British Yeasts, Fermentation Temps and Profiles, CYBI, Other Thoughts...

I don't keg condition, however there is recipe in Gordon Strong's book that uses 1968 and instructs you to prime the keg. I have a sneaking suspicion that handling has more to do with restarting the fermentation after packaging, as I never had the issue mentioned in this thread when I lived in a relatively cool location ~60F most days.

rockfish42 said:

I have a sneaking suspicion that handling has more to do with restarting the fermentation after packaging, as I never had the issue mentioned in this thread when I lived in a relatively cool location ~60F most days.

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Could you expand on this? I like how 1968 performs and I love how it tastes at bottling time so I'm willing to change my process but I'm not sure where to start.

I cold crash to 40F for a couple days and bottle cold. I primed with table sugar to 2.6 vols and I let it condition for ~3 weeks at ~70F. Maybe I shouldn't have carbed so high, but I think I read somewhere that English beers are often carbed higher when they're bottled than when they're served from keg/cask.

I used to live about 100ft from the Pacific Ocean near SF, I think the fact that the temp remained so low and even didn't allow my bottled beers to strip additional flavor after initial conditioning. British cellar temps being 50-57F, AFAIK conditioning takes place at those temps. It would be interesting to try conditioning with 1968 in bottle at the low end of that range and see if it stopped the problem.

bierhaus15 said:

-wy1187. Awesome yeast, you can get a very clean tasting beer with lots of English character. I like fermenting this one in buckets and will top crop it before high krausen. Yeast rousing works great on this one. Does not like lots of top pressure and does well with the fermenter lid put on lightly. I pitch at 65F let rise to 68-70F for a week then D-rest and crash cool by day 14 or so. I get good attenuation with this one, 75-85%. Hops come through really well. Ages well.

.....

I pitch a one quart starter for a 4 gallon batch and oxygenate around 8-12 ppm. I find I get a better malt/ester profile when I pitch a bit below ferment temp and let it rise up to around 70F for D rest before I crash cool to flocc all the yeast out. Malt profile stays intact. I typically don't go more than 3 weeks in primary, with average around 2 weeks total. I start drinking them about 2 weeks in the keg with the best flavor right around the 3 week/one month mark for best bitter/ESB. Hoppier beers i drink earlier, darker ones later.

Well I hope this helps someone.

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I've worked with open fermenters commercially and have done a number of comparisons between open ferms vs Unitanks and have a couple questions about the reason behind some of your procedures...

You say you crop 1187 "before high krausen". Why so early? Generally the yeast is harvested during fermentation when the beer is about 1/2 done (as opposed to harvesting from a Unitank post fermentation).

You mention cropping, then also mention making starters. Do you only crop 1187? Or are you cropping and then making a starter? If you crop and then make a starter, why aren't you just harvesting a pitchable quantity in the first place?


EDIT: DUH, didn't realize this was an old/long thread when I posted

rockfish42 said:

I used to live about 100ft from the Pacific Ocean near SF, I think the fact that the temp remained so low and even didn't allow my bottled beers to strip additional flavor after initial conditioning. British cellar temps being 50-57F, AFAIK conditioning takes place at those temps. It would be interesting to try conditioning with 1968 in bottle at the low end of that range and see if it stopped the problem.

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Interesting. Sounds plausible. The only way I could do that would be to keep them in my fermentation fridge, which usually has a carboy in it, so I probably need to focus on finding a yeast that works better at normal carb temps. Thanks for the reply.

Thanks everyone who has contributed to this thread. As a result, I'm very pleased with the best bitter and porter that I've done with WLP002/WY1968.

Can I check what I learnt from this thread against the current thoughts? I've fermented both the bitter and porter from a 0.8l starter (80g DME to 800ml water) in 5.5 gallon batches, starting at 64F, rising to 67-68F for the high krausen portion of fermentation, and then cooled back to 65F after the bulk of fermentation has completed (based on airlock bubble rates, and a check with the hydrometer in the case of the porter). I've not tasted any diacetyl in the beers, so I haven't done a D-rest.

