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I brewed a high gravity (1080) saison and am planning on cold conditioning it in secondary at 32 degrees x 2 weeks, then bottle conditioning it. I am wonder will the cold conditioning make all my yeast die? Will I need to add more yeast when I bottle? If so, how much?

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2 Answers 2

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I'd go with 33 or 34, something about that magic 32 that makes me nervous, I realize it shouldn't freeze with the alcohol that is now in there, but I think you'll be just fine with the yeast currently in your beer.

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And two weeks isn't that long of a "lager" period. –  brewchez Aug 10 '10 at 23:55

Don't know really why you'd cold condition a Saison. If its to clarify it doesn't need to be that cold. Just put it at 50F and you'll get just as effective a flocculation. Then you still have plenty of yeast to carbonate.

A better option would be to just bottle it, and store the bottles cold after they carb up. Stuff will settle out in the bottle, and the sediment will be pretty firm.

But if you really want to "lager" the beer, then its not really a big deal to add back about a third of a packet of a dry neutral American Ale yeast during bottling.

Of course all that advice is dependent on WHICH saison yeast you used.

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I'm using the White Labs 566 Saison II. I am doing a tweeked Hennepin Ale clone and the Farmhouse Ale book by Phil Markowski suggests a 2 week cold conditioning at 32 degrees. –  Sam Fisk Aug 11 '10 at 0:02
Upvoted, thanks for being my clean up batter brewchez, it's good to have you on the site. –  dzachareas Nov 24 '10 at 17:00

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