Fleischmann's Yeast

I am doing a throwback dandelion wine from the Foxfire books, so I used Fleischmann's to keep it kitchy.

So far, it's been 11 days and no sulphury smells, I've just been swirling it about twice daily (1 gal in 5 gal bucket, no airlock, just loose lid)

I've used Fleishmann's for mead (per Joe's Ancient Orange instructions) and also toyed with it in some cider.

So far, this yeast seems to be a beast... and is pretty good.

I have given it some DAP here and there, but stopped when my gravity got to the 1/2 sugar break.

I've got half a mind to give it a try instead of US-05, my favorite beer yeast, for my favorite APA.

Anyone else have experiences with Fleischmann's, good or bad?

Never tried it, but I wonder what the flocculation is like?

I'll pay attention to the floc on this batch.

So far, it's still working along as far as I can tell, whenever I shake it, CO2 comes out, so I assume it's still at work.

It is fusel smelling, but luck had it that the day after I pitched the yeast, we had a heat wave and an insulation problem, I'm back down to 72 now, but there was about a week there where it was about 80 inside the house.

That's another thing I'm going to keep my eye on with this yeast in future batches, its fusel production.

My very first batch used Fleishman's. I killed the Notty by dumping it into boiling water. In a state of newb panic, I dumped in a packet or two of Fleishie. The beer was, for the most part, miserable.

However, I kept a few bottles in reserve. After about a year it wasn't bad at all.

arturo, do you attribute the miserable quality of that beer to the yeast or your noobiocrity?

The Fleishmann's took my dandelion wine down to 0.99, I didn't take a starting gravity but it was 3 pounds of sugar in a gallon batch. Calculators online show it being 17.25% and there have been zero off-smells. I racked to a secondary today, in glass, so I should be able to report back on flocculation soon. I don't expect it to form a nice clean compact little layer like EC-1118, but as long as it does eventually compact, they would be nice.

I'll report back at the appropriate time.

Just a reminder, I did step-feed with DAP. Had I not done that, who knows what would have happened.

Basic Brewing has a podcast on using bread yeast:

http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=trading-places-beer-and-bread-yeast

They make a starter first if I recall correctly, and they
liked the beer.


Ray

After 7 days in the glass, there is a layer but it's lumpy and not very compact. The wine hasn't cleared at all, but that's to be expected with any yeast at this stage. I just wanted to give an update for posterity.

Fletch78 said:

arturo, do you attribute the miserable quality of that beer to the yeast or your noobiocrity?

Click to expand...

yeast

(sorry for the late reply)

It should clear, in my experience, if left totally still. The yeast can settle but it doesn't cake up much and is super easy to disturb.

Yes, the JAO I made with it last year was totally clear after about 6 months, and I even blame that amount of time on the oranges and no use of pectic enzyme (or whatever) in the recipe..

So far, what has surprised me, is that it has hit 17.6 % ABV with zero off-smells.. other that some fusel which I blame on the 80+ temps when the AC went out right after I pitched it.