[udubdawg]

hmm.  At this point I almost feel like I'm doing something wrong because I never have trouble with 565/3724. 
protein rest, keep the gravity reasonable, normal amount of O2, good pitch rate, pitch near 70 and let it warm to wherever it wants to go...always finishes sub 1.005.  Started a 1.048 batch the day before I left for NHC.  Came back two weeks later to 1.001 beer.

I don't even make the upper end of the style anymore as it always ends up well above the 5-7% alcohol range I enjoy.

cheers--
--michael

[gordonstrong]

If you're not having problems, DON'T GO LOOKING FOR IT!

I can't count the number of people who were making good beer, read a bunch of stuff on the internet, overthought what they were doing, and drove themselves into the ditch.

This has been a Public Service Announcement.

[Jimmy K]

If you're not having problems, DON'T GO LOOKING FOR IT!

I can't count the number of people who were making good beer, read a bunch of stuff on the internet, overthought what they were doing, and drove themselves into the ditch.

This has been a Public Service Announcement.

I always aim to underthink when brewing. Luckily beer and underthinking combine into a nice positive feedback loop.

[udubdawg]

Haha!
I doubt Gordon actually believes I thought I was doing something wrong.
Sometimes I have to remind myself to not exaggerate for effect on teh internetz.

[kylekohlmorgen]

PH can drop dramatically during fermentation. Some yeast make pH drop more than others. I haven't done enough experiments to confirm this, but my WAG is that some Saison strains stall out because they drop the pH too low before they can finish fermenting. This phenomena is something I've noticed when making mead with different wine yeasts. Since some Saison strains may be directly descended from wine strains, this may be an issue.

Has anyone using those strains kept notes about pH during ferment?

If that's the case, why would raising the temp (the recommendation for finishing most saison fermentations) work?

Maybe raising the temp isn't the issue, but how much and how fast you raise it. With most ferm temp control systems, a significant change in setpoint (5F, lets say) will cause swings of a higher differential than the setpoint (7-10F). Going from 68F to 78F back to 73F in the course of a day or two will stall out most any yeast, esp. a finicky one like 3711.

I think low pH is less of a factor since saison is sometimes fermented with pre-soured wort. The rate of change of pH might be a factor, especially when combined with other out-of-control factors.