Ringwood Wyeast 1187 (first brew)

Alright, So I have been collecting carboys, bottles, filling my head with the knowledge and such for the past couple months and I should be getting my ingredients in the mail this week. Anyway, When ordering I chose the Ringwood Yeast because I thought it sounded cool, and heard briefly it went well with a Nut Brown. Come to find out it is know as "Notorious" by some, I am a bit concerned, as I am a virgin. So here we go...

1.) Would a Malta Goya Starter be OK to use? In case I can't get any DME before the weekend...
2.) Any one have experience with this yeast that can give any advice or Ideas?

Again, Im not too concerned about any of this, just want to make some good quality brew.

see this post: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/my...ipe-sorta-dogfish-head-india-brown-ale-69823/

I learned a lot about Ringwood from our resident expert: BobNQ3x

Jzak09 said:

Alright, So I have been collecting carboys, bottles, filling my head with the knowledge and such for the past couple months and I should be getting my ingredients in the mail this week. Anyway, When ordering I chose the Ringwood Yeast because I thought it sounded cool, and heard briefly it went well with a Nut Brown. Come to find out it is know as "Notorious" by some, I am a bit concerned, as I am a virgin. So here we go...

1.) Would a Malta Goya Starter be OK to use? In case I can't get any DME before the weekend...
2.) Any one have experience with this yeast that can give any advice or Ideas?

Again, Im not too concerned about any of this, just want to make some good quality brew.

Click to expand...

I know that some people have sucessfully used malta goya, but I have not, so I can't speak to that.

As far as the yeast, a good idea would to be to keep in in the primary fermenter for 3 weeks or so, to clean up any extra diacetyl it produces. Some diacetyl is fine in a nut brown, so you made a decent choice with this yeast, but you might have a bit more than desirable. Keeping it in the primary for a bit longer than other yeasts will help to keep it from being a butterscotch bomb.

I'm sure it will turn out fine- there's nothing wrong with that yeast.

AZ_IPA said:

see this post: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/my...ipe-sorta-dogfish-head-india-brown-ale-69823/

I learned a lot about Ringwood from our resident expert: BobNQ3x

Click to expand...

Right on, sounds delicious. Ill have to add that one to the list. Did you use a starter?

Jzak09 said:

Did you use a starter?

Click to expand...

That was in my old n00b days - didn't do a starter, but also panicked and pitched some dry on top of the Ringwood. If I did it all over again, I would do a starter...

Ringwood is very flocculent. Even at high krausen the yeast swirls around in big clumps. I've got a IPA on Ringwood since Monday and it slowed down yesterday and is still active but slow. Its weird the yeast became less flocculent as it slows down, swirling around in little specs now instead of big blobs.... I'm guessing because the most viable yeast has settled out and left behind the dusty ones. I rouse all true top fermenting British strains just in case and also do a diacytel rest, generally 3-4 days 2 degrees higher than ferm temps. I also plan on keeping this in the primary for 2 weeks or more.
The good thing about these type yeasts is that they clear very well and have a lot of character.

Definitely make a starter with this one. My Wyeast pack only swelled about 40% but after 2 days in a starter it took off really fast in the primary. With a high yeast count fermenting fast and hard this will (hopefully) negate the yeasts poor attenuation reputation.

You rang...?



Seriously, I loves me some Ringwood. You just have to keep an eye on it, that's all, and know its characteristics. The most important characteristic is that it's a lazy bugger. If you don't keep it within the optimal parameters it can shut down and stop early.

Ringwood is a Yorkshire-type yeast strain. That means it ferments dry, produces lots of esters, does best in open fermentation and produces lots of diacetyl. Sam Smith ales have those characteristics, as do USA-based Ringwood breweries like Magic Hat and Shipyard.

Properly pitched, it tends to work quickly, too. Two to three days should see you from pitching to fully attenuated (though you need to check that with your hydrometer), after which you should let it rest for a few days for Ringwood to metabolize the diacetyl it threw off in the first stages of fermentation.

