WLP 550 Achouffe is a Beast!!!

I have brewed a Belgian Pale Ale (Saccharomyces' recipe), a Golden Strong (based on Vinnie Cilurzo's parameters in Brew Like a Monk), and now a Dubbel (chemnitz's recipe and SnickASaurusRex's Candi syrup recipe) and this yeast is a freakin beast :rockin:

The Golden Strong went for 11 days. The Dubbel is on day 11 with bubbles coming from the BLOWOFF every 3 seconds!!! Those two brews I made a point to start low (around 65*F) and let it ramp slowly on its own. With the temps dropping a little after letting it get to around 75, I added a lamp with a pigtail bulb (puts off very little heat) to my fermentation chamber to get it up to 78 on day 10. This stuff just won't quit if you treat it right!!!

The low starting temp suppresses ester formation and encourages the spicy phenolics typical of this yeast at the beginning but allowing it to ramp up balances the overall flavor with a nice ester profile and a super dry finish. Saccharomyces' Pale recipe is one of my favorite brews to date (I will be brewing that again shortly as it seems to disappear ), with a very subdued yet still distinct Belgian character...very digestable!!!

Took a BMC buddy and her BMC man on a long hike on Saturday...popped a bottle of the Pale at the end for him, she went with SWMBO's MGD 64. After a couple of sips, they were both exclaiming about how much flavor it had and how good it tasted and wow, you made this? Then she tried another sip of the MGD..."Man, this tastes like water...you ruined me!!!"

Higher praise a homebrewer cannot recieve!!! I like it when a beer drinker likes my beer, but I know I brew good stuff...I love it when I convert another one

i have a question for you. can you describe how you set up your system to let the yeast warm up "naturally". i've got a freezer converted to a ferm chamber using a 2-stage ranco controller and a space heater. i've brewed with wlp550 3 different times and the first 2 were dumpers. the first one i fermented at 70F, and it had a very funky yeast taste. the second was around 73-74F. not as bad, but i dumped it after a year of waiting for it to clean up. now i have a la fin du monde clone that i fermented at 78F per several suggestions. it seems to taste better, but it still seems to have this funky taste that i can't really describe. i tried this "ramping up the temp naturally" thing by pitching around 70F, then bumping it up 2 degrees per day until i got to 78F. is this how you do it? or do you just leave it at a certain ambient temp throughout the process?

lpdb185 said:

i have a question for you. can you describe how you set up your system to let the yeast warm up "naturally". i've got a freezer converted to a ferm chamber using a 2-stage ranco controller and a space heater. i've brewed with wlp550 3 different times and the first 2 were dumpers. the first one i fermented at 70F, and it had a very funky yeast taste. the second was around 73-74F. not as bad, but i dumped it after a year of waiting for it to clean up. now i have a la fin du monde clone that i fermented at 78F per several suggestions. it seems to taste better, but it still seems to have this funky taste that i can't really describe. i tried this "ramping up the temp naturally" thing by pitching around 70F, then bumping it up 2 degrees per day until i got to 78F. is this how you do it? or do you just leave it at a certain ambient temp throughout the process?

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You just might not like this yeast! It is VERY funky, producing a lot of spicy phenolics with far less fruity character that many Belgian strains have. Have you tried other Belgian strains?

I pitch low, around 65*F and when fermentation takes off it warms to around 68* with my Johnson A419 set at 65*. I ferment in a magic chef beverage cooler controlled by the Johnson with the thermistor taped to the side of the bucket and protected from the ambient temp by a piece of styrofoam carved to accomodate the thermistor. I hold around 68* for the first 2-3 days. I then bump the temp on the control and allow the exothermic nature of the fermentation to carry the temp up. I bump about a degree a day until the activity and ambient temp won't carry any higher. Then I stick a desk lamp with a flourescent pigtail in the chamber that produces just enough heat to raise the temps a little. The last brew that happened around 74*. I raised the temp to 78-80* by around day 9-10 just to keep it chugging. I still have activity in my dubbel 12 days in!!! As long as I see activity I just let it go so it may sit at 72-74* for a couple of days. When it slows, I bump the temp again.

thanks. i'm going to let this one age in the keg for a few months before i really evaluate it. nonetheless, my next brew is going to be a dubbel using wlp530. i, like you, am thinking that i just don't care for the 550 strain. my set-up is pretty much identical to yours, except that i think i ramped up the temps a little quicker maybe. oh well, maybe next time. i'm about 8-9 brews into my HB hobby and i've only made one that i was REALLY happy with (nelson sauvin IPA).

