Mixing Different Yeasts?

[DynamechGT]

Has anyone tried mixing different strains of yeast at the same time/pitch?

What about for different pitching times such as during transfer to secondary or bottling?

Did you get the results you expected or did you wind up with strange flavors or incomplete fermentation?

Would you consider this similar to a first step in hybridization?

 

[PoppinCaps]

I've done a few runs of mixing strains, bottling with another, etc. All I've gotten is about exactly what I thought I would get, champagne effervescent taste when bottling with that, one strain outcompeting another when mixed in primary. Never tried secondary addition, could be interesting, to add an additional low-profile flavor. I never got an incomplete fermentation, just different balances of taste. They seem to play nice with one another.

By hybridization, do you mean like DNA shifting for protein-protein interaction studies, or creating new strains?

If so, an "easy" way to create spontaneous mutations is to do genome shuffling. Basically you treat them with UV to mutate, fuse, and go through multiple selection growths to find what you're looking for, ie lactose fermentation, high etOH tolerance, etc. Pretty cool stuff if you've got the time...

 

[TheMan]

Adding another strain at secondary time is not the optimal way to get a yeast's flavor as most of the flavor is created during primary. Plus all the sugar is mostly eaten, I can't imagine the new yeast really doing anything but draining your wallet in this instance.

 

[dcp27]

1) yup, works pretty well.

2) unless its a saison yeast or brett/bacteria, it's not gunna do much when added at secondary. at bottling won't change a thing, except maybe cause bottle bombs if you poorly choose a higher attenuator

3) nothing unexpected

 

[PoppinCaps]

If you add a little sugar or more wort at transfer to basically do a second fermentation, you could get some of the flavor out, especially if it's a strong one like saison or something and want to dial back the profile. I know we're talking way out of style here, but still fun experiments.

 

[DynamechGT]

That was mostly a side question - I'm not looking to culture right now but thought it might be interesting to see if anyone had tried to mate their yeast while making beer at the same time. I'm guessing theres greater potential to develop a "new flavor" as opposed to mixing flavors since one metabolite is likely to be favored over another such that both would not likely be produced from the same strain. Hence, mixing to get flavor combinations.

Pretty happy that you say you've gotten mostly what you expected. I'm going to give this a shot sometime.

Experiences anyone?

(I took too long editing this post - thats why it seems out of order)

 

[smokinghole]

Typical yeast will not sexually reproduce except in very specific circumstances under specific pressures. So you will not get any genetic recombination between the two strains. What you will most likely get is nothing more than mutations that change each yeast strain over time.

I'm actually talking to one of my profs about trying to induce sexual reproduction between two brewing strains I keep at my house. He said it's not easy but it can certainly be done. So maybe next semester I can do that as a fun project/experiment.

 

[DynamechGT]

Right - but they're not going to go ballistic either and have one kill off the other. They'll just try to out-eat each other. Then one strain will poop out yummy flavor A and the other strain will poop out yummy flavor B.

At least that's what I'm hearing - "mixing is ok" and "screw style, mixing yeast could be fun"

I'll worry about stressing them into end of the world orgies to produce true sexually reproducible hybrids and mutating them with super tanning bed UV lights later on when I'm ready to culture.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

Putting Yeast porn aside for the moment, i would assume that if you did find a blend of yeast cultures that produced a pleasant taste profile, you would be best served by maintaining the strains separately ( IE splitting starters) and doing the combination at each batch. Otherwise the mix (even putting sexual reproduction and mutation aside) would tend to skew over timetoward the strain that reproduces faster.

 

[PoppinCaps]

Besides making them reproduce with a little Marvin Gaye and mood lighting, here's a good example if anyone gets creative:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/q52gr1173h3rm6w5/

Not a particularly difficult process (if you have a tanning bed), and you may come up with something cool. Maybe an ale yeast that can ferment comfortably above 70F?

 

[william_shakes_beer]

Besides making them reproduce with a little Marvin Gaye and mood lighting, here's a good example if anyone gets creative:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/q52gr1173h3rm6w5/

Not a particularly difficult process (if you have a tanning bed), and you may come up with something cool. Maybe an ale yeast that can ferment comfortably above 70F?

sooooo

From my junior high chemistry class; they were trying to create a yeast strain that can produce higher levels on ethanol. They repeatedly cultured yeast in a medium of yeast food and ethanol, allowing the intolerant yeast to be outcompeted by the more tolerant ones. Yes? If so, sounds like natural selection.

 

[beergolf]

I did a Tripel using 1214 and 3787. Worked great. I could taste both yeasts. If I was to do it again I probably would pitch the 1214 first and give it about 8 hours head start since it can sometimes be slow to start, then add the 3787.

 

[PoppinCaps]

If so, sounds like natural selection.

