Yorkshire Square yeast WLP037

I fermented a standard bitter recipe with a vial of Yorkshire square yeast that i picked up on visiting the White labs tasting room in Nov. From most of the reports it appears its highly flocculant and that was what i was expecting. However after 3 weeks in primary and 2 weeks in a keg its still very cloudy and full of yeast. Its definitely starting to clear and is tasting pretty nice but would love it for the yeast to flocculate out.

Any ideas of what i may have done wrong. I brewed a Mild (recipe courtesy of perfect pint blog) with WLP002 a few days before and it cleared out very quickly and have been drinking for a week now, I was expecting a similar thing with the bitter. I know it will improve and it is getting better so in 3-4 weeks time should be great but i was expecting it to clear pretty fast. Or am I being a bit unreasonable. Would love to hear any others experiences with it all the reviews on white labs site seem to highlight how flocculant it is. I know i had it a bit on the cool side during fermentation, thats why i upped it for a few days towards the end.

Recipe (courtesy of brewing classic styles)
9 1/2 lbs pale maris otter
1/2 lb aromatic malt
1/2lb crystal 120
1/4lb special roast

1.2 oz EK Goldings 60 min
0.5 oz EK Goldings 20 min
0.5 oz EK Goldings 1 min

Mash at 154, fly sparge, boil 60 mins, whirlfloc 15 mins
Ferment at 62-64 for 2 1/2 weeks
3 days at 68 at end

OG 1.050
FG 1.007

Transfer to keg, place in refridgerator 4 days
place at cellar temp (mid 50's) past 2 weeks

Welcome to the world called "finings", almost all beers have some form of fineing or filtering. The Mild you brewed if done in England would have some Isinglass added as a fining agent, it becomes part of the flavor profile too. The most common fining is Irish Moss, which is added to the boil.

Yeah I just did a northern brown with this yeast and after 2 weeks it was still pretty cloudy. I used some gelatin and after a few days of that and cold crashing it is very clear.

yodalegomaster said:

Welcome to the world called "finings", almost all beers have some form of fineing or filtering. The Mild you brewed if done in England would have some Isinglass added as a fining agent, it becomes part of the flavor profile too. The most common fining is Irish Moss, which is added to the boil.

Click to expand...

What do you think whirlflock is?

David, how do you know that the cloudiness is due to the yeast?

14thstreet said:

David, how do you know that the cloudiness is due to the yeast?

Click to expand...

I guess I don't really. I'm just going by the fact that the beer has a yeasty taste and is fairly cloudy, although actually tastes fairly OK so I don't think its been infected. Also after 3 weeks in primary when i racked out to keg there was a fairly small yeast sediment. Since kegging the beer has started to get a little clearer and this is accompanied by sediment accumulating at the bottom of the keg, in that everytime i pull a little thru it takes a little to clear.
I think it will be OK but I had expected something similar to the WLP002 which was crystal clear from racking to the keg. All I can read about the yorkshire square system suggests that it will flocculate very quickly and thats its actually a challenge to keep it in circulation hence the use of the yorkshire square system in the first place.

Doing a search I have come across to a few references to the same situation I have but was wondering if this was a general characteristic of the yeast that others were seeing. I like the taste of the beer and once that yeasty flavour goes I think it will be a great beer but wasn't prepared for how long it takes to clear. I guess I've got used to the WLP002 ESB starin which is always clear right away.

edecambra said:

What do you think whirlflock is?

Click to expand...

Actually my fault as I didn't have that in the recipe when I originally posted but after yodalegomaster posted about it, I added that back. I just forgot to add when I wrote it first.

I have used finings a little in the past but I'd rather not get too much into finings post fermentation. I'm english and originally started brewing in the UK a long time ago and used to use isinglass which seemed a major pain at the time as i remember it was difficult to get into solution properly. Also wasn't sure if i really wanted a solution of fish swim bladders in my beer.

I guess there are other things now available, the whirlfloc seems very easy so will continue to use it.

yodalegomaster said:

Welcome to the world called "finings", almost all beers have some form of fineing or filtering. The Mild you brewed if done in England would have some Isinglass added as a fining agent, it becomes part of the flavor profile too. The most common fining is Irish Moss, which is added to the boil.

Click to expand...

Yeah I did use a whirlfloc tablet, have edited my original post to include. I guess I got used to the characteristics of the ESB yeast which clears fast.
I have used isinglass in the past, used to get small packets from "Boots" the chemist (UK pharmacy chain) back when they had a small homebrewing section. Sort of equivalent of going to RiteAid and getting your homebrewing supplies here. Boots no longer carries anything like that now and it really wasn't too good when they did do, canned hopped extract and a few dry hops, but they got me going originally in homebrewing in the UK.

The isinglass seemed like a major pain at the time, was hard to dissolve properly and wasn't sure how well fish swim bladders would enhance the flavour although as you say I know they are a common additive.

Whirlfloc/irish moss in the kettle isn't everything. I use it but there were a few times that I didn't and the beer cleared as usual, so there must be something else at work.

The yeast certainly finished the beer at 86% attenuation, so the fact it was done should have promoted flocculation. Another thing you could look into is the calcium in your water. Having more promotes yeast flocculation. Another cause could be your beer just isn't cold enough (without finings) to sediment the yeast. I have a mild right now that still isn't crystal clear at 5 weeks old, 4 weeks at 45F (Wyeast 1318). I did not adjust my calcium in this batch and in previous ones I did and those were clear at this time.

I wonder if its something to do with fermentation temp, for most of the 3 weeks in primary it was at 62-64. The recommended temp is somewhere 65-69 according to White labs. I did increase to 68 for the last few days and it did finish, I was surprised how low the FG got.

It should have flocculated fairly quickly from what I've read but I've also seen some references to the same problem I've had as well.

I did using Beersmith try to emulate a London water profile which meant I think about 2-3 g of gypsum above the calcium I already have in the water here.

Man that is pretty high attenuation for that strain I didn't even notice that.

I've used this yeast before with no cloudinss issues. I really like this one, honestly.

OP, did you have any issues with cooling the batch after the boil?

homebrewdad said:

I've used this yeast before with no cloudinss issues. I really like this one, honestly.

OP, did you have any issues with cooling the batch after the boil?

Click to expand...

Not really, I have a not terribly efficient immersion wort chiller that I fashioned myself from copper tubing and hosing. Takes a fair while to cool down but I don't think its too bad.

I actually really like the flavour of the beer and would probably use this again. I slanted the yeast so have a few vials to last me for a while. I was just hoping perhaps naively that from a Nov brew I might have something drinkable for the holidays, I'm sure if I had used WLP002 that would have worked. The Mild that I brewed the same week was easily very drinkable by Christmas. I think this beer in a few weeks will clear sufficiently that it will be great, as I said it really tastes pretty good now if you take away the yeastiness and its definitely clearing albeit mightily slow.

Its just that it seems to go in my hands at least opposite to what I was expecting, but again most of my experience has been mainly with the ESB yeast. I was interested in what others have experienced with this yeast as most reports seem opposite to my experience so far.

If the temperature was too low I'd expect the yeast to floc out and you'd have some residual sugars. In your case I don't think that's it. I'd be afraid to say its contaminated with something that stays in suspension but has no off-flavors. But I won't shout it out May be a bad lot?

My one experience with this yeast went bad in the bottle. Either a contamination or it woke up and continued fermenting in the bottle. As a result I got some hefty carbonic bite and gushers. I may have fermented too cold on that one, about 62-64F and never kept fermentation going.