From the lab - wine yeast POF and killer status

[Northern_Brewer]

I knocked up the following for my own use and figured others might be interested, it's based on Hisamoto et al (2010) who were looking for POF- wine yeasts to ferment the Japanese Koshu grape which is apparently notorious for its phenolics. So they measured 4-vinylphenol and 4-vinylguaiacol (in mg/ml) produced by different wine yeasts in 21ºBrix Koshu juice fermented at 25ºC for 10-14 days. I also rounded up killer factor details for the yeasts concerned, in as much detail as I could - ICV is good at specifics, other sources are much more vague. Sources in brackets refer to the location of the institution that found it, rather than the vineyard. I made a note of non-cerevisiae ones that I noticed, but wasn't 100% thorough about that.

Company  Strain     4VP   4VG mg/l Killer          Source
Lalvin   ICV OPALE   0      0      K2              ?France?
Lalvin   V1116       0      0      K2              ?France?
Uvaferm  228         0      0     "sensitive"      France = Steinberger 228
Enoferm  CSM        <.01   <.01   "active"         France - Bordeaux
Lalvin   BM4*4      <.01   <.01   "active"         Italy - Tuscany (blend including BM45)
Lalvin   W15        <.01   <.01   "yes"            Switzerland - Wadenswil
Enoferm  T306       0.13   0.16   "active"         Australia - Hunter Valley
Uvaferm  VRB        0.20   0.18   "sensitive"      Spain
         Cross Evol 0.15   0.19   "yes"            Hybridisation at U Stellenbosch
Lalvin   R2         0.42   0.25   "yes"            France - Sauternes bayanus
Enoferm  L2226      0.31   0.31   Killer           France - Rhone
Lalvin   BM45       0.42   0.53   "yes"            Italy - Tuscany
Lalvin   Rhone 4600 0.99   0.59   "yes"            France - Rhone
Uvaferm  SVG        0.65   0.61   "yes"            France - Loire
Uvaferm  CM         0.97   0.66   "sensitive"      France - Burgundy via Germany
Lalvin   QD145      0.79   0.67   "active"         Portugal
Uvaferm  CEG        0.80   0.70   "Neutral"        France - Champagne
Uvafer   VN         0.46   0.71   "Killer"         Spain - Castile
Lalvin   ICV D21    0.95   0.73    K2              France - Pic Saint Loup
Lalvin   ICV D80    0.93   0.73    K2              France - Cote Rotie
Lalvin   EC1118     0.94   0.76   "yes"            France - Champagne bayanus
         AWRI 1176  0.81   0.76                    bayanus (Australia? spontaneously fermented cold stored grape juice)
Lalvin   ICV GRE    0.73   0.80   K2               France - Cornas
Enoferm  BGY        1.07   0.84   Sensitive        France - Burgundy (UCD-51)
Enoferm  AMH        0.80   0.86   Sensitive        (Germany)
Lalvin   DV10       1.06   0.87   "yes"            France - Champagne
Lalvin   BRL97      0.82   0.92   "yes"            Italy
Enoferm  M2         1.02   0.94   "yes"            South Africa
         W-3        0.93   0.95   K2-sensitive     Japan Brewing Association (Kyokai No.4)
Lalvin   ICV D254   0.97   0.97   neutral          Spain - Galicia
Lalvin   RC212      1.06   0.97   neutral/"Sens"   France - Burgundy?
Uvaferm  HPS        0.90   0.99   "active"         Mutant made in Spain
Enoferm  VQ15(RP-15)1.25   1.00   "active"         USA - California
Lalvin   T73        0.81   1.01   "yes"            Bayanus (Spain)
Lalvin   CY3079     1.04   1.04   "sens"/"neutral" France - Burgundy
Enoferm  M1         1.18   1.05   Sensitive        (Massey, NZ)
Enoferm  QA23       1.06   1.09   "active"/"neut"  Portugal
Enoferm  BDX        1.15   1.14   "sensitive"      ?? (UCD)
Lalvin   Rhone 2056 1.39   1.16   "yes"            France - Rhone
Lalvin   ICV D47    1.14   1.20   neutral/"active" France - Rhone
Lalvin   71B        1.20   1.25   K2-sensitive     Germany
Enoferm  L2323      1.36   1.27   "active"?        (France - Rhone)
Lalvin   BA11       1.20   1.30   "sensitive"      Portugal
Lalvin   R-HST      1.44   1.38   "yes"            Austria
Lalvin   S6U        1.00   1.60   "sensitive"      ??
Uvaferm  CS2        1.40   2.17   Sensitive        France - Alsace
Enoferm  Simi White 1.88   2.73   "sensitive"      France (UCD-713)

As you can see, not all sources agree on killer status, and they all use different terminology. I tried to get it from the official webpage of each yeast where possible, otherwise I used :
http://www.scottlabsltd.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2016-Handbook_Canada-1.pdf
http://www.lallemandwine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Quick-Yeast-References-Chart_2018_LR.pdf
https://www.math.fsu.edu/~gmizell/mead/Lallemand Yeast Quick Reference.pdf
http://www.vignevin.com/outils-en-l...levures-du-marche-par-ordre-alphabetique.html (also good for origins)