The more open your fermentation, the less time this takes. Open fermentation is not recommended for home brewers, because it's basically an uncovered bucket. Yeah, exposed to whatever floats by on the air. Not a good thing. Commercial breweries get round this by using positive pressure in the fermenting room and operating-room cleanliness. Your closet or basement has neither. I use the next best thing - I cover the mouth of my fermenting bucket with a sheet of Plexiglas laid on loosely. See this post for more tips.

All that aside, I don't want to frighten you away from Ringwood. You will enjoy what it provides your English and American ales. I especially like it with American Pale Ale, a la Sierra Nevada; I find the fruitiness of the yeast melds well with the citrus of the hops. It takes some management, that's all.

Cheers,

Bob

I used this yeast for My Nut Brown Ale/ and like the above poster I got great advice from Bob. I did not make a starter (didn't have any DME on hand--has since been rectified). It took a day-and-a-half or so to get going. Per Bob's advice I kept a close eye on the little buggers lest they go to sleep. After fermentation slowed a bit I gave the bucket a swirl for good measure. Took a hydro last Sunday (17 days into fermentation)--hit FG target dead on. And dang did it taste good! It's still in the fermenter cleaning up at the moment--will bottle on Wednesday--right at the one month mark.

Awesome, thanks for all of the great info. What a great place this is! Brew day is on for Saturday, if anyone cares, perhaps I'll post some pics.... Also one quick one: How do you get the temp up two degrees for the rest, Any tricks?

It's not really necessary to worry about the mechanics of raising the temperature. Just let it sit for a couple of days after the vigorous ferment ends.

Bob

You the man Bob. Thanks for your wealth of knowledge. How did you get into working at Breweries? You must've known someone... I'd love to get be able to work at Flying Bison (buffalo's local brewery, producing some primo brews) even if i was just swabbing the decks in the middle of the night...

I think for me so far, the yeast is the most intrigueing thing in this whole endeavor, aside from the whole drinking part. It's interesting that they have different characteristics and what they do under different conditions. Isn't it?

Hi, all. Bob, like so many of my other questions, this one is for you.

I got a friend of mine started with homebrewing , and he chose Nosferatu's Return as his first recipe. The recipe calls for Swedish Ale yeast, which Wyeast doesn't make anymore, but I saw Ringwood Ale cited as the equivalent in a number of places, so I went for it, plus, it's appropriate for the style.

This is before I knew what starters were, and how to make them, and I brewed a batch for myself and then one with my buddy.

We had the same issue...mainly, lack of vigorous activity at any stage in the brewing. I've since bottled my batch, which I left in the primary for three weeks and the secondary for another three, and it attenuated nicely.

My buddy's batch, though, is in its second week of fermentation and has yet to see any vigorous activity in the airlock. I know that's not necessarily a measure of activity, and I'm going to get him to do a gravity reading.

But, any advice? Should I tell him to rouse the yeast? Keep it at slightly warmer temperatures? It's in a room right now that is in the low to mid 60's.


Thanks,

CB

CB -

Before you do anything, test the gravity. I haven't the foggiest what Nosferatu's Return is, but presumably you have some idea where the gravity should wind up. Let me know where the beer is now before I offer up any advice.

Jzak -

Thanks for the prop to my ego.

To answer your question, it's really, really hard to break in these days like I did. I kept walking in to the local micro and pestering them until they gave me a part-time job bottling and kegging. After a month of that, they offered me a cellar job which I worked for six months. Then I actually brewed a batch of beer! From there I went on to brewpub and other packaging brewery gigs. Now I'm a consultant.

Bob

Whoops, sorry Bob. I meant to add the recipe.

Here's the link,
BYO - Nosfaratu's Return

(they spell Nosferatu wrong)

CB




Nosfaratu's Return
by Mark diSimone


5 gallons, extract/specialty grains

"This beer is silky smooth and has a great chocolate character. Its 10 percent alcohol is totally hidden. It is ranked number one in our store's 18-year history."

