Yeast Choice for PTE Clone

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winvarin

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A family member recently took a trip to California, and at my request brought back a few bottles of Pliny the Elder. As I suspected I would be, I am hooked.

I just bought the All Grain PTE clone kit from morebeer.com. Not wanting to take a risk with buying yeast via the internet, I am going to pick up the yeast at my LHBS. Morebeer.com recommends WLP California Ale. As a dry option they recommend Safeale -04.

It was my understanding that the Safeale -05 is the dry equivalent of of WLP Cali Ale. 04 is the English strain, right?

I'd like to hear from somebody who has brewed this kit and what yeast they used. My preference would be a dry yeast just for convenience sake. I'm willing to make a starter of WLP001 if needed. But I have not brewed with dry yeast in ages (I originally learned to brew back in the day when dry yeast was unreliable) and am interested in in trying one of the safeale yeasts. But I'd like some advice as to which is more appropriate to the style.

My gut says 05.

How about temparetures with 05? I've heard it will throw some peachy flavors in the low 60s. I'd like to ferment around 65ish but want to make sure my yeast gets out of the way and lets the malt and hops in this beer show their stuff.
 
This isn't actually an answer to your question, but it might help you make your decision: I just took a hydro sample of my Pliny clone as I added the dry hops, and WLP001 took it from 1.077 to 1.011 in 17 days. I made up a 1200mL starter from a WLP001 vial, cold crashed, decanted the starter beer straight out of the fridge and immediately resuspended in wort before cold pitching.
 
I would personally use WY1056, only because I have had great experiences with it, and I would make a large starter and ferment at 62F.

Also, AFAIK WLP001, US-05, and WY1056 are all pretty much the same thing.
 
Peach, I doubt you will be tasting any peach over those hops. btw - never noticed peach, but I ferment 05 @ 64-66, with a rise to 70 when ferment is done.

Although I like the ease of 05, I have being going back to Liquid yeast just so I can branch out and try other yeasts with beers that I have not tried before.
 
My fermentation of my PTE clone wrapped up today actually. I used 2 activator packages of 1056 and I fermented between 70-72. Too hot here to keep it cooler. I mashed @ 153°F and my attenuation was 81.8%. It went from 1.069 to 1.012 in 3 days.

I also did a stir starter.
 
How far ahead do you guys do your starters for a big beer like that? I just did a 1.2 l starter of WLP320 that I had in the flask for about 4 days. I got active ferment on a 1.044 wheat in about 6 hours. I am certainly not against doing a starter for a liquid yeast. But if a dried yeast (like 05) would work just as well on this beer, I would like to give it a shot.

edit: If I go with dry yeast, the Mr. Malty calculator estimates 1.3 of the 11.5 g packs of dry yeast. Is there a problem with over-pitching if I just went with 2 full packs? Since I am going to have to open the second pack anyway and dried yeast is relatively inexpensive, I might as well just toss them both in if it won't cause any issues.
 
How far ahead do you guys do your starters for a big beer like that? I just did a 1.2 l starter of WLP320 that I had in the flask for about 4 days. I got active ferment on a 1.044 wheat in about 6 hours. I am certainly not against doing a starter for a liquid yeast. But if a dried yeast (like 05) would work just as well on this beer, I would like to give it a shot.

Between 24-36 hours.

I feel like a little shorter and not enough yeast have been made, a little longer and the yeast are done munching and may take an extra couple hours to get going in my wort.

I doubt it really matters though. I would just give it at least 24 hours.
 
How far ahead do you guys do your starters for a big beer like that?

I started mine about 60 hours ahead; 36 hours for growth phase, followed by 24 hours in the fridge to compact the cake. I had serious blowoff less than 6 hours after pitching.

I forgot to mention in my initial post that I kept my fermentation spot on 70 because WLP001 doesn't really throw flavors at that temp and I figured it would give me a more complete fermentation. Most of my fermentation was done within 3 days.
 
I used S-05 on mine, and many, many other great IPAs. I would not hesitate to use it again on a PTE clone.
 

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