It's also interesting to compare the Japanese results with the Gallo/Stanford paper of 2013, which looked for a variety of metabolites in 24ºBrix Chardonnay juice fermented to dryness at 18°C. The California team saw much higher levels of phenolics, averaging around 7mg/ml, about 35x the Japanese levels, and whilst 228 and CSM both do well again, V1116 throws a few phenolics that the Japanese didn't see. There's huge amounts of data in the Gallo/Stanford paper, with fusels and esters among other things, but here's the <1mg/ml 4-VG strains of theirs, again in mg/ml :

VIN 13          0     (Anchor)
Zymaflore VL1   0     (Scott/Laffort)
Zymaflore VL2   0     (Scott/Laffort)
C.K. S-102      0.116 (Lesaffre/Springer)
Williams Selyem 0.141 (Vinquiry)
228             0.143 
Actiflore C(F33)0.143 (Scott/Laffort)
CSM             0.194
NT 116          0.609 (Anchor)
WE 14           0.627 (Anchor)
Lalvin V1116    0.714
T306            0.807

 

[couchsending]

Cool thanks for gathering the data. S6u is really interesting to me. It’s by far the highest glycerol producing wine yeast. Would be interesting to do a primary with it then see what happens with Brett. Wonder what it’s high phenols would be like fermenting wort.

 

[Miraculix]

Cool thanks for gathering the data. S6u is really interesting to me. It’s by far the highest glycerol producing wine yeast. Would be interesting to do a primary with it then see what happens with Brett. Wonder what it’s high phenols would be like fermenting wort.

Try it! Does it ferment maltotriose?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

One of the things I was interested in was beta-glucosidase activity for releasing bound terpenes in hops and other things - Scott Janish recently played with Brett to release peach flavours by the same mechanism. QA23 is meant to be good for that, but 228 looks rather more friendly as a co-ferment, being POF- and non-killer.

QA23 is available in 5g retail packs here in the UK, but AFAICT 228 only comes in 500g bricks and not in the UK. I don't suppose anyone knows of other names for it, it would be really handy if it was the alter ego of one of the Gervin wine yeasts for instance...

Zymaflore VL1 is another interesting one that apparently has beta-glucosidase and is killer neutral, but again is only available in bricks, although I can get those in the UK. The description of VL3 makes it sound like it has similar activity, although the b-word isn't used explicitly.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Looks like 228 is fairly widely available in 20g and 100g packs in Eastern Europe, although finding somewhere that will ship to the UK at a vaguely sensible cost is another matter... I know someone who should be going out that way in the summer, so that might be one option, but I'll keep looking.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Cool thanks for gathering the data. S6u is really interesting to me. It’s by far the highest glycerol producing wine yeast.

Hmm - I've just noticed that the Gallo paper includes glycerol data. Typically yeasts in their system produce about 6g/l glycerol - V1116 is 6.1g/l for instance. Lallemand say that S6U produces 1-2g/l more glycerol than average yeasts, which would put it at 7-8g/l. The following yeasts are over 7g/l in that paper :

7.0 228
7.0 Actiflore C (F33)
7.0 Maurivin Primeur
7.2 NT 112
7.2 WE 372
7.3 Uvaferm 43
7.3 Enoferm IVC-D47
7.3 Maurivin Elegance
7.3 Maurivin R2
7.3 Rhone 4600
7.5 Lalvin BM45 Brunello
7.9 St. Georges S-101
8.3 NT 116
8.4 NT 45
8.6 Fermichamp
8.6 NT 202
10  NT 50

The NT series from Stellenbosch are clear winners on that metric. It looks like NT116, 228 and Actiflore C might give you the glycerol with less phenolics than S6U if that's important to you.

 

[couchsending]

The issue is finding these yeasts

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Of course, but it's not impossible - NTs are fairly widely available in 1kg packs around the world, such as from Scotts, and you can certainly get 100g packs from South Africa. It's just a question of how badly you want them.... <g>

 

[SanPancho]

Read somewhere thats theres like 4 different killer factors, ranging from “stops reproduction” to “kill”. Is that what you note here or is this just data pulled from the yeast labs?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I've just reproduced what the manufacturers say in general, and most of them don't go into specifics with the notable exception of the ICV. I belive in general with the wine yeasts we're just looking at the K2 system.

It's worth noting that killer factors aren't like a machine gun, killing everything in the vicinity, they're more like a machete - lethal to those in the immediate area but can be overwhelmed by large numbers of susceptible yeast.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Company  Strain     4VP   4VG mg/l Killer          Source
...
Uvaferm  228         0      0     "sensitive"      France = Steinberger 228

Wow, this was nearly 5 years ago. Anyway, I notice that WLP727 Steinberg-Geisenheim is currently available on White Labs' Yeastman, which I *think* is the same as Uvaferm 228, which as a super-rare example of a non-phenolic, non-killer "wine" yeast (or is it really an appropriated beer yeast?) might be fun to play with either on its own or as a "supporting" yeast in wort?