Saison Dupont

[Oneflewover]

Evenin all. Does anyone know - for sure - whether Saison Dupont is bottled with the primary strain? I got a few bottles in for Christmas and I'd like to culture the yeast up for a saison I'll be brewing soon. Don't want to waste time and effort culturing up a bottling yeast, and I've read various differing opinions. Cheers.

 

[Broken Toe]

Funny enough i am in the same situation. From what I have heard (I presume from a reputable source, but I can't remember) it is. I plan to be doing mine for the spring, but if you get yours in earlier I would be intrigued how it goes.

I have a single 750ml bottle and was planning to clean and culture that into a starter.

 

[Oneflewover]

Thing is I've got some - admittedly pretty ancient - wyeast 3711 from an overbuilt starter sitting in the fridge, and I think I'd rather resurrect and use that than take a chance..... unless I do a split batch of course

 

[Hanglow]

Not tried it but I've extensively googled this before, and as we all know google cannot be wrong, , and I don;t think it is unfortunately. A lot of breweries will use a bottling yeast for consistency. It might well have some viable SD primary yeast in it, but I suspect the majority of it is another strain.

Can you do a really small batch? say 5l. That means any step up from a bottle of SD is say 30ml>300ml> your batch of 5l of wort. That should work, as long as you pitch the 300ml starter at high krausen.

 

[Oneflewover]

Not tried it but I've extensively googled this before, and as we all know google cannot be wrong, , and I don;t think it is unfortunately. A lot of breweries will use a bottling yeast for consistency. It might well have some viable SD primary yeast in it, but I suspect the majority of it is another strain.

Can you do a really small batch? say 5l. That means any step up from a bottle of SD is say 30ml>300ml> your batch of 5l of wort. That should work, as long as you pitch the 300ml starter at high krausen.

I'm inclined to suspect that you are correct. Yes a small test batch might be the way to go, perhaps ferment a gallon in a DJ with the SD yeast as part of a split batch experiment

 

[Sadfield]

In the Phil Markowski book Farmhouse Brewing it states that Dupont is centrifuged and unpasteurised. This would lead towards removal of the primary yeast and bottling with another. It also states that primary fermentation is done at 30-35°C and conditioning is done at 23-24°C. Which is quiet a difference if it is the same yeast.

 

[Thorbz]

I've used the yeast from Saison Dupont a number of times, and it was absolutely, 100% the real deal. However, the last few times I haven't even been able to culture anything up, so the brewery have changed their brewing process ( or I've lost my yeast reculturing mojo ). Great shame, as there's none of this ' Saison Dupont stall ' BS with the bottle-cultured stuff, it caned the wort down to about 1.004, and made amazing beer.

 

[matt76]

Slight tangent - I had my first Saison Dupont recently, and rather enjoyed it, plus I've still got another waiting for me in the fridge.

But isn't it made (somehow, at somepoint) with a brettanomyces strain in addition to saccharomyces? Or am I mistaken and it's purely saccharomyces?

 

[Oneflewover]

I've used the yeast from Saison Dupont a number of times, and it was absolutely, 100% the real deal. However, the last few times I haven't even been able to culture anything up, so the brewery have changed their brewing process ( or I've lost my yeast reculturing mojo ). Great shame, as there's none of this ' Saison Dupont stall ' BS with the botle-cultured stuff, it caned the wort down to about 1.004, and made amazing beer.

Thanks, there's enough encouragement on this thread for me to at least give it a whirl on a gallon of wort if I can get a viable starter

 

[Oneflewover]

Slight tangent - I had my first Saison Dupont recently, and rather enjoyed it, plus I've still got another waiting for me in the fridge.

But isn't it made (somehow, at somepoint) with a brettanomyces strain in addition to saccharomyces? Or am I mistaken and it's purely saccharomyces?

Don't think there's Brett in Saison Dupont mate

 

[Hanglow]

Yeah no bret in dupont. Orval has bret added at bottling, maybe that is what you are thinking of? Both exceptional beers imo.

I've recently brewed two saisons with OYL-042, which is WY 3726 and from from Blaugies who supposedly got their yeast from Dupont. It makes a terrific saison, doesn't finish quite as low as the dupont strain but has bags of character. Ferments fine at 30c and while it is a tad slower than british yeasts, finishes no problem in a week.

