House yeast Recommendations, weirdness from S-05

Little background on my brew setup and what I brew - I ferment everything in an 8x8 cold room with an AC unit. It can get down to 60F at the cooler times of year but generally it stays around 62-65F ambient during fermentation. Sometimes I'll turn up the dial to hit 70-75 to finish out fermentation, depending what else is fermenting and at what stage.
We regularly ferment IPAs, Pale Ales, Stouts and Saisons. Occasional Belgians, sours and some other styles here and there. But I am looking for a house yeast for my cleaner American style ales.

I have great success with my belgian beers with Omega Saisonstein, wlp500 and wlp400. They ferment nice, no off flavors and they bottle condition well. So they are covered.
I LOVE conan for my hoppy beers, but my brew partner doesn't keg and we have had issues bottle carbing with that strain.

At the moment we use s-05 for the majority of our cleaner ales. It has been super weird of late and just to inconsistent. Throwing alot of off flavors. Its hard to pinpoint but mainly a mix of tart, oxygeny/cardboard notes. not quite acetone sour/tart but it reminds me of it. This only happens with my Paler, hoppier beers and only with S-05. Wondering if its an interaction with the yeast and hops. I use 100% RO water with gypsum, Calcium Chloride and acid malt to hit recommended pH and mineral levels according to bru'n water. I dont actually test pH yet as i dont have a meter. Its next on our list to purchase.

Long story short, I am looking for suggestions for a house yeast. Dry is preferred b/c of the ease and I can order and store a lot of it. but will consider liquid.
Also looking for fast turnaround, bottle conditions well and plays well with lots of late hops and dry hopping.
I usually pitch at 64-65F. So possibly hitting low 70s during peak.

WLP007 Dry English is popular for a house yeast. Supposedly Stone uses it as their house yeast. You can also try a liquid culture of Cal Ale instead of dry.

Well, I find S-05 (even though I use it frequently) to be less flocculent, so it may not be as good for bottle conditioning.

Nottingham is surprisingly clean despite being an "English" yeast.

Perhaps the San Diego Super Yeast WLP090 if you're willing to go liquid. I haven't used it, but I've heard great things including its turnaround time.

I use WLP006. It ferments very clean at low temperatures, and I have used it very successfully in plenty of IPAs. It has a fairly unique profile (I find), which I think adds to American ales. And of course it makes killer English ales. It also flocculates quite well.

Mangrove Jack M44

What strain of conan did you use? I have the version from the yeast bay and have had no issues at all with bottling. I use conan for all sorts of styles and like it.

I live about 3 hours from any HBS (nothing local about it!) and use S-05 almost exclusively. It sounds like you've got a good setup and a lot of experience. We know that 05 is really clean, Chico strain, used by thousands if brewers who don't get your off flavors. If I were having this issue I would be looking for the reason for the problem not a new strain. I doubt it's the 05, gotta be another explanation.

Personally, I've enjoyed Wyeast 1272 American Ale II.
But if you really want a dry yeast, Danstar Nottingham is pretty foolproof for stouts and ales. It doesn't give your beer anything too fancy, but it ferments very fast, and very clean, and tolerates a wide temperature range.

You mention tart flavors, is this by any chance peachy notes? S-05 is known to give off peachy esters when fermented too cold contrary to other strains. I try to Keep it at 68-70 and get a very clean product. I have heard of 60-64 giving strong peach esters.

Wlp007

cegan09 said:

What strain of conan did you use? I have the version from the yeast bay and have had no issues at all with bottling. I use conan for all sorts of styles and like it.

Click to expand...

we'll give it another try. I have the omega strain. I have various generations harvested.

arnobg said:

You mention tart flavors, is this by any chance peachy notes? S-05 is known to give off peachy esters when fermented too cold contrary to other strains. I try to Keep it at 68-70 and get a very clean product. I have heard of 60-64 giving strong peach esters.

Click to expand...