I tried to naturally carb the bitter, but my improvised pressure barrel didn't seal well enough, so it's now kegged and force carbed there (6psi at 55F for 1.4-1.5 vols CO2). I think this has toned down some of the excess fruitiness in the beer. The porter is still in the primary fermenter (just over a week since I brewed it, but at 1.020 from 1.064 on Saturday (5 days in), and tasting good).

I trained at a brewery that open fermented. 3 day fermentation. Started at 68. They let it get to 71 then take it back to 68. They continued this cycle until it was done. They would stop fermentation where they wanted the gravity to finish. Maybe 1.014. Or 1.009. It would ferment pretty dry if you let it. Then take it to 45 one day then 32 if they were going to serve in serving tanks. If casked then not drop below 45. Loved it. I do mainly cask beer now and still follow what they did. Got my beer engine now too.

What yeast did they use?

Beernip said:

What yeast did they use?

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Ringwood. They used open fermenters and submersible pumps to rouse the yeast. Except for brown ales. Ringwood loved brown ales. They stop fermentation where they wanted it. They did this in the Ringwood brewery in England too.

Hey all,

There is a lot of love for wy1318 on this thread so I thought I'd post this here. What is the highest temp you've reach with this yeast and still made a decent beer? I have 6gals of a 1.051 porter that was pitched at 17C/63F in 19C/66F ambient temp. I pitched half a pint of a 2nd generation top crop harvested at high krausen 20 days ago. I've done a done a lot of low gravity beers with this setup and its always been a nice under control fermentation never even hitting 21C/70F. This beer has gone nuts, in 24 hours its floated a 3inch krausen and raised the temp to 23C/74F! I'm trying to cool it down now but I don't know how successful it will be. What off flavours will 1318 crap out when it gets too hot? I'm hoping nothing fusel, if its just more fruit I'll RDWHAHB.

It definitely gets fruity when fermented in the 70's but I wouldn't think it would produce much fusels since your starting temp was low. I once made a (OG. 1.034) boddies clone that I accidentally fermented around 72-75F. This is when my fermentation chest died and I didn't realize it until after it had been in there for a week... the beer turned out "ok" although it did have somewhat of a fruit salad ester thing going on.

bierhaus15 said:

... the beer turned out "ok" although it did have somewhat of a fruit salad ester thing going on.

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This. Thank you for the flavour descriptor. The beer is good cold but when it warms up it's a fruit bomb.

I've had many batches suffer BADLY from the cidery apple off flavor of WLP002 bottle conditioned with dextrose.

I'm working my way through all 50+ pages of this thread, but can some one give me cliff notes on the issue? Have we found a way to accurately bottle condition this beer without the off flavor(s)?

AT-JeffT said:

I've had many batches suffer BADLY from the cidery apple off flavor of WLP002 bottle conditioned with dextrose.

I'm working my way through all 50+ pages of this thread, but can some one give me cliff notes on the issue? Have we found a way to accurately bottle condition this beer without the off flavor(s)?

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This is a great thread. I think it was decided force carbing was the way to go with 002/1968 and 1318 was a better english yeast to use for bottle conditioning

Has anyone experimented with using a lower attenuating yeast to bottle carbonate with? Windsor comes to mind. I know its flavor profile is poor, but if used just for carbonating it shouldn't be an issue. I am worried about over carbonating with s-05 due to its ability to attenuate further than 002/1968.

On a related note, it's pretty well known that Firestone Walker uses 002/1968. They bottle condition some of their beers. I wonder if they filter and add a separate strain for bottle conditioning. If they did, it would have to be one that is about the same in attenuation as 002/1968. Has anyone contacted them about how they bottle condition?

gbx said:

This is a great thread. I think it was decided force carbing was the way to go with 002/1968 and 1318 was a better english yeast to use for bottle conditioning

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Yes, this is the most informative thread I've found on HBT. Its a shame I took so long to find it.