Yeah, this was for optimizing cane sugar ethanol production in Brazil, so they were selecting those yeast only tolerant to high temperatures and ethanol content. A form of natural selection at ludicrous speed, yes, but not all that interesting to us.

The interesting part is being able to speed mutations and fuse the cells. Or forget the mutation and fuse 1056 with 1084, or Pacman with Chimay, or Scottish with English (yikes!). Lots of selection would be required from random pairings, but still fun.

 

[SPR-GRN]

I've done a double pitch on a big beer - a starter of a strain with lower alc tolerance in primary, then a strain with higher tolerance in secondary. The goal was the flavor profile of the lower tolerance yeast to dominate while lowering the FG with the stronger strain. It made a good beer, but that was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, that brew log has been boxed up and packed away somewhere... Must find...

 

[DynamechGT]

Now we're into some good discussion!

William_Shakes_Beer makes a good point that the strains should be kept separate else the resulting mix will drift back to whichever is the stronger/faster starting strain.

I like beergolfs assessment that pitch timing should be a consideration. This would help not only to alleviate an imbalance in reproduction rates per strain at pitch time, but would also be a good way to fine-tune the flavor mix based on remaining food/sugars and nutrients in the wort.

SPR-GRN also makes a good point that this may be a way to get some flavors into high abv beers by yeasts that would otherwise be intolerent of the alcohol content.

 

[JohnMc]

That was mostly a side question - I'm not looking to culture right now but thought it might be interesting to see if anyone had tried to mate their yeast while making beer at the same time. I'm guessing theres greater potential to develop a "new flavor" as opposed to mixing flavors since one metabolite is likely to be favored over another such that both would not likely be produced from the same strain. Hence, mixing to get flavor combinations.

Pretty happy that you say you've gotten mostly what you expected. I'm going to give this a shot sometime.

Experiences anyone?

(I took too long editing this post - thats why it seems out of order)

It's probably more likely to be more subtle flavors of the two yeasts, rather than full-blown mixing of flavor profile, since each will be at less than the full population it would be by itself. This is the idea of the wyeast blend of an ale yeast and wheat beer yeast, Wyeast 3056.

 

[JohnMc]

sooooo

From my junior high chemistry class; they were trying to create a yeast strain that can produce higher levels on ethanol. They repeatedly cultured yeast in a medium of yeast food and ethanol, allowing the intolerant yeast to be outcompeted by the more tolerant ones. Yes? If so, sounds like natural selection.

The ultraviolet light (mutation causing) combined with protoplast (yeast with the cell wall stripped off) fusion (mixed with stuff to make two cells fuse together) would lead to a lot of DNA repair and shuffling. This would allow for a much greater than natural variation in the population, nice to select from.

 

[DynamechGT]

It's probably more likely to be more subtle flavors of the two yeasts, rather than full-blown mixing of flavor profile, since each will be at less than the full population it would be by itself. This is the idea of the wyeast blend of an ale yeast and wheat beer yeast, Wyeast 3056.

Isn't 3056 a single strain with it's own characteristics?

 

[SPR-GRN]

Isn't 3056 a single strain with it's own characteristics?

According to Wyeast site:

This proprietary blend of a top-fermenting neutral ale strain and a Bavarian wheat strain is a great choice when a subtle German style wheat beer is desired. The complex esters and phenolics from the wheat strain are nicely softened and balanced by the neutral ale strain.

I interpret that it is a mix of two strains.

 

[JohnMc]

According to Wyeast site:

This proprietary blend of a top-fermenting neutral ale strain and a Bavarian wheat strain is a great choice when a subtle German style wheat beer is desired. The complex esters and phenolics from the wheat strain are nicely softened and balanced by the neutral ale strain.

I interpret that it is a mix of two strains.

It is. Wheat beer yeast can grow using L-lysine as their carbon and energy source, lager and ale yeast can't. Years ago, I grew 3056 on rich media (YPD) plates and picked 24 colonies from the mixed plate into some plate wells with sterile water, then replicated them onto both YPD and l-lysine assimilation media. The ones that grew on both were wheat yeast and the ones that only grew on YPD were Saccharomyces yeast. It was 50-50, IIRC.

 

[aaronbeach]

For the purposes of sharing/growing knowledge among homebrewers it might be useful to adopt some models for how strain mixing is done. For instance, a particular strains maybe be found to be a great "finisher", a particular pair maybe be found to be "complimentary primary" or an ale-to-lager fermentation profile/schedule might form its own class/model of strain mixing (e.g. lagered-ales).

I think it might be more than just experimentation if focused intentionally by a set of brewers - interesting thread

Chris White promotes strain mixtures in his "Yeast" book, discussing examples of how White Labs has helped different breweries achieve unique flavor profiles with mixed strains.