’m describing above was basically 50% honey. So I guess don’t be afraid of a little (or a lot of) sugar. As long as you can control the ferm temp, you should be fine using quite a lot of simple sugars.
With the French saison strain I regularly get 95% aa with zero sugar. I do perform a 2 hour mash at 146-148.
I suspect there’s a lot more to perceptions of dryness than just apparent attenuation though. I’ve had beers finish at 1.010 that were drier than others that finished much lower. Maybe the difference between real and potential attenuation?
I wonder too if it’s related to the unfermentable sugars and proteins in the wort. A higher percentage of simple sugars means relatively lower percentages of dextrins and protein.
I should add I like to use a good amount (1-2oz) of French oak to get some tannins for extra dryness. I like my beer dry, and my saisons drrrrrrrrrrryyyyyy.
Sure, if your talking about perception. That’s entirely subjective, though.
How else can you enjoy beer, if not subjectively?