[dilluh98]

I am finishing up the last few bottles of a simple saison (1.065 OG, 1.003 FG) I made a while back. Enjoyment-wise, it peaked at about 5-6 weeks after bottling and has since slowly degraded. The last few bottles which are now more than four months in the bottle have taken on a flavor I haven’t encountered in my bottled beers before. A bit slicker mouthfeel, somehow starting to increase in perceived sweetness and I think I can detect a bit of diacetyl. Any idea what’s going on here? They’re consistent so I don’t think it’s an infection issue. Maybe storage? They have been sitting at 75F for 3 months now. Not too upset about it as 95% of the batch was consumed near peak but it seems odd for a beer’s perceived sweetness to increase post-packaging.

[brewinhard]

Sometimes when a beer becomes oxidized a change in the malt profile is the first indication of this.  Not sure of your grain bill but this can come across as a "sweeter" note in some beers.  Do keep in mind too that hops bitterness tends to fade over time and you may be observing some of that as well.  Just a thought and maybe someone else will chime in with some other ideas. 

[Frankenbrew]

I am finishing up the last few bottles of a simple saison (1.065 OG, 1.003 FG) I made a while back. Enjoyment-wise, it peaked at about 5-6 weeks after bottling and has since slowly degraded. The last few bottles which are now more than four months in the bottle have taken on a flavor I haven’t encountered in my bottled beers before. A bit slicker mouthfeel, somehow starting to increase in perceived sweetness and I think I can detect a bit of diacetyl. Any idea what’s going on here? They’re consistent so I don’t think it’s an infection issue. Maybe storage? They have been sitting at 75F for 3 months now. Not too upset about it as 95% of the batch was consumed near peak but it seems odd for a beer’s perceived sweetness to increase post-packaging.

Which yeast did you use? The Wy3711, French saison, is notorious for having a slick mouthfeel, though it probably would have shown up immediately.

Did you  use any crystal or Cara=Munich? It also could be that with your warm storage that the yeast continued to eat through the sugar from the base malt, leaving the unfermentable sweetness of the crystal/caramel with nothing to hide it.

Just kind of thinking out loud of things that it might be.

[dilluh98]

75% Belgian Pilsner
20% Wheat Malt
5% Vienna
90 min mash @ 150F, 90 min boil
WLP565

Not sure what the issue was. The last bomber of that batch will likely be opened this weekend.

My most recent attempt at a saison was a simpler recipe:

90% Belgian Pilsner
10% Flaked Wheat
1.055 OG, 1.001 FG with WLP585.

As an experiment I added a bit of rehydrated EC-1118 (dry sparkling wine yeast) during bottling to see if I could get it to carb faster/cleaner. I tend to let my saisons sit in the fermentor pretty long at 72-74 F after an initial week in the low/mid 60s - just wondering about yeast health at that point (maybe this has some effect on what I'm tasting in these later bottles?). The hydrometer sample tasted fantastic so I'm looking forward to cracking the first bottle of this new batch next week. The WLP585 might be as good or better than WLP565, IMO. My wife is a saison fanatic so I guess I get to continue playing around with recipes, yeasts and fermentation temp profiles. Not a bad thing at all! The style is really fun to work with.

[neddles]

Slicker mouthfeel and diacetyl after 4 months in the bottle… the first thing I think of is infection/pedio. How can you be sure that's not the case?

[dilluh98]

I certainly can't completely rule that out as a possibility. What is the typical time it would take for a pedio infection to manifest? Wondering if it's been a slow starter and only now has it done enough damage for me to really detect it. Although my normal sanitation procedure, I think, is pretty solid: wash bottles in diluted bleach, rinse through hot cycle in dishwasher and then star san right before bottling.

[neddles]

Not sure how long it takes pedio to show up but probably depends in part on how warm the bottles have been. Maybe your bottling sanitation was fine and it got in there somewhere earlier in the process?