drying out a saison

[TimmyR]

Cool...I pitched 1.2L starters into 73F wort doughed in at 145F, raised to 149/150F and held for 60 min then up to 165F and sparged. Pitched Saison II and American Farmhouse from White Labs...I'm hoping to see 1.008 or less (OG 1.060.)

7-days after pitch...

Saison II - 1.004
American Farmhouse - 1.002

[Wutz]

Why even bother mashing out a Saison?
The idea of a mashout is to lock in the dextrins by denaturing the enzymes.
If the aim is to produce as fermentable a wort as possible,
I see no reason to mash out -- just sparge and they'll keep chomping away reducing short chain dextrins
until they denature by themselves in the boil.

"Locking the mash" is a really good side-effect of greatly improved lautering and moderately improved efficiency.

I mash out every batch and it seems to help my janky, wonky, not-nearly-optimized but fairly consistent brewing process.

[SweBrew]

This 3724 Belgian Saison is a weird yeast to say the least, made a saison épeautre OG 1.049 two weaks ago, it took of like a rocket, stalled on me on day three at 1.035, it stood still for aboute four days then it kicked up again and aboute two days later it was down at 1.007, now its in dryhop mode with Mosiac, hope to keg in a week or so.
I pitched at 75F and raised it to 80F after it stalled on me.

[BDawg]

Why even bother mashing out a Saison?
The idea of a mashout is to lock in the dextrins by denaturing the enzymes.
If the aim is to produce as fermentable a wort as possible,
I see no reason to mash out -- just sparge and they'll keep chomping away reducing short chain dextrins
until they denature by themselves in the boil.

"Locking the mash" is a really good side-effect of greatly improved lautering and moderately improved efficiency.

I mash out every batch and it seems to help my janky, wonky, not-nearly-optimized but fairly consistent brewing process.

I agree with what you said in the general case, but my point was why cut the enzymes off in the particular case of a Saison if the goal is to make as fermentable a wort as possible, I think NOT mashing out will deliver the more fermentable wort since the enzymes will continue to work all the way into the kettle. You don't have to heat them all the way up, just mash with a little more liquid to grain ratio and your lauter will be just as smooth.