AT-JeffT said:

I've had many batches suffer BADLY from the cidery apple off flavor of WLP002 bottle conditioned with dextrose.

I'm working my way through all 50+ pages of this thread, but can some one give me cliff notes on the issue? Have we found a way to accurately bottle condition this beer without the off flavor(s)?

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The only consistence was to force carb with this yeast. The 1318 yeast is great for bottle carbing. You could try to bottle condition with wort instead of sugar if you really want to use 002.

Has anyone tried priming with extract? I've got a starter ready to go grown from this years Fullers vintage ale, and at least two batches planned for it. I don't have a keg setup and I really don't want to put off brewing tomorrow to use something else.

AT-JeffT said:

Has anyone experimented with using a lower attenuating yeast to bottle carbonate with? Windsor comes to mind. I know its flavor profile is poor, but if used just for carbonating it shouldn't be an issue. I am worried about over carbonating with s-05 due to its ability to attenuate further than 002/1968.

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I would bottle condition with 002/1968 over Windsor any day. The worst thing about Windsor is its completely non-flocculent and the actual yeast tastes musty and awful. If you put a beer made with windsor in a keg with gelatin and lager it until it is clear, the beer is actually not too bad. I like much better than S04. ...but bottle conditioning is terrible because the sediment is so loose its impossible to pour clean.

In regards to commercial bottle conditioning with 002/1968, I believe they do it without primings but by cold crashing a few points above terminal gravity.

This thread is going on close to 3 years and it had a tremendous amount of information. There is only brief mention of WLP037 Yorkshire Square in this thread. What is everyone's opinion of this one? I have only used it once and it was a strong fermenter with a big top cropper but I don't remember much else about it.

Tony

I brewed an ordinary bitter with the intention of following kingbrian's schedule of pitching at 64, letting it free rise to 68, then dialing back to 64 when the beer is at 1/2 of the final gravity. I was then going to crash to 40 when the beer has reached 1/5 of the final gravity.

I pitched a lot of healthy yeast and aerated well, so I had an explosive ferment and things are happening too quickly. Within 4 hours, it rose to 68. Within 24 hours, the gravity was at 1.020. I kicked it back down to 64. 48 hours later, it is at 1.014. The schedule tells me I should cold crash. I'm afraid to cold crash after only 72 hours from pitching. My plan is to let it sit at 64 for at least another 3 days, and then child crash for a week.

Has anyone else had issues like this? Should I just go ahead and cold crash now? The sample tasted pretty great with no discernable off flavors, other than being green. My palate for diacetyl is terrible, but I'm not tasting any butter or getting a slimy mouth feel.

The actual 64-68-64 fermentation schedule comes from Fullers and is what they supposedly use with their yeast - WY1968. Some of us home brewers adopted this method as a means to better preserve the "English" character that this yeast produces. With that said, unless you have impeccable fermentation control and are pitching large quantities of yeast into highly oxygenated wort, you'd really be better off not cold crashing until your fermentation is complete.

Rather, a better way to get a clean beer and save yeast character, is to pitch low (62-64F) and let the ferment temp free rise up to around 68F. From there, once fermentation is complete and diacetyl is not apparent, cold crash as normal.

I would not cold crash any beer within 72hrs of pitching. Give the beer at least a week.

Thanks. That's what my gut was telling me. I'll bump it back up to 68 and leave it there until the 7 day mark. I'll sample it and then decide at that point whether to crash or not.

CadiBrewer said:

The schedule tells me I should cold crash. I'm afraid to cold crash after only 72 hours from pitching. My plan is to let it sit at 64 for at least another 3 days, and then child crash for a week.

