I just recieved by brew kit in the mail today A "Golden Ale". I always enjoy using liquid yeast (think it taste better). I usually just click on liquid yeast at the home brew website since theres an option tab liquid or dry. So two questioins the brew store sent me this liquid yeast WLP 001 the Whitelabs website says its a very versityle strain. But is it a good yeast for Golden Ale? Second question the recommended brewing temp for this yeast is 68f to 73f. I've always through that low to mid 60f would be best ... I don't want to get off flavors. Would there be any huge fermentation complications if instead of fermenting at 73f if I ferment it at 62F? Thank you.
WLP001 Cali Yeast recommended temp seems high
- Thread starter tenchu_11
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It will just move a bit slower, I ferment this yeast at 68-70 and does great.
That IS my favorite yeast strain. I've fermeneted as high as 75/76 degrees with no off flavors.
it is the most popular strain from WL and used by a lot of breweries or something close to it.
SumnerH
Well-Known Member
There's no such thing as a yeast that's good for most ales. WLP001 would be great for a lot of American ales (though too clean for some). It would be workable for a pseudo-kolsch/alt but far from ideal, and completely wrong for most other German ales and almost all Belgian ales. It'd be sub-par for many English/Scottish/Irish ales (possibly completely unacceptable for some), though perfectly fine for some.
SumnerH
Well-Known Member
WLP-001 is a strain of Chico yeast, as are Wyeast 1056 and Safale US-05. There are some differences, but the overall places you'd use them are similar. It's Sierra Nevada's house yeast (the one used in their flagship Pale Ale, for instance).
It's absolutely fine in some darker beers. Captain Lawrence, for instance, uses one of the Chico strains for their Smoked Porter, and I made my Russian Imperial Stout with Chico with good results. Anything that you want to be a pretty clean ferment without any esters, and any that's really big/bold malt (roasted/smoked/etc) or hop-centric it should be a good choice for.
Some American ales want a bit more fruitiness/esteriness--Anchor Liberty is the source of Wyeast 1272/WLP051 for instance, which is a more fruity beer. A lot of east-coast breweries (e.g. Dogfish Head, Geary's, Shipyard) use Ringwood yeasts (Wyeast 1187/WLP005) that tend to have a dry finish with some soft orange notes.
Both of those are great yeasts, but they're a bit more finicky than Chico. The Liberty yeast can have attenuation problems unless you control temps very well, and Ringwood can throw huge amounts of diacetyl (butter/butterscotch flavor). Chico is about as pitch-and-forget as they come.
Commercially, I think those are the 3 most prevalent ale yeasts in the US. For home brewers, Denny's Favorite (Wyeast 1450) is another that has a great rep, but I've not used it yet. Rogue's Pacman yeast was originally a Chico variant but has evolved its own characteristics; it's quite popular too.
Most English ales want a slightly more estery flavor that a lot of English yeasts seem to have. Then there are things like Scottish ale yeast that seem to enhance smokiness. And most of the German ales (hefeweizens, kolsch, etc) and Belgians (and French styles) derive a huge part of their flavor from specific kinds of yeast.
OP
OP
tenchu_11
Well-Known Member
some one should develop a Yeast bracket poster. Strain of yeast and what its good for would make a great wall poster. So far only thing is to go to the manufacturers website and reading what its good for.
JuanMoore
Getting the banned back together
I've split up batches and pitched different yeasts to compare many times, and myself and several beer snob friends were hard pressed to tell the differences between the 3 commonly availabe chico strains (WLP001, Wyeast 1056, and Safale S-05). I should mention that they were all fermented at 65F, and I've heard that there are some slight differences when fermented at other temps, particularly that S-05 produces a mild peachy flavor at very low temps. I prefer to use the S-05 since it costs half as much for twice as many cells, and can be easily stored for long periods. All of the chico strains are clean fermenting, pretty versatile for most American style ales, and very easy to use.
a10t2
Well-Known Member
My personal theory is that Wyeast and White Labs publish temperature recommendations for microbreweries, which are their biggest customers. So they're optimized for large conicals with a lot of hydrostatic pressure. To get the same flavor using a smaller fermenter, you need to subtract a few degrees.
Chico will ferment just fine down into the upper 50s.
Wyeast publishes a little folding pamphlet with information on all their strains. It also has a chart that suggests strains for each style. Your LHBS probably has copies, or I'm sure they'd mail you one.
chickypad
lupulin shift victim
SPLASTiK
Well-Known Member
White Labs actually makes a matrix poster. List the strains, attenuation percentages, etc. Then it has a list of all the major beer styles and a rating of how to style or not each strain is.
If you e-mail them I bet they'd send you one.
Looks like someone on the Brewing Network took all the info and made it into a PDF:
http://canyoubrewit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=995
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