My first saison on the go, but it hasn't produced the 'free-rise' I was hoping for, so I've had to apply the heat manually. Anyone had successful self-rises with Belle Saison?
It was 22L of 1.041 pitched with one rehydrated sachet of BS at 66f. Nice head of yeast after 12-18 hours. I controlled it (fridge/heat) at 66f for 30 hrs before turning off the cooling side. It stayed pretty much there at 66, edging up maybe 2 degrees at 42 hours before the head started to fade a little and it seemed to be returning to 66, so I took an SG (1.027) at 48 hours for future reference, and set the heat for 69. It soon looked more active again, and it's now up (manually) to 73 on day 4, but never produced it's own lift.
I've seen reports of this travelling the same difference unassisted. I perhaps left the calcium a little low (~50ppm) compared to most of my brews, but other than that, I can't think anything else would have caused it to be sluggish.