OTOH, can you advise of a commercial brew that would have the same yeast characteristics as the wlp550 and the "funky" profile you describe. i'm not sure i understand completely what everyone means by phenolics, esters, or spicey. i've had most of the major belgian brews and the only one i recall having a remotely similar taste is tripel karmeliet (did not like). thanks.

550 is my goto belgian yeast....I currently have a stout on tap with 550. I also used it for an IPA...this yeast is fast and furious.

i've found the belgian yeasts to be "beast-like" in general. WLP 530 is also very aggressive. they heat up substantially without assistance. I just started a Belgian blonde on the 530 at ambient room temp of 61 degrees, and by day 2 it had ramped up to 72, peaking at 73. and those temps were taken from the temp sticker on the glass carboy. given the insulation quality of glass, the inside temp was likely higher.

TANSTAAFB said:

The Golden Strong went for 11 days. The Dubbel is on day 11 with bubbles coming from the BLOWOFF every 3 seconds!!! Those two brews I made a point to start low (around 65*F) and let it ramp slowly on its own. With the temps dropping a little after letting it get to around 75, I added a lamp with a pigtail bulb (puts off very little heat) to my fermentation chamber to get it up to 78 on day 10. This stuff just won't quit if you treat it right!!!

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Last time I used this yeast I went from 1.065 to 1.010 in 28 hours! Quickest I've ever had a yeast work. Started at 75F. Eventually got down to 1.006 after slowly ramping up to 85F.

Powers said:

i've found the belgian yeasts to be "beast-like" in general. WLP 530 is also very aggressive. they heat up substantially without assistance. I just started a Belgian blonde on the 530 at ambient room temp of 61 degrees, and by day 2 it had ramped up to 72, peaking at 73. and those temps were taken from the temp sticker on the glass carboy. given the insulation quality of glass, the inside temp was likely higher.

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The glass will be pretty close to the temperature of the liquid. The conduction of heat from a liquid is way higher than the conduction of heat from air. The wort will actually be locally heating up the air next to the carboy. You can assume the temp strip is seeing the wort temperature within 1 degree.

And on the FOURTEENTH day, it rested...my dubbel finally stopped showing visible signs of fermentation

It is a beast! I've done an awesome saison with it and currently got a dubbel on the go. Had to cool it as it managed 10f above ambient temperature and pushing 78f. Now it's happy at 68f. Good job I had blow off tubes! It certainly went for it when pitched from a starter with some nutrient. I really like the flavour it gave my saison.

While on the subject of wlp550, how long does it take for krausen to fall? Mine is really thick after fermentation appears to have slown right down. Only pitched 5 days ago though so not worrying, just curious.

ChillWill said:

While on the subject of wlp550, how long does it take for krausen to fall? Mine is really thick after fermentation appears to have slown right down. Only pitched 5 days ago though so not worrying, just curious.

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I brew in buckets, so not sure. I will say I top-harvested quite a bit of yeast (probably 250ml) from a Burton union type contraption well after 5 days.

Give this yeast time and don't try to slow it down too much.

Yeah I'll give it time. I took off the blow off tubes yesterday to fit normal airlocks, within 30mins they started filling with krausen despite looking like that stage of fermentation was done and having plenty of head room. Back on with the blow off tubes....

Reserecting this zombie thread to see if others want to weight in:
I pitched a 2 L starter on a Belgian IPA I treks for the first time. Pitched at 73 and set my ferm chamber to 65 thinking it would be a vigorous fermentation and the temp would increase with activity. However, 24 hours later, nothing in the airlock? Brought the, temp to 68 and within 2 hours it is off and running. Should I keep increasing on a per day basis as others have or ramp it up now to something like 72?

Most of your flavour etc comes from first 48-72 hours of fermentation. So, keep it at 68 (if you planned to ferment cool), for about 48 hours, then let it go up to 72 and stay there until it's done.

Optimum temp for this strain is apparently 68-78f, which is a big range! For a Belgian IPA, 78f might be a bit excessive.