Favorite Liquid Yeast strains for a new bank

I like to use liquid yeast but it's kind of expensive...so I'm going to start my own little frozen yeast bank (I'm gonna try washing/refrigerating as well). But I don't want to have a dozen vials of every strain so I'd like to pick just a few that will cover most of the bases. So if you had to pick a few, say 3 to 6, liquid yeast strains for your small yeast bank what would they be? I brew more ales than lagers but do brew both.

WLP001, WLP007, and WLP005 would be great ones to have often and cover most ale styles.

Wyeast: 1187, 3522, 3944, 3068, 2042
White Labs: 051, 002, 008, 570

Those are ones I'd keep. I chose not to include Wyeast 1056 because I think S-05 gives the same profile without the hassle.

Bob

1338 Euro Ale Yeast and bottle harvested (or you can buy it) Pacman are the only ones in my bank...

Thanks.

Revvy,
Never heard of Pacman so I did a tiny bit of research, is this all true in your experience/opinion:
All Rogue Ales use the same ale yeast for both fermenting and bottling/conditioning (so any sediment in any Rogue Ale should be the same strain).
It likes it a bit colder than most.
Ferments pretty clean.
Starts a bit slow but takes off fast after that.
Likes to make it rain in Las Vegas strip clubs.

Also, do you usually use it at reduced temps? Here in Florida, low-ish Ale temps aren't easy to maintain.

I love brewing english styles, so the yeast I have in my bank stay around that area.

Ringwood Strain (WLP005), Burton Ale (WLP023), Scottish Ale (WLP028), and a wild card is WLP550.

005 I use for browns and porters, 023 for all sorts of Bitters, Scottish for well...scottish beers, and the 550 which I use for all my belgian style beers.

SpanishCastleAle said:

Here in Florida, low-ish Ale temps aren't easy to maintain.

Click to expand...

It's not hard with something like this:

http://www.brewboard.com/index.php?showtopic=60288

I have two of them (one with a styrofoam lid, one where I just cut straight through the plastic lid), and it's quite easy to maintain stable temperatures in the low-to-mid 60s in them without too much of a hassle when ambient is around 80.

SpanishCastleAle said:

Likes to make it rain in Las Vegas strip clubs.

Click to expand...

I'm going to have to take a bottle of my Big Red Rye to Vegas. I never knew Pacman was that powerful!

Our local brew club is also talking about starting up a good yeast bank so I'm interested in this thread as well. Pacman is definitely going in there...

Do you ever brew hefe's? I couldn't imagine living without wlp300. 6 or 7lbs of wheat extract, an ounce of hops and wlp300 and you can have an awesome beer. Easy! Weizenbocks? Nuff said. WLP800 for lagers.

Don't know the numbers but Wyeast Kolsch, WL Irish,WL English,WL Dry English would be my picks. I currently have Wyeast American and WL Irish in the fridge. This is the first time for me using Wyeast American, so we'll see.

I keep cali ale, irish ale, and trappist around just to have.

Thanks for the responses.

I'm thinking that if I choose say, 5 strains, 3 ale and 2 lager; that for the ales I'd like to have one low floc/high att., one med floc./med. att., and one high floc/lo att. So something like Wyeast German/Irish/European ales. Now I just need to decide which exact ones.

I found this site that has a sort of Wyeast vs. White Labs cross-reference but the Wyeast Bavarian Lager (2124)/White Labs VOM (WLP820) comparison doesn't seem to match according to each mfr's numbers (they're actually at opposite ends of the spectrum it appears!). Wyeast Bavarian Lager is 73%-77%/med-high floc but White Labs Oktoberfest/Marzen Lager (WLP820) is 65%-73%/med floc. I'm trying to find a good light Pils lager yeast and a good VOM lager yeast...so Wyeast Bohemian and White Labs WLP820 were the early contenders. But I really have no preference to Wyeast over WL other than I'm a little more familiar with them.

Looks like the Wyeast 1007 German Ale / White Labs Dusseldorf Alt WLP036 don't match up per the mfr numbers either...73%-77% vs. 65%-72%...but that cross-reference page has them matched up.

EDIT: Oh yea, I don't brew many hefes but I'm sure I'll do one.

I tend to brew a disproportionate amount of ales and have begun trending towards the English styles. I generally I have a big ol slog of Cal Ale WLP001 (about 1/2 gal right now) but have been starting to shift towards using Irish WLP004 and Scottish WLP028 instead and have a healthy amount of each. I also have small amount of Burton WLP023. The only lager yeast I use is SF lager WLP810.