Ingredients:

6.6 lbs. gold unhopped malt extract
2 lbs. orange blossom honey
1 lb. chocolate malt
1 lb. pale chocolate malt
1 lb. Vienna malt
0.5 lb. cara-pils malt
0.5 lb. crystal malt, 56° Lovibond
1 lb. Munich malt
2 oz. Perle hops (8% alpha acid), for 20 min.
1 oz. crystal hops (3.2% alpha acid), for finishing
Wyeast 1742 (Swedish ale)

Step by Step:

Steep grains in 2 gals. of 170° F water for 30 minutes. Remove grains. Add malt and honey to the grain water. Bring to a boil. Add Perle hops and boil for 20 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in 1 oz. crystal hops. Add to fermenter. Add water to 5 gals. When temperature is below 80° F, pitch yeast. Ferment for seven to 10 days. Place in secondary for seven to 10 days. Prime with corn sugar. Bottle at 1.014. Let age three to four weeks.

Okay - now you know kind of where you ought to end up. ProMash tells me you should have started at ~1.070. Ringwood will probably need some babysitting to get to 1.014 from that OG. Like I said before, check the gravity. If it's around 1.018, rouse it twice daily until it's done. If it's near your proposed FG, I'll be pleasantly surprised and you should not muck about in it. Getting it t 1.018 is 75% attenuation, which is beyond the manufacturer's range for the yeast. That said, I've made everything from APA to Barleywine and Imperial Stout with it - and those were 11-12%ABV beers.

And I don't know how they're getting 10% ABV from that recipe. Best case, you're looking at ~7.5% ABV.

Bob

Thanks so much. On the first brew of this that I made, I bottled it at 1.020. It had been sitting in the secondary for awhile and wasn't going anywhere. That batch was brewed under less-than-ideal conditions (on an enclosed porch in a water bath, wrapped in a wet towel), but it still smelled great and gravity samples looked and tasted good. (I've since moved into a brew closet) I think this batch I've made with my friend will be better, as he will have better temperature control (we're storing the beer inside, after all).

Can I ask what about open fermentation is beneficial to that strain of yeast?

On a separate tangent, what do you think about rousing the yeast in general? It presents sanitation issues, but I've been thinking about it for some of my big Belgians.

Temperature control is crucial. That's the single biggest step toward improving beer quality - not going all-grain, not practicing water chemistry - fermentation temperature control.

Open fermentation reduces the time needed for Ringwood to reduce diacetyl and its precursors. You can ferment with Ringwood in a closed system - carboy or conical - but it takes much longer to clean up the butterscotch. Use an open fermenter and you can have a primary ferment finished in days. Use closed and you're looking at weeks. That's fine when you've got the time, but I don't.

Generally speaking, rousing yeast in the classic sense - sticking something in the fermenter and stirring - is a bad idea unless absolutely necessary. Some traditional English and Belgian breweries still practice rousing (and skimming), but it's really not a good idea unless you have to rouse; in other words, if you are faced with the decision of rousing or pitching another yeast to overcome a stalled ferment. Belgian yeasts are usually voracious and require only patience. Witbier yeast can go slow, for example. But yeasts like Trappist High Gravity usually don't require anything other than patience.

Bob

Bob, old thread I know but I have a question; brewing a low gravity bitter w. Ringwood this weekend. Starting gravity around 1038, aiming to finish around 1008. I am making a starter now for it. Am I foolish in hoping that a good sized starter should be able to burn through that w/o having to babysit it, rouse yeast, etc? Temp in the basement where we are brewing is 65-70.

Also, can you explain a bit more about the open fermenter? Using a conical but it is not sealed. It's a food-grade plastic with a removable lid. How do I talk my partner into taking the lid partway or all the way off? Is that necessary?