Wyeast 1318 in bitters: too sweet...

I'm on my second bitter using 1318 and I'm a little iffed by it. My last recipe comes out again a bit too sweet, even with a 1.040 IBU/SG and only 4 oz of extra dark crystal in the whole beer.

The gravity came out at 1.009 (SG: 1.042) so the sweetness isn't due to underattenuation. I also mashed @ 150F for 60 minutes. Anybody has any experience making this yeast work with standard/best bitters ? It seems to wash away a lot of bitterness/hop character. To say that it's a malty yeast is an understatement, but I still want to make it work because it's easy to harvest, flocs really well and is reliable.

It does finish a bit sweet, but definitely not cloyingly so. It's more of a malty sweetness than sugar sweetness. I use this yeast all the time, it's really one of my favorites for bitters and milds because of how balanced it is - I've used this yeast about a dozen times now and I can't say any of them have been "too sweet" and I prefer all my beer's about as dry as I can get them. What was your fermentation schedule like? Pitching rate, temperature, starter?

I would agree that this yeast probably is not the best choice for IPA's and hoppy beers, as it does give a slightly softer bitterness, though a loss of hop aroma has not been a problem for me.

Temperature: 64F for 2 weeks. I pitched a good 100ml of solids from a top cropped, clean slurry, no starter. I had about 8 hours of lag time and the beer was finished in 3 days.

I guess I like my beers on the dry/bitter side, because I wouldn't call it cloying, but it's sweet upfront. My favourite bitter I made was open fermented with 1275, wich I thnk you hate I'll give the beer another week for things to balance out and give it another taste. It's interesting, but it's not my cup of tea, altough there's a lot of promise in there.

Point being, it worked awesome in the export I made at the same time. It drinks like a smaller McEwan's.

I used 1728 in my SB and it came out really nice... I'm actually brewing another batch in a couple of days.

I used 1318 in an old ale and that finished really great too. Not overly sweet, but the high ABV (8.1%) might something to do with why...

The percieved sweetness is probably based on your water profile. I am not sure if you make water adjustments but I would look into adding more sulfate to your boil. This will up your percieved bitterness.