Blending WLP644 & London Ale III

[PissyFingers]

Hi everyone, i have been using 644 for a while now and really like it in my IPA style beers and recently i made the starter with 100 billion cells each of 644 and 585 saison III and love how it makes my saisons taste and smell.

Question is how would this blend with London Ale III, being a top cropping yeast and 644 not, would this cause any issues during fermentation?

The plan was to have 100 billion starters of each, crash cool them, decent
and then blend the two strains to make 1 starter for an IPA around 7.5% ALC.

Any pros or cons would be great.

Cheers!

Harley

 

[crusader1612]

Hi everyone, i have been using 644 for a while now and really like it in my IPA style beers and recently i made the starter with 100 billion cells each of 644 and 585 saison III and love how it makes my saisons taste and smell.

Question is how would this blend with London Ale III, being a top cropping yeast and 644 not, would this cause any issues during fermentation?

The plan was to have 100 billion starters of each, crash cool them, decent
and then blend the two strains to make 1 starter for an IPA around 7.5% ALC.

Any pros or cons would be great.

Cheers!

Harley

I've wondered about this (I even asked the question on here somewhere)

The Yeast Bay's Funktown is a blend of 644 and conan. So I'd say you're ok to go ahead.
What their blend ratios are i have no idea.

On the other hand you could always make the 2 beers separate (10 gallons split into 5gal 644 and 5gal 1318, then blend to your tastes?
that way you'd get 3 different beers as well.
if you blended into a 5gal keg, you'd have 5gal of funktown, and 2.5 gal each of 644 and 1318 (if you went 50/50 of course)

worth thinking about.


the only other thing I'd suggest is to have the two yeast active when you pitch.

 

[PissyFingers]

Hey, cheers for the reply. Yeah maybe having 2 seperate starters ready to pitch is the way to go instead of making one blended starter with 100 billion of each. I was just going to go 1:1 ration wise and see how they work together.

Conan isn't a top cropping yeast as far as i know, thats my main concern with blending yeasts that have different fermentation traits.


Cheers.

 

[crusader1612]

Hey, cheers for the reply. Yeah maybe having 2 seperate starters ready to pitch is the way to go instead of making one blended starter with 100 billion of each. I was just going to go 1:1 ration wise and see how they work together.

Conan isn't a top cropping yeast as far as i know, thats my main concern with blending yeasts that have different fermentation traits.


Cheers.

I think you'll be ok. Conan is technically a top cropping strain (its an ale yeast)

 

[jfolks]

Sounds like a great blend! This is a good idea and will work well

 

[PissyFingers]

Sounds like a great blend! This is a good idea and will work well

I will be doing this over the next 2 weeks, ill do a post on the finished results
and recipe.

Up first it will be going in a NE style IPA around 7% with Citra and Galaxy.

Cheers.

 

[crusader1612]

I will be doing this over the next 2 weeks, ill do a post on the finished results
and recipe.

Up first it will be going in a NE style IPA around 7% with Citra and Galaxy.

Cheers.

Definitely do that.
I have a vial of 648, I was thinking about doing the same thing with. (Probably WLP002 though)

 

[ptownbmac]

How did this turn out?

 

[PissyFingers]

How did this turn out?

Sorry for the non update on this as ive had trouble sourcing some London III
when i needed it to brew these. I don't have local access to it. I have done
blends with 644/Conan, equal parts but the 644 has such a massive personality it stomped on Conan so a 3/4 to 1/4 in favour of Conan was
the sweet spot for me. I also blended 644 with a couple of Saison yeast with
really .good success.

the London III is still going to happen but not for at least another month, i think the 3/4 to 1/4 split will be my starting place for this after my trials with Conan.

 

[Bosh]

A possible issue here is that WLP644 likes hotter temps than the London yeast.