WLP013 London Ale

I currently have an American Brown fermenting with this strain. I pitched a 3000 ml starter into 6 gallons of 1.060 wort. By all accounts...it's done! I'm going to pull a sample today to verify it but wow! It fermented strong for 2 days and boom, krausen dropped and obvious activity stopped. Anybody a regular with this strain?

I pitched a combo of one tube WLP013 and one smack pack of Wyeast 1968 into a Holiday Ale at OG 1.087 and it was done in 2.5-3 days. No starters. I think some of these British ale strains are bigger beasts than most expect.

I recently pitched 1098 into my brown ale. It started fermenting ONE hour after the pitch with a starter. It's been going strong ever since...on day three now and things are starting to slow/almost done fermenting.

Gravity was down to 1.022 (target 1.016) better warm it up to finish out. Tastes good, but I'll let it in there 2 weeks to clean up.

What a beastly fermenter it is!

mhenry41h said:

Gravity was down to 1.022 (target 1.016) better warm it up to finish out. Tastes good, but I'll let it in there 2 weeks to clean up.

What a beastly fermenter it is!

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Glad you brought up letting it sit to clean up. Is there really a benefit in letting the beer sit if the yeast are done? I'm thinking of kegging it after a week and then letting it carb for two. The yeast will continue to clean the beer up in the keg under pressure, no? I've never kegged after only one week of fermentation, so I'm curious...

RosewaterFoundation said:

Glad you brought up letting it sit to clean up. Is there really a benefit in letting the beer sit if the yeast are done? I'm thinking of kegging it after a week and then letting it carb for two. The yeast will continue to clean the beer up in the keg under pressure, no? I've never kegged after only one week of fermentation, so I'm curious...

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I don't keg so I couldn't answer your question. I suppose it would continue to work so long as you haven't cold crashed it while carbing. Otherwise, I'd say no...they dropped out...

Brewed a batch of Maharaja and fermented it @ 70 degrees in a chest freezer. Final gravity is 1.020, however, there is a weird smell to the beer. If I leave a glass in the refrigerator for a few ours the smell is gone and the beer has the proper aroma. I filtered the beer into a keg today through the plastic plate filter with a coarse filter pad. The beer is crystal clear and some of the weird smell is gone, but not all of it. Is the yeast responsible for this smell and will it dissipate eventually?

Bill33525 said:

Brewed a batch of Maharaja and fermented it @ 70 degrees in a chest freezer. Final gravity is 1.020, however, there is a weird smell to the beer. If I leave a glass in the refrigerator for a few ours the smell is gone and the beer has the proper aroma. I filtered the beer into a keg today through the plastic plate filter with a coarse filter pad. The beer is crystal clear and some of the weird smell is gone, but not all of it. Is the yeast responsible for this smell and will it dissipate eventually?

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I thought mine smelled a bit strange early on as well but it doesn't now. Smells damn good!

mhenry41h said:

I thought mine smelled a bit strange early on as well but it doesn't now. Smells damn good!

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After a week in the keg the beer is doing fine.

That's a beautiful beer my friend!

I have mine doing a bit of cold conditioning now. I pulled a sample and man is it smooth. I'm officially a fan of this strain.

Thanks for the accolades; have batch 13 & 14 to compare. Think mine is a reasonable facsimile but probably 'not exactly'.

I brewed an all columbus hoppy west coast red ale with this strain and am having issues with either the fermentation slowing down significantly or being stuck. I'm perplexed as I've never had this sort of problem. It's been over a week and a half and the beer was stuck at 1.024 and still looked murky like there was yeast in suspension. I'm guessing that it's still fermenting slowly since the yeast hasn't all cleared yet. Most of my beers ferment in 3-4 days tops. This is my first time using WLP013 though... Anyways, here's some of the details, any advice would be appreciated.

Brewed: 9/10/11
OG 1.069
Mash temp 148 for 90 mins
Oxygenated for 1 min with compressed O2 and oxygen stone.

Do you use yeast nutrients. Whether it's real or a figment of my imagination, I feel as though I get faster and stronger fermentation with better attenuation since I started using them. I'd try rousing the yeast and warming the carboy at this point.

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What is your fermentation temp? May have to let it warm up.
However, just brewed Maharaja and ended up at about that FG.

Not the end of the world. 13 has a Danky smell as well.
Perfect for what I wanted.

Bill33525 said:

What is your fermentation temp? May have to let it warm up.
However, just brewed Maharaja and ended up at about that FG.

Not the end of the world. 13 has a Danky smell as well.
Perfect for what I wanted.

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I think I did that brown ale at 152. Fermented like wildfire for 3 days and poof...done.

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Not mash temp, fermentation temp.

My bad...70 degrees

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All is probably okay. 13 doesn't attenuate as much as others.
Should be a nice sweet beer. May be a little Danky smelling.

I always use yeast nutrient and fermented at 67 degrees.

You've made me realize my own mistake, though. White labs lists WLP013 as having an attenuation of 67-75%. Using their formula to determine apparent attenuation [(OG-FG) / (OG-1)] x 100 My attenuation appears to have been 67% I guess there's nothing wrong after all and next time I'll know to pay better attention and get a more attenuative yeast like WLP001

I really wanted to have a dry beer. Do you guys think adding a new yeast start with a different type of yeast would ferment this out a bit more?

Gotcha...yeah, this yeast, despite being a quick fermenter, isn't a great attenuator. My Brown finished at 1.016 but I wanted it to to balance the 50 some IBU's I put in it with some residual sweetness and some chocolate malt. I suppose its best served for low gravity beers if you desire a drier finish. How does your beer taste?