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The yeast doesn't care how long its been since you pitched. Gravity and what phase the yeast is in is the only meaningful metric. In your case the yeast has just sped though many of the phases already. If you don't want your beer to be too "cleaned up" I wouldn't be afraid to crash at this time. You could always warm it back up if you aren't happy with it as well.

I've got an ESB which has been in primary for two weeks with WLP005. The cottage cheese appearance is a dramatic departure from the look of other strains.

My issue is that after two weeks half of the "curds" are floating up top and the rest are very loosely packed around the bottom. Should I wait for the floating yeast to fall back down or will they remain there even after they're done working?

i'm working through this thread, but i haven't come across an idea i'm considering...

i have heard that english homebrewers traditionally would rack to secondary before primary fermentation was complete (say when 50% of FG is reached).

would this perhaps have a similar effect as dropping the temperature?

Cadi, in my opinion (and in the advice from many brewers on the BN) you should always let the yeast finish out. 72 hours isn't insane for a bitter to finish, but give the yeast 24-48 more hours to clean up after themselves. That's my 2 pennies, anyway.

progmac said:

i'm working through this thread, but i haven't come across an idea i'm considering...

i have heard that english homebrewers traditionally would rack to secondary before primary fermentation was complete (say when 50% of FG is reached).

would this perhaps have a similar effect as dropping the temperature?

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This practice may have come from what traditional commercial breweries did either in the form of burton unions or the double dropping system. Burton Unions were used in part to reclaim excess yeast for successive brews and the dropping system was used to remove early trub (for cleaner yeast harvest or cleaner beer) and in some situations to introduce oxygen to promote yeast health and the desired production of diacetyl. It also could have been influenced by cask fermentations or lagering which used the remaining fermentation and generation of CO2 to carbonate the beer in its final package.

bierhaus15 said:

The actual 64-68-64 fermentation schedule comes from Fullers and is what they supposedly use with their yeast - WY1968. Some of us home brewers adopted this method as a means to better preserve the "English" character that this yeast produces. With that said, unless you have impeccable fermentation control and are pitching large quantities of yeast into highly oxygenated wort, you'd really be better off not cold crashing until your fermentation is complete.

Rather, a better way to get a clean beer and save yeast character, is to pitch low (62-64F) and let the ferment temp free rise up to around 68F. From there, once fermentation is complete and diacetyl is not apparent, cold crash as normal.

I would not cold crash any beer within 72hrs of pitching. Give the beer at least a week.

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Hello. As a lover of estery, malty Bristish beer since a visit to England in 1984, I have read this entire thread with great interest. I would love to be able to make something that great at home, but I am not in a position to do what is described here (the Fuller's method) as I don't have a brew fridge; I just have a thermometer probe, a hydrometer, and four layers of bubble wrap insulation around my brew bucket to which I add or subtract variously sized ice packs. And I am not an all grain brewer either, just a kits and bits, dry yeast, bottle conditioning brewer. But I want to make the most of what I have to work with. I would like to ask some advice of the experienced brewers here, as to date none of my beers have been estery (probably been because I have left them too long -three weeks- in the primary). I plan to make a Coopers Real Ale or a Coopers English Bitter with 500gm DME and Nottingham yeast. At what temp should I pitch it? How high should I let it rise? Does it still make sense to reduce the temp back to pitching temp, and then cold crash, if I am not going to keg? How quickly should I bottle? How long should I let it condition at room temp before moving to cooler conditions? In terms of cooler conditions, I have a choice of a location in the house that is 15C and another that is 2C at night and 8C in the daytime (I am in Canada and it is -30C outside right now). Thanks in advance.

P.S. Is there another dry yeast your would recommend over Nottingham? I also have access to the new Mangrove Jack's dry yeasts and was thinking of their Burton Union yeast, which is said to be estery.

ukulele01 said:

P.S. Is there another dry yeast your would recommend over Nottingham? I also have access to the new Mangrove Jack's dry yeasts and was thinking of their Burton Union yeast, which is said to be estery.

