It’s another edition of Fermentation Friday.  This month, it is being hosted by the guys at Rooftop Brew.  The subject for this time around is all about brewer’s yeast.

Mike sez:

Always make a starter… You hear time after time. I (Mike) have recommended it a thousands of times.  Practical experience in the brew-garage has shown that making a starter for yeast is the way to go.  The beer always seems better for it.  Better lag times, better fermentation, better flocculation, better post-ferment properties….and of course better flavor.
All things being equal however, Mike uses dry yeast for most brews.  With a young child at home, there never seems to be enough time to make that starter and babysit it while….when babysitting an actual child.  A starter really isn’t that much work but the pre-planning stage is a time sucker.  The opportunity to brew usually comes after the “make a starter” window has passed.  So dry yeast to the rescue.
Dry yeast is great because it is relatively ready to pitch. The cell count in one 11-14 gram packet is generally high enough to tackle any brew under a 1.055-1.060 OG.  It is recommended to rehydrate the yeast in some plain water prior to pitching, and that is the standard practice in the brew-garage.  If laziness does take over and results in the dreaded direct pitch into the wort, then 2 packets can get pitched dry to make up for the poor yeast performance due to the rehydration effects in the sugar solution (wort).  Usually pitching directly results in a ~40-50% cell viability loss in the packet.
The two favorite yeasts of Mike’s are both Fermentis products.  The US-05 American ale and the S-04 (safale) English Ale yeast.  These are fairly cheap products, easy to use and work even better on repitch from cake! But that’s another post.

BREW ON!

John sez:

I think, in the coming year, I would like to understand the number of yeast cells to gallons of wort cold.  I will probably get to know Mr. Malty’s pitching rate calculator pretty well.  I echo Mike’s statements about making a starter.  I think for me, I would like to get even more precise in what size starter I need to make and just get better equipped to make a starter each and every time.

As for other thoughts about yeast, I use liquid yeast:  White Labs primarily.   I like the variety and I have had good results with their line of yeast strains.  I think homebrewers tend to not focus on yeast as an ingredient.  A lot of attention gets focused on malts and hops.  Don’t get me wrong, they are very important.  The other two main ingredients (water and yeast) are important too.   With more attention paid towards yeast strains and yeast preparation, many homebrewers will be on their way to making not only good beers, but great beers.

As seen in my American Brown Ale and Cascade Pale Ale recipes (still to come), I combined two yeast strains into the same wort.  I had a couple reasons for doing this, primarily for my own curiosity. First, I have always been amazed at how well Safale-04 flocculates out. Getting clear beer is never an issue with S-04.  I also love the English flavor profile that it brings to the table for those styles of beers.  US-05 however, is a really clean flavor producer and is perfect for any American style ale.  However, it is a really crappy flocculator.  It takes some time for it to flocculate out completely.  It’s not impossible and a little cold storage will help it along.  So my primary reason to blend the two together was to see if the high flocculation of S-04 would also bind up the US-05 and pull both yeasts out at once.  Only time will tell…  I am expecting to get a slight diminished English character but not a completely clean American yeast character. But my main reason for the experiment was to test the flocculation cooperativity hypothesis.

My second reason for blending was that I only had one packet of either yeast type and they were both pushing their suggested expiration date.  In normal circumstances, I would have pitched two packets of the same dried yeast.  So I decided to use both as a good opportunity to try my flocculation experiment while still provided a high enough yeast cell count for the pitch.

Lastly, if by some weird luck I get a unique tasting combination with the two yeasts, I would maybe be on my way to developing a “house” strain of yeast.  I plan to collect and store some of the blended cake for future use in a mason jars.

Stay posted for further insights into my yeast blending experiment.

I  used White Labs’s WLP005 British Ale yeast for this brown porter and here’s my report of how the fermentation is going so far.

First and foremost, I did not make a starter.  I know, shame on me.  I did have enough time to make one.   I also used the OG to justify my action…or lack of action.  With an original gravity of just under 1.050, I felt confident that ’straight from the vial’ would be ok.

I am happy to report that a strong fermentation was in progress when I woke up on Monday morning, 12 hours from the pitching of the yeast.   It has been going strong for the past 2 days.

I kept it at 72 degrees to get the fermentation going.  I had a blanket wrapped around it to keep it warm. The optimal temperature for this yeast strain is 68 degrees so this morning, I removed the blanket and I am hoping that will bring the temperature down a few degrees.

I read that this yeast settles to the bottom fairly quickly and actually ferments from the bottom.   A few people on the boards we talking about how this strain does funky things.  I may gently rouse the yeast from time to time.

I plan to rack this beer into bottles after 2 weeks of being in the fermenter.  We’ll let you know how it turns out.

See other posts about this beer:

Brown Porter Brew Day

Brown Porter Recipe

Note to self: Don’t tell Mike WLP005 is the Ringwood strain.

We haven’t given enough attention to yeast profiles on this blog yet. So lets start with one of the most widely available and easiest to use yeasts: Fermentis US-05.

The Fermentis website describes this yeast as a “ready to pitch American ale yeast. Safale-US05 produces well balanced beers with low diacetyl and a very clean, crisp end palate.”

This yeast is usually found in 11.5gram packets. The packets are usually red.

I have always used this yeast for most of my American style ale and some Scottish Ales. This yeast is best for any brew that you want to have a very clean and ingredient only drive flavor profile.

As a dry yeast its important to properly rehydrate it in water prior to pitching and it may be advantageous to pitch two packs for beers over 1.060 gravity.

I have a secret tip with this yeast:
This yeast performs really well right out of the packet. Some people complain that it has a little bit of a peachy or estery profile in the aroma. I have discovered that using this yeast as a repitch from slurry it performs even better. I find that it starts faster and it ferments out even cleaner than fresh from dry (or the leading American Ale yeast from some of the liquid yeast suppliers).
I like to brew a smaller pale ale or just a simple house ale for easy drinking. Then I use some of that slurry for a fresh starter to pitch into new worts.
I guess the secret is out…

Give US-05 a shot, but I’d be surprised if you haven’t used this one already.

I received an email from a reader who wanted me to research and find information around the Cry Havoc Yeast strain. I took the challenge and here are my notes from my research.

This strain is produced by White Labs under the identifier code of WLP862. It originates from a strain that Charlie Papazian, famous homebrewer and author of The Joy of Homebrewing. He has licensed it to White Labs.

Although no official source that I read stated this tidbit, I did read that the strain is one from Anheuser-Busch (cultivated from a keg) and it has mutated over the years in Charlie’s careful hands.

I think the biggest item worth noting about this yeast strain is that it can ferment at both ale and lager temperatures. With this ability, a homebrewer can be very flexible in brewing many different styles using one yeast strain.

Check out the White Labs profile for more information

I imagine that you could brew an ale, ferment it using Cry Havoc, siphon the ale off of the yeast cake, and then brew a lager style and ferment it on that cake.

It has different properties when you ferment at different temperatures. At ale temps, it will impart estery flavors. At lager temps, those esters are gone and replaced with more prominent, pleasant sulfur compounds (aging will help to decrease the sulfur notes).

I read comments in the forums from brewers asking about how this strain performs. There were not many responses.

Other brewers who had used it reported good results for both ales and lagers. Some others were not fond of it and seemed to think that this jack of all trades strain didn’t make sense for all styles.

Mike suggested using it for the Oktoberfest/Marzen we have posted.

If you have used it, please comment below.