Tom Roeder's Dry Yeast vs Liquid Yeast Experiment

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dantheman13

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Tom Roeder on YouTube is probably too humble to post these vids, so I will! I don't know him, but watching his experiment involving several other YouTubers is very cool!

Basically, he is doing blind tests between Safale US-05 and Wyeast 1056. He brewed a single 10 gallon batch of pale ale, and split the fermentation. The only difference is that one batch was fermented with US05 dry yeast, and the other with Wyeast 1056 liquid yeast. He then had his brother and dad do a blind taste test. He also mailed samples to Bobby_M, jakecpunut, and nige4958, all of whom will do a blind taste test of the samples, and post their thoughts on YouTube. The entire experiment is on YouTube for us to enjoy. As someone who doesn't have the resources to do something like this, I think this is extremely fascinating! Ok, on to the vids...

Here is the first video. This is him brewing the beer, and detailing the conditions of the experiment:

First is the blind taste test with his father and brother, as well as his thoughts on the differences between these yeasts:

Now on to the other blind taste tests. Jakecpunut posted his results first:

Bobby_M's blind taste test results:

The final results from Tom:
 
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You might notice that Bobby describes beer B as being the better beer (more hops and body), while Jake and Tom describe beer A as being a better beer (for the same reasons). I think that Tom actually mixed up the sample labels so that there would be no preconceived notions between the reviewers based on the previously posted reviews (not that these guys would do that).

There is definitely one beer with more body and hops. It sounds like it is quite noticeable based upon each reviewer's description.
 
Granted, I haven't watched all the videos through yet, but was attention payed to pitching the same number of cells in each batch?
 
I did something similar recently... Made 7.5 gallons of "base" ale and then we used different yeasts and dry hops. Tasting party is on the 14th :)

I can tell you that the different Yeasts performed almost equally as far as how vigorous they were. The s04 dry English ale yeast (actual dry) had the highest attenuation with my wlp007 dry English ale yeast a close second and the s05 in last place (starting gravity was 80 with the fg being 12,14 and 16 respectively). The s04 was the only one in which we made a starter.
Looking forward to the results of both :)
 
cool, i've been wanting to do this experiment for a long time... glad someone finally did it! looking forward to the results.
 
I did something similar recently... Made 7.5 gallons of "base" ale and then we used different yeasts and dry hops. Tasting party is on the 14th :)

I can tell you that the different Yeasts performed almost equally as far as how vigorous they were. The s04 dry English ale yeast (actual dry) had the highest attenuation with my wlp007 dry English ale yeast a close second and the s05 in last place (starting gravity was 80 with the fg being 12,14 and 16 respectively). The s04 was the only one in which we made a starter.
Looking forward to the results of both :)

I thought it was pretty crazy that the yeast effected the hop profile in Tom's experiment. Keep that in mind when you sample yours. Let us know what results you get!

I don't think Tom answered if the final gravities were different between the two yeasts tested. I left a comment on one of his videos, so hopefully he will answer that for us.
 
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I'll bet if he went to all these lengths for the experiment, he wouldn't have mixed the samples, unless purposefully to keep things more random. Don't remember reading if beer a was the same for each sampler....? I think he used the malty calc for the liquid, but one full pack of dry. Maybe malty calls for the same. There was quite a bit of starter wort in the 1056, much more than I put in. Oxygen dosing might also have been different... I find it hard to see a lot of visible flow difference out of the stone over a wide range of flow rates. The temp of the 1056 might have been a bit above the dry, owing to the apparent ferm rate differences. Perhaps some fermaid in the dry yeast rehydration would have evened things out too. Curious to see the results now!
 
Subscribed and looking forward to the outcome.

Regardless, I will continue to use liquid yeast because I'm stubborn and I enjoy making starters.
 
Even though I could have clicked the "Thread tools" button and then selected "Subscribe to this thread" I will take more time and use more characters to post

Subscribed
 
Come on nige4958.

You are holding up the lunchline.

I was hoping he would get to it this weekend, but it doesn't look like it! I'm glad you folks are as interested as I am in Tom's experiment. It takes two things that I am really interested in, homebrewing and social media technology (and snail mail), and combines them into something that I consider to be a totally new social interaction that includes all of us, from Tom, to the reviewers, and to all of us as an audience and community.