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Fermentis Safale S-04. Nottingham does poorly at >68F I think that S-04 will have more esters and will be closer to the esters you are looking for. I've taken S-04 to 72F but I would recommend 70F.

+1 to s04. A lot more forgiving than Nottingham with, by my tastes, very similar flavor profile.

AT-JeffT said:

Fermentis Safale S-04. Nottingham does poorly at >68F I think that S-04 will have more esters and will be closer to the esters you are looking for. I've taken S-04 to 72F but I would recommend 70F.

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Maybe its just me but I think S04 is awful as are most dry yeasts: S04 has weird esters and acetaldehyde problems, nottingham strips out almost all flavour, windsor does not floc and tastes musty. The only dry yeasts I've ever used that I've been at all satisfied with are US-05 and w-34/70. If I was going to brew something English and I had to use dry yeast, I would use US-05. It would be too clean but at least I could still taste the malt and hops and it wouldn't have any off flavours.

I would love to find a decent dry yeast but I've never been satisfied with any I've tried. (but i've never really been 100% satisfied any yeast, wy1318 is my favourite one but it still pisses me off sometimes)

Thanks. For this next batch I will use Notty, as I have it on order; we will see after that. I had a Brown Ale my brother-in-law made at a U-brew with a Festa Brew kit using Nottingham and it was estery; quite nice actually. I understand that the U-Brew fermented at 68-70F and that they bottled at the 10 day point. I am thinking of doing the same thing, but bottling on day 8, depending on how the hydro sample tastes.

Am I right in thinking that one should not cold crashing in the primary before bottling, as I supposed you need to keep some yeast in suspension for bottling purposes? What about cold crashing in the bottles, after some initial time at 18-20C, to give the yeast time to ferment the priming sugar; how short a time at room temp could I get away with? Three days? Five days? Seven days? I am hoping that cold crashing the bottles would prevent the yeast from cleaning up the esters too much in the bottle. Thanks again.

In my limited experience with Notty, it ferments very clean in the 62 and below range. Get it much warmer than 65-66 and it really starts kicking out esters. The 66-68f range seems like you've turned on an "ester switch"

Unless I'm using the "Fullers profile" discussed at length in this thread most of my beers get a similar ferment schedule.

- pitch a couple of degrees below my desired main fermentation temp

- warm into that temp over the first 12-24 hrs

- ferment at that temp until airlock activity begging to slow.

- ramp up 1f per day over a few days until I am 3-5f above my primary temp.

- stay there 5-14 days of "clean up" depending on the strain before cooling down to prep for conditioning.

I got burned by Notty with this. Well, burned is not the right word, but the results were not what I was shooting for. I did a "British-ized" version of JZs Amber. I used US hops and MO as my base. Then split the batch. Half got WLP007. The other got Notty.

I fermented at 66f for about 3 days. Things were starting to slow the morning of day 4 so I ramped to around 69-70 over a couple of days. The 007 was outstanding. The Notty was good, but definitely more estery than I was targeting

ukulele01 said:

Thanks. For this next batch I will use Notty, as I have it on order; we will see after that. I had a Brown Ale my brother-in-law made at a U-brew with a Festa Brew kit using Nottingham and it was estery; quite nice actually. I understand that the U-Brew fermented at 68-70F and that they bottled at the 10 day point. I am thinking of doing the same thing, but bottling on day 8, depending on how the hydro sample tastes.

Am I right in thinking that one should not cold crashing in the primary before bottling, as I supposed you need to keep some yeast in suspension for bottling purposes? What about cold crashing in the bottles, after some initial time at 18-20C, to give the yeast time to ferment the priming sugar; how short a time at room temp could I get away with? Three days? Five days? Seven days? I am hoping that cold crashing the bottles would prevent the yeast from cleaning up the esters too much in the bottle. Thanks again.

