Saison

Hello all,
I have brewed three saisons and all have had some sort of banana bread taste to them. I don't really care for that flavor in my beer. Does anyone know how to eliminate this flavor?

I don't know how to eliminate the banana flavor in a saison, but I eliminated it (and accentuated the clove) in my Bavarian weizen by doing a 110 F rest and reducing fermentation temperature to 62 F. I'm planning a saison for a couple of weeks from now and will mash and ferment it similarly to avoid what I consider to be excessive saison funkyness. After a couple of weeks I'll warm it to the high 70s to finish dry. I may not get a typical saison, but the process should favor phenolics and reduce esters; maybe I'll get something I like better than a typical saison.

Has anyone else tried this with a saison? Or am I the only one who doesn't does embrace the funkyness?

Thanks for your reply.  Someone did mention to me about not enough yeast nutrients in the boil but I'm not sure about that.  I think it might have been a too warm primary fermentation (about 70-71F). Any thoughts?

At what temp did you ferment the three saisons?  High ferm temps, especially early in the ferment, can create more of those fruity esters, esp. banana with Belgian yeasts. 

As durrettd stated with hefe (another banana ester strain) one strategy is to control the ferm temp <65F for 4-5 days and then gradually let it warm on it's own, even to the mid-80's (F).  But the early days are best kept under 68F or even lower if you prefer less funk.

My homebrew club is brewing a 59 gallon batch of soured saison.  We want the peppery, clovey, spicyness but don't want the banana flavors.  We are fortunate to have a pair of brothers in our brewclub that specialize in Saisons almost exclusively.  They developed the recipe.  We're mashing a little higher than normal 154ish, to create a maltiness that is usually lacking in this type of beer.  We're using WLP530 because of the following characteristics.  This yeast produces a predominant ester character, complex and reminiscent of pears, bubblegum, plums and citrus fruits. The peppery spicy phenolic character melds well behind the esters. At higher temperatures, these yeasts can contribute some banana into the ester profile. At low temperatures, lower than 66 °F (19 °C), this yeast can go into a permanent hibernation.  We're going to keep the fermentation temperatures lower at 68F, until primary is pretty much finished and then put it in a barrell and let it free rise to ambient temperatures in a temperature controlled area, so that it stays around 75F for a year or more.  This should keep the banana flavors down or eliminated.  Were also going to pitch lacto or pedro into the barrell for souring. 

Thank you for your input gents. I'll let you know how it turns out

You're welcome.  I've since talked to our Saison experts in our brewclub.  They confirmed what you've been told.  Keep the fermentation temperatures controlled to less than 68F and preferably down at about 62F to 64F for the first 4 or 5 days.  This caused me to experiment on my first saison too.  I've brewed one and because of the cooler temperatures this time of year, I've had the fermentation temperature down at about 64F for the first 5 days.  I've now put it in front of my floor heater and it has slowly risen now to 72F.  I just turned the heater up to 75F, so it should rise some more.  I'm going to hold it between 75F and 80F for about a week or more.  Then I'll take it off the heat and let it drift back down to the ambient temperature of my garage/brewhouse so that it settles at about 66F.  It should be ready for bottling by then.  I'll let you know how it turns out.