1099 Whitbread Question

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mobilecabinworks

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I just brewed up a batch of ESB and pitched a 1099 Whitbread into it yesterday. I pitched at about 74F. My fermentation "locker" is kinda chilly so I put the brew belt on it might thinking it might chill too fast. It held at 74F over night. Shut off the belt this morning and it has settled to around 70F at the moment. Fermentation started sometime during the night.

Does anyone have any first hand experience with 1099? How estery is my ESB going to be now? I know it's in the temp range, but just wanted to first hand feedback. Thanks!
 
That's pretty warm for wy1099! I really don't like using this strain over 67-68F because it can give off a lot of strong esters, which to my tastes remind me of sour yogurt and old fruit. I stopped using this strain (and all the Whitbread derivatives) because they can get nasty when fermented warm.

Hopefully, yours doesn't do that! If it was only at 74F for 24hrs, you might be ok.
 
74 seems a bit warm, but if you brought it down to 70, it should be alright.

Once nice thing with the Whitbread is it flocculates pretty nicely.
 
yeah we are down below the "nasty line" now. Hopefully it just got it going strong and now it will keep from doing anything funky. Do you have another english style strain you use?
 
yeah we are down below the "nasty line" now. Hopefully it just got it going strong and now it will keep from doing anything funky. Do you have another english style strain you use?

If you ask bierhaus, he'll tell you that any other english strain would be better than Whitbread :) Personally, I like it just fine, but it's true that other wet strains are more interesting. Right now, I'm on a big 1768 special bitter streak (which was last season's wyeast VSS), but pretty much every english strain in the wyeats catalogue will produce a good to great ESB. I'm partial to 1469 in this season's VSS, but 1318 and 1187 will also produce great beer. 1968 I'm not a fan of because of its tendencies to stick.
 
Yeah I have heard not so good things about 1968, but I was hoping the LHBS had the 1469, but no luck.
 
If you ask bierhaus, he'll tell you that any other english strain would be better than Whitbread :)

Pretty much! :p

However, regarding yeast choice, it really all comes down to what type of character you are looking for in the beer. In my case, I prefer big, chewy, and flavorful yeast profiles that accentuate the malt and generally stick with strains that give me just that; such as wy1968, 1318, 1187, 1882, and 1768.

I would suggest giving 1968/wlp002 a try in the future. Like Ringwood (1187) it can be a bit tricky to work with, although it gives amazing results when done right.
 
Not to go too off-topic here but, S-04 is essentially the same strain as 1099, right?

I ask because I made a low-gravity English mild on Sunday with S-04. I chilled down to probably 70 degrees and took it to the basement for a good 15-20 minutes before pitching. The wort smelled nice before pitching but I've been taking airlock sniffs lately and they're god-awful. Tough to describe too... the "old fruit" is close to what I'm getting, as is sour... I'd even say a little garbagey?

During active fermentation, this beer may have climbed up past 70 - but the beer was so low-gravity that I believe it finished in a day (I blinked and missed the krausen). Am I screwed?
 
Not to go too off-topic here but, S-04 is essentially the same strain as 1099, right?

I ask because I made a low-gravity English mild on Sunday with S-04. I chilled down to probably 70 degrees and took it to the basement for a good 15-20 minutes before pitching. The wort smelled nice before pitching but I've been taking airlock sniffs lately and they're god-awful. Tough to describe too... the "old fruit" is close to what I'm getting, as is sour... I'd even say a little garbagey?

During active fermentation, this beer may have climbed up past 70 - but the beer was so low-gravity that I believe it finished in a day (I blinked and missed the krausen). Am I screwed?

No. Airlock sniffs mean nothing. S-04 is believed to be the same strain as 1099.
 
I've been sniffing my airlock and it smells really good. Nice fruity malty smell. I want to drink it already!
 
No. Airlock sniffs mean nothing. S-04 is believed to be the same strain as 1099.

Well... it means something from the surface of my beer up smells like ass at this moment in time.

Maybe you mean pre-complete-fermentation smells aren't necessarily what the end product will smell and taste like?
 
Well... it means something from the surface of my beer up smells like ass at this moment in time.

Maybe you mean pre-complete-fermentation smells aren't necessarily what the end product will smell and taste like?

No, I mean that the CO2 escape from 5 gallons of lukewarm non carbonated beer doesn't mean much. Sure, if it has a pellicule and smells like vomit, there might be cause to worry, but many yeast strains or fermentation throw crappy/noxious smells even after they are done. Windsor and S-04 always do that for me in pale ales. The last bitter I brewed with Windsor smelled of pure yeasty nastyness and farts... at bottling time... Once in the bottle, it was fine.
 
I gotcha - I haven't used this yeast before and other strains I've used before hadn't behaved similarly so it is just a little off-putting.
 

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