Yeast question

I new brewer here. Question bout liquid yeasts. Reading about it say the give better results and have a flavour difference each type. Are u able to use two different types of yeast in the brew

Of course you can. It's not as if some magic anti-yeast force-field pops up as soon as you pitch one strain in to a wort, thereby causing other yeast to bounce off and splatter on the walls.

Now, if you want to know which yeasts would go well with which beer types, you'd have to be a bit more specific. Some combinations would be better than others. In addition, it matters what style of beer you're aiming for.

As a newbie myself, its my understanding that you really want to stick with a same type of yeast. Adding two different types cause them to compete and your result is less than desirable. However I am sure there are exceptions to this. For me I am still sticking to the keep it simple rule until i perfect the craft. Hope this helps.

jjl4536 said:

As a newbie myself, its my understanding that you really want to stick with a same type of yeast. Adding two different types cause them to compete and your result is less than desirable. However I am sure there are exceptions to this. For me I am still sticking to the keep it simple rule until i perfect the craft. Hope this helps.

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If you are asking if you should brew all your batches with the same strain of yeast you can, some commercial brewery's use a standard house strain for all their beers.

That being said, IMO the yeast makes the beer so if you are looking for a particular style and flavor profile than you owe it to yourself to try different strains for particular beers

Thanks for the replies. Im not upto doing it yet jst reading books an nothing is mentioned about mixing yeasts jst a question I had bout it I'll get back to yas when I get upto it cheers

There are some styles which intentionally use two different strains of yeast, but typically at different stages of the brewing process. For example, a mead started with ale yeast to get some of the interesting flavor components produced by some ale yeasts and then finished with a cleaner fermenting, and more alcohol tolerant, wine yeast.

Also some styles which use a mix of yeast and bacteria to produce a sour effect (from the bacteria).

Sounds like a good experiment brew. I wonder if anyone has tried this yet with a "normal" (1.040-1.080) OG beer. I'm pretty sure when a high ABV beer is brewed, the original yeast will ferment until it reaches it's alcohol tolerance. At that point, a different yeast is pitched (with higher alcohol tolerances) to finish the job. I haven't done it myself, but I'm pretty sure that's how its done (for really high ABV beers). Please correct me if I am wrong.

Curtis2010 said:

There are some styles which intentionally use two different strains of yeast, but typically at different stages of the brewing process. For example, a mead started with ale yeast to get some of the interesting flavor components produced by some ale yeasts and then finished with a cleaner fermenting, and more alcohol tolerant, wine yeast.

Also some styles which use a mix of yeast and bacteria to produce a sour effect (from the bacteria).

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This is all true. There are reasons to mix in advanced circumstances, but for new brewers, consider all the effort the lab guys put into isolating individual strains. Each with different characteristics, ester profiles, alcohol tolerance, flocculation tendency, temperature sensitivity. It doesn't make sense to just toss different strains together without a reason.

I played around with mixing yeasts a decent amount a year or so ago. I found WLP568 Saison Blend & WLP862 Cry Havoc to be a fun mix. WLP001 Cali with WLP565 Belgian Saison also finished out fine & with a little more spice & funk than its sister batch on 001.

If you see 2 yeasts that sound like they have flavors you'd like to see mixed, go for it. They won't attack each other. Worst case usually is one works faster than the other.

I have mixed strains of yeast. For no other purpose than to get enough yeast cells. The beers have turned out fine, but I am no super-taster. Maybe it abhors some of the purists, but I don't care. As long as the beer turns out fine, what's the big deal?
I didn't mix a lager yeast with an ale yeast, but two ale yeasts that liked the same temperature interval.

olefattguy said:

I didn't mix a lager yeast with an ale yeast, but two ale yeasts that liked the same temperature interval.

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Good point. Long before I worried about clashing flavor profiles, I'd make sure the strains were going to be happy at similar temps.