Sorry if I got nerdy there. How people manage to use the interwebs blows my mind sometimes. :rockin:
 
Interesting?, definitely. Definitive?, hardly. Repeat the experiment another 99 times, 9 times exactly the same and 90 times changing the malts, hops, temps, length of primary and secondary fermentation, etc and you will start to be able to draw an educated conclusion on the differences.
 
Interesting?, definitely. Definitive?, hardly. Repeat the experiment another 99 times, 9 times exactly the same and 90 times changing the malts, hops, temps, length of primary and secondary fermentation, etc and you will start to be able to draw an educated conclusion on the differences.

I was wondering when the voice of reason would finally show up and make sure we all don't go patting ourselves on the back for finally putting this debate to bed once and for all. I'm looking forward to tasting your A/B contribution.

*****y Comment? Likely.
 
I was wondering when the voice of reason would finally show up and make sure we all don't go patting ourselves on the back for finally putting this debate to bed once and for all. I'm looking forward to tasting your A/B contribution.

*****y Comment? Likely.


Sensitive much? Sounds like you're the one who could use some massengales or at least some midol and a hot soak. You'll feel better in a couple days.
 
Interesting?, definitely. Definitive?, hardly. Repeat the experiment another 99 times, 9 times exactly the same and 90 times changing the malts, hops, temps, length of primary and secondary fermentation, etc and you will start to be able to draw an educated conclusion on the differences.

I don't think anyone said it was a "defined" anything. You are right though, definitely interesting.
 
I was wondering when the voice of reason would finally show up and make sure we all don't go patting ourselves on the back for finally putting this debate to bed once and for all. I'm looking forward to tasting your A/B contribution.

*****y Comment? Likely.

I'm curious why this would settle anything not settled in previous kitchen science experiments or in commercial sensory analysis experiments using appropriately sized and trained tasting panels.

You have 4? tasters? Unless all 4 correctly pick the odd sample, the probability of type I error is huge (not that anyone will think about such things before forming a conclusion).

You don't settle things but ignoring basic experimental design as is taught in high school statistics courses.
 
Sensitive much? Sounds like you're the one who could use some massengales or at least some midol and a hot soak. You'll feel better in a couple days.

The guy spent hours of time and at least $40 in shipping to make this happen. At least hold back your hater BS until he actually claims some result is conclusive.
 
I'm curious why this would settle anything not settled in previous kitchen science experiments or in commercial sensory analysis experiments using appropriately sized and trained tasting panels.

You have 4? tasters? Unless all 4 correctly pick the odd sample, the probability of type I error is huge (not that anyone will think about such things before forming a conclusion).

You don't settle things but ignoring basic experimental design as is taught in high school statistics courses.

I hope you caught the sarcasm. I don't know who actually thought any of this was going to be even minimally conclusive, but it's not me and I doubt Tom had any such hopes either.

I think the alternative is to never do any casual experimentation in any public setting and never publish any findings. Afterall, it's best to leave science to scientists because they know all the hazards of error and bias. If people are foolish enough to draw definitive conclusions from such things, they would have taken off the cuff advice from someone who didn't even bother experimenting anyway.

If I find that my preferred sample was dry yeast, I'm not going to stop using liquid cultures but it will force me to try the experiment for myself. Curiosity and actually doing something about it is what this is all about.
 
I'm curious why this would settle anything not settled in previous kitchen science experiments or in commercial sensory analysis experiments using appropriately sized and trained tasting panels.

You have 4? tasters? Unless all 4 correctly pick the odd sample, the probability of type I error is huge (not that anyone will think about such things before forming a conclusion).

You don't settle things but ignoring basic experimental design as is taught in high school statistics courses.

The most likely scenario, is that the results are mixed, meaning one isnt superior than the other, but that they produce different beers and different people have different preferences. If that wasnt the case then we would all prefer the same beer style.
 
You have 4? tasters? Unless all 4 correctly pick the odd sample, the probability of type I error is huge (not that anyone will think about such things before forming a conclusion).

Good point. I don't know if you watched the videos or not, but the difference between the two beers so far sounded to me that it was pretty easy to tell the difference between the two samples. Therefore, I predict that each of the 4 testers did in fact describe the same sample as having more body and hops.
 
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