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Nottingham doesn't taste bad. Anytime I've used it the beer has been fine just not awesome. I've done split batches and repeated recipes and always found that the flavours were more muted with the Notty - the crystal malt wasn't as prominent and the late hop additions seemed like they were half of what they actually were. But this could all be a function of pitch rate - definitely with split 2.5g batches but maybe the full pack is way too big for even a 5g batch. Its a hard yeast to get any good information on (as indepth as this thread) as most people who use it are either beginners or live in places were liquid yeast isn't available so there experience with a variety of strains is limited.

this thread has been an inspiration to me, so i thought i'd share a current batch that i'm working on.

the beer is basically 10% Crystal 60, 7% sugar, and with the balance an english pale malt. i'm going for a complex ester profile, a little bit of diacetyl, and a nice rounded malt character.

here was my strategy:
- intentionally underpitch WL 007 (pitched one vial in 1.050 wort), provide plenty of pure oxygen to the wort
- ferment at 64 until krausen starts to fall
- bring to 68 when krausen starts to fall
- draw sample at this point and put sample on warmed stir plate to determine FG
- let ride at 68 for maybe 18-24 horus
- bring down to 64 for remainder of fermentation
- bottle w/out priming sugar 2-3 points before reaching FG

i bottled last night. once i brought the temp down to 64 fermentation slowed almost to a halt. it took 4 or 5 days to go from 1.018 to 1.015. once it hit 1.015, i bottled with no priming sugar. i'm planning on diacetyl reduction and some maturation in the bottle and then i'll put them all in the fridge when it tastes how i want it to.

Wow, I have never seen anything quite like 1768 on a stirplate. Should I try to reign it in before final gravity? I'm trying to get close, while avoiding the bottle carving issues of 1968, I don't have kegs.

Riot said:

Wow, I have never seen anything quite like 1768 on a stirplate. Should I try to reign it in before final gravity? I'm trying to get close, while avoiding the bottle carving issues of 1968, I don't have kegs.

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you might draw off a sample while it is fermenting and put it on your stirplate. then you can at least know your FG so you aren't flying blind

I didn't draw a sample for that, but I think I'm going to start soone. I'm gonna repitch from this batch at least once and I'm interested in trying to carb without priming sugar. So far I've held it at about 65, it was barely active this morning, completely covered in krausen now.

progmac said:

this thread has been an inspiration to me, so i thought i'd share a current batch that i'm working on.

the beer is basically 10% Crystal 60, 7% sugar, and with the balance an english pale malt. i'm going for a complex ester profile, a little bit of diacetyl, and a nice rounded malt character.

here was my strategy:
- intentionally underpitch WL 007 (pitched one vial in 1.050 wort), provide plenty of pure oxygen to the wort
- ferment at 64 until krausen starts to fall
- bring to 68 when krausen starts to fall
- draw sample at this point and put sample on warmed stir plate to determine FG
- let ride at 68 for maybe 18-24 horus
- bring down to 64 for remainder of fermentation
- bottle w/out priming sugar 2-3 points before reaching FG

i bottled last night. once i brought the temp down to 64 fermentation slowed almost to a halt. it took 4 or 5 days to go from 1.018 to 1.015. once it hit 1.015, i bottled with no priming sugar. i'm planning on diacetyl reduction and some maturation in the bottle and then i'll put them all in the fridge when it tastes how i want it to.

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i cracked one tonight, 18 days after brewday and 6 days after bottling. drank at room temperature.

WOW

thank you for all the advice in this thread. i've found the authentic british ale that i'm looking for. i have never tasted anything from an american brewery like what i just drank.

i'm going to tuck the rest away in my freezer and hope they don't change.

How was the body/mouthfeel/carbing?

I'm about to do a loose interpretation of FW Woookey Jack ad would be interested in the no priming sugar bottle method, but I'd be so scared of either bottle bombs or no carb. How did you know the right gravity to bottle at?