Im not sure if its peach or not. Hard to describe. Peach to me sounds pleasant but Ive heard of bad peachiness from s-05 at low temps. so maybe that could playing into it
Its popping up in our dry hopped late kettle additions beers.
We brew a Summer Blonde ale using s-05 with all the hops in the boil and no dry hops. Its a nice easy drinker, no off flavors to speak of. My thoughts have been its an oxygen problem from the dry hops.

TANSTAAFB said:

I live about 3 hours from any HBS (nothing local about it!) and use S-05 almost exclusively. It sounds like you've got a good setup and a lot of experience. We know that 05 is really clean, Chico strain, used by thousands if brewers who don't get your off flavors. If I were having this issue I would be looking for the reason for the problem not a new strain. I doubt it's the 05, gotta be another explanation.

Click to expand...

Not giving up on s-05 just yet. Im going to look into a few other things in the process in the meantime. Just wierd that this is happening to only my s-05 batches. I've had split batches with conan on the IPAs and they turn out fantastic when kegged. the s-05 not so much, even when kegged.

Ill give Notty a try. wlp007 is on my list for liquid.

hopbrad said:

Im not sure if its peach or not. Hard to describe. Peach to me sounds pleasant but Ive heard of bad peachiness from s-05 at low temps. so maybe that could playing into it
Its popping up in our dry hopped late kettle additions beers.
We brew a Summer Blonde ale using s-05 with all the hops in the boil and no dry hops. Its a nice easy drinker, no off flavors to speak of. My thoughts have been its an oxygen problem from the dry hops.

Click to expand...

Are you transferring to secondary to dry hop?

Duplicate post. Sorry!

I have friends, I definitely have friends. Friends, friends, friendly friends, I have all the friends...

NCSU_Brewer said:

Are you transferring to secondary to dry hop?

Click to expand...

Pretty rare that I transfer to a secondary but once in a while I will, if I want to harvest yeast before the dry hop. Thats happens moreso when I use Conan.

For what it's worth, I tend to use US-05 for clean hoppy beers, and BRY-97 for every other "clean" style, particularly Browns, Porters, and Stouts. Recommend giving it a try, tends to be less fruity in my experience.

@hopbrad are you harvesting yeast from your batches? My impression of most house yeasts was that they were saved and re-pitched into the next batch for 5-10 batches.

I've got a few saved yeasts in the fridge, but am thinking of maintaining an ale yeast (probably Wyeast 1272) and a lager yeast at all times. Do many others do it that way?

I've gotten tart out of 05 when fermenting low (60-62). I always assumed that was the peachy people talked about.

homemaltster said:

@hopbrad are you harvesting yeast from your batches? My impression of most house yeasts was that they were saved and re-pitched into the next batch for 5-10 batches.

I've got a few saved yeasts in the fridge, but am thinking of maintaining an ale yeast (probably Wyeast 1272) and a lager yeast at all times. Do many others do it that way?

Click to expand...

I keep a couple strains alive in large jars in the fermenter fridge. I feed them once a month and build it up some (manual shake starter) before brew day and pitch most of it, reserving some to keep the culture going. WLP008, US-05, and a mixed bacteria wild yeast culture. I have some seldom used strains frozen (West York, cask, a couple Belgians). Lagers I haven't kept. One dry pack is good enough for my 3 gallon batches.

It's really no trouble once you get into the swing of it.

homemaltster said:

@hopbrad are you harvesting yeast from your batches? My impression of most house yeasts was that they were saved and re-pitched into the next batch for 5-10 batches.

I've got a few saved yeasts in the fridge, but am thinking of maintaining an ale yeast (probably Wyeast 1272) and a lager yeast at all times. Do many others do it that way?

Click to expand...

I harvest from my summer blonde ale that is a lower OG, isnt highly hopped or dry hopped. I primarily ferment that style with s-05 but will use the other strains do build up my yeast bank.

S-04?

Conan tends to be my "house yeast" strain for the most part. I can run it through a wide range of beers successfully.... APA, IPA, Blonde, Brown, Porter, Amber, Stout, etc. 1272 is another one that I really like as well and have run through pretty much all my beers.

Danstar BRY-97 all the way