 

[foxbat]

Don't think there's Brett in Saison Dupont mate

No Brett but if it's WLP565/Wyeast 3724 then the yeast is Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. diastaticus that has the wild diastaticus gene. I've just brewed a Belgian with a diastaticus yeast and it went from 1.063 to 1.008 in 72 hours and finished at 1.002 . I've thoroughly nuked my fermenter with boiling water and will be doing the same to the corny, lines and tap after it's finished!

 

[Broken Toe]

For what it is worth I managed to build a starter from the 750ml bottle. It took a while to build it up, about two weeks or so, pitched it into a simple wort I had left over from at batch.

It had the classic saison taste to it, I didn't carb or condition it (I'll be doing that with an upcoming batch) so it was obviously lacking what a lot of CO2 will bring to the party.

But I would call it a success, and certainly worth a shot if you still have that bottle hanging about.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

JFTR, Doug Piper has been shown round the Dupont brewery and also done a separate video on what the manager describes as their "terrible, needy" yeast! (or rather the cold-side in general)




The subtitles struggle with his accent, in particular "wort" comes out as "world" most of the time and "beer" as "bee". They were still using an original open wooden vessel until 2008 before switching to stainless. They use their well water untreated - "pretty hard, lots of bicarbonates". They pitch at 28°C (82°F) and let it free rise, capping it at 35-36°C (95-97°F). Ferment for a week, mature for 1-2 weeks, then add sugar and bottle condition at 23°C (73°) for a minimum of 6 weeks, but will let it go for up to 10 weeks if the required CO2 or taste isn't there. The 75cl bottles are conditioned on their sides, the 33cl bottles vertically and he prefers the extra complexity that you get with the 75cl bottles as a result.

 

[Sadfield]

Great vids.

Would be interesting to know what they did in the mash to counter that bicarbonate, though. I read they dough in at 45°c which would acidify the mash somewhat. Although, my understanding and experience, is that is more of a technique for soft water brewers. Markowski, talks of acid or calcium mash additions to lower pH in his book, but in terms of Belgian brewers as whole.

Is 'a new culture of yeast' for bottling, a fresh culture of their needy yeast, or a new strain for bottling? The answer is probably lost in translation.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Is 'a new culture of yeast' for bottling, a fresh culture of their needy yeast, or a new strain for bottling? The answer is probably lost in translation.

Reading the forums the received wisdom seems to be that they don't use a bottling strain and certainly watching the video you don't get that impression given how he views the bottle-conditioning as an essential part of flavour development and not just an alternative to SodaStream.

 

[Sadfield]

Reading the forums the received wisdom seems to be that they don't use a bottling strain and certainly watching the video you don't get that impression given how he views the bottle-conditioning as an essential part of flavour development and not just an alternative to SodaStream.

True. It just seems strange to describe the conditions the yeast doesn't like, then go and put it into that environment. I guess that's why it needs 6-10 weeks.

 

[Clarence]

Jeff Alworth "...Master Brewers" 2017 p. 175
"They use a different culture for secondary fermentation in the bottle, letting the beer condition in a warm room for six to eight weeks. Re-fermentation is so important too the character of Dupont that they must lay the bottles on their sides during bottle conditioning; otherwise the beer doesn't taste right."

 

[Agentgonzo]

Jeff Alworth "...Master Brewers" 2017 p. 175
"They use a different culture for secondary fermentation in the bottle, letting the beer condition in a warm room for six to eight weeks. Re-fermentation is so important too the character of Dupont that they must lay the bottles on their sides during bottle conditioning; otherwise the beer doesn't taste right."

"Different culture" doesn't necessarily mean a different strain though, does it?

My reading of the above is that it could be a different (ie, fresher, more active) slurry of possibly the same strain of house yeast that gets introduced for bottle conditioning - ie, one that hasn't been stressed out during the primary fermentation.

I know it's a different brewery, but a lot of the Trappist breweries (from brew like a monk) use the same strain of house yeast for everything, but top-crop the primary fermentation mid ferment from the krausen to use as bottling yeast for an earlier batch. Maybe Dupont do the same?

 

[Sadfield]

One would think though, that 'fresh' would be a more accurate and less ambiguous word than 'new'. And prominent beer writer like Jeff Alworth would certainly know the definition of different.