German Ale 1007 Experiences

[ArkotRamathorn]

Posting this because I've not seen a yeast act like 1007 has, not that I'm some super experienced brewer at only 2 years, but this guy is crazy (cray cray).

I've been wanting to do a faux-lager beer for a long time but never really had a cool enough space to do it in, recently bought a house with SWMBO and thankfully it seems during the winter our basement stays a nice 55-58F so I grabbed a pack of 1007, 4# Munich 10, 4# Munich 6L, and some honey and figured I'd do a sort of faux-honey-maibock sort of deal. Made a 1L starter and shook the bajeebers out of it (still fiddling with my stir plate to get it working right), pitched at 68 in the 1.060 wort (yes I know thats a bit hot and I underpitched by maybe 10-15%).

24 hours in, activity, but nothing special, temp dropped down to 63F. 48 hours took off the blow off tube because I figured "Oh well, the danger time has passed" and temp had dropped to 59F. 72 hours checked, started pumping yeast into the airlock and I'm thinking what the hell, temp is at 57F and suddenly this yeast turns into a monster. 96 hours today since pitching and it's still pumping yeast up into the blow off tube that I had to put back on.

Anyone else have similar experiences with 1007 or German ale strains that enjoy the cooler temps? I've had blow offs before, but it was *always* because of higher temps, higher pitching rates.

 

[JonM]

I have an altbier in the fermenter right now and it's been blowing off for the last two days despite the 58 deg temps. I use this yeast a lot and it's perfectly normal.

 

[hunter_le five]

I love 1007. Great yeast.

Last time I used it, my experience was similar to yours. I kept the temps nice and low (58-60°F range) and got MASSIVE krausen. Popped the airlock off and started spewing like a volcano. It was really cool/messy. Beer turned out fine.

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

Should I expect a fairly clean tasting beer at these temps? I figured I'd leave it for 2-3 weeks and check gravity. It sounded like from the description the 1007 is a clean yeast that doesn't produce a big yeasty profile so thats why I chose it to mimic a lager.

 

[hunter_le five]

Yes, it's a very clean yeast. Good for pseudo-lagers. I would expect your beer to come out pretty clean, assuming you didn't create a bunch of esters in the initial part of you fermentation. You did start a little warm and you mentioned a possible underpitch, so.... wait and see.

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

Resurrecting this thread as I entered this beer as a helles bock (honey helles bock due to 23oz of honey after flame out). Entered into a small county 4-H fair and a lot of the tasters really like it, did say it was a bit fruity so the high pitch temp and such probably contributed it, but no one was able to immediately call it out as an ale fermented beer.

On the extra plus side, my beer was chosen as the best of show (4-H fair so they call it "grand champion" which is a little presumptious, but I am not going to say that to anyone else). The grand prize so to speak, I get to take the recipe and brew it at a local brewery on their pilot system and serve it to the public (if you are curious and/or from west central/northern Wisconsin they are called The Brewing Projekt, they are relatively new)

I had a good laugh when I was chatting with the head brewer since their pilot system doesn't have temperature control (their pro system does), he sounded really worried about temp controlling a lager. He looked very relieved when I told him it was just a very cool fermented ale.

 

[BrotherBock]

Nice. I've used 1007 a few times. Always seems slow to start but then ferments well. Big krausen that lingers for a while. I always try to keep it in the 50's. Brew buddies made a kolsch with it that fermented in low to mid 60's. It was kinda gross. Way too fruity.