Where to place a Porter Saison hybred for comp

[HopRunner]

I am gathering up a bunch of my beers to enter into a local competition and I have an odd-ball. I did a split batch a couple of months ago and added Wyeast 3711 French Saison yeast to one half and WLP002 to the other. I did the Black Butte Porter clone but bumped up the gravity a bit.

I am going to enter the Porter as a porter but I am not sure where to put the Porter/Saison. Taste wise, it is exactly what you would expect a Porter brewed with Saison yeast to taste. The dark roasty porter malts taste is completely present and the spicy, fruity barnyard flavors are there too and in a pretty good balance. It is actually a very good batch of beer.

If anyone decides to use this yeast, I found that pitching it at 72F and holding it for two days and then stepping it up to 75-78 for the rest of fermentation worked well. For the first month I thought I'd have to dump it. It tasted completely out of whack. I bottled it from the keg and stuck the bottles in a box for another month and WOW it really changed. The flavors merged and balanced. I was very surprised at how much this beer changed.

So, where to put it? Belgian Special? Belgian Dark Strong?

[BDawg]

Belgian Specialty. BDS is more about the dark fruit and toasty malt, not about the coffee and roast of a porter, which is in fact considered a flaw in BDS.

HTH-

[Gridiron Brewer]

Yup, Belgian specialty. I did a robust porter with Wyeast abbey ale yeast. Entered as Belgian specialty. You could also enter in experimental category 23.

[HopRunner]

Thanks guys! Belgian Specialty it is...

[krizwit]

Belgian specialty...

Out of curiosity, what was your OG and FG on the Porter Saison? I brewed with that yeast once and could not believe how far it attenuated down.

[DBear]

An FYI,

If you make a roasty beer with belgian yeast, taste it before you send to a comp.

I had the same flavor transformation as you. I brewed a Belgian Oatmeal Stout (WLP550 with standard oatmeal stout recipe). At two months sent to a comp as bel specialty 16e and recieved a 37 - still roasty and creamy with a belgian yeast profile. At 4 moths sent it to 1st round NHC and recieved a 15. bitch-slapped! The score sheet said I classified the beer wrong and it was no stout characteristics, more like a dark strong

Here is the deal, I had not tried the beer between the first comp and NHC so I popped the last one. In those 2 months the beer had blended into dark, creamy goodness with hardly a hint of roast, It was like a dark strong with fruit from the yeast and hint of chocolate.

Belgians yeasts will change the floavor profile over time anyway as will malt roastiness. The combination blended beatuifully over time with the roast disapating and yeast becoming more prominent.

[brewinhard]

An FYI,

If you make a roasty beer with belgian yeast, taste it before you send to a comp.

I had the same flavor transformation as you. I brewed a Belgian Oatmeal Stout (WLP550 with standard oatmeal stout recipe). At two months sent to a comp as bel specialty 16e and recieved a 37 - still roasty and creamy with a belgian yeast profile. At 4 moths sent it to 1st round NHC and recieved a 15. bitch-slapped! The score sheet said I classified the beer wrong and it was no stout characteristics, more like a dark strong

Here is the deal, I had not tried the beer between the first comp and NHC so I popped the last one. In those 2 months the beer had blended into dark, creamy goodness with hardly a hint of roast, It was like a dark strong with fruit from the yeast and hint of chocolate.

Belgians yeasts will change the floavor profile over time anyway as will malt roastiness. The combination blended beatuifully over time with the roast disapating and yeast becoming more prominent.

Interesting and a good tip Dbear! Age can definitely change the flavor and aroma profile of a beer, probably the most noticeable in a beer with lots of roasty, chocolate flavor.

[HopRunner]

So.... I totally flaked. Yesterday was the deadline and I didn't turn them in. I only have a few left and they might do well but I doubt they would do great. I decided just to drink them.

My main point of brewing the batch was to learn about the yeast, so from that angle it was a success.

I'll have to find my notes and look up the Final Gravity. It did finish very low but the beer doesn't taste thin or dry. The Wyeast website states that the yeast leaves a "silky" mouth feel and think it is true. There is some sort of silkiness there.