What's your go-to, workhorse yeast?

SSBrew - 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
O

OMBHale

Active Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2018
Messages
25
Reaction score
2
I have a load of odds and sods of grain and hops and looking to do a brew, but alas, I have no yeast.

Which yeast would you recommend having a little supply of for times like this?
 
As a versatile workhorse, I like WLP007. Can be quite fruity or quite clean depending on how you use it, incredibly flocculant but also highly attenuating, and works quickly.

My personal favorite is WY1469 but that one is much less versatile.
 
I don't know that I have a workhorse beer yeast yet, I keep trying different things. (my regular yeast for cider is Côte des Blancs)

I do like T-58, K-97, and Voss Kveik. The best beer I've brewed so far was with K1V-1116 wine yeast, and I'm about to try it again (it's too cold now for kveik yeast) because it's so darn cheap -- 89 cents a packet.

OTOH I have a couple of packets of lager yeast in the fridge that I should use while the basement is cold...
 
The implication is for something to have on standby, which realistically means dry yeast (or at a pinch, home-dried kveik).

It depends a bit on what range of beers you brew - the answer will be different if you only brew lagers or only brew Belgian styles. For it to be all-purpose it should probably be pretty clean and well-behaved from brewing POV (dropping etc).

I sense you're maybe in the UK? In which case the default is generally Nottingham which ticks all the above boxes but which some people don't get on with. Plus you can get it for half the price from any High St as Wilko's ale yeast. You can also add it 48h after pitching another yeast in order to co-flocculate it.

US-05 is the default dry yeast for US styles, but isn't the best at dropping. Ditto for 34/70 and lagers (and it's expensive). But I'd consider Mangrove Jack M54 Californian in this role, it's clean, drops better than either of those two and is flexible about fermenting at either lager or room temperatures.

If you're just making British beers, then you really want something a bit more characterful, like Mangrove Jack M15 or the EDME family - Windsor, S-33 or Munton "ordinary" (which also seems to get white-labelled as a lot of own-brand ale yeasts). They give you more character but aren't as easy to brew with in terms of flocculation, attenuation etc.

Then you get into having some dried kveik around, which is not that hard - the trouble is more getting the kveik in the first place, certainly in the UK.

Personally "not having any yeast" is not the problem, the problem is finding time to brew with all the liquid yeast I keep buying/harvesting!
 
Northern_Brewer said:
The implication is for something to have on standby, which realistically means dry yeast (or at a pinch, home-dried kveik).

It depends a bit on what range of beers you brew - the answer will be different if you only brew lagers or only brew Belgian styles. For it to be all-purpose it should probably be pretty clean and well-behaved from brewing POV (dropping etc).

I sense you're maybe in the UK? In which case the default is generally Nottingham which ticks all the above boxes but which some people don't get on with. Plus you can get it for half the price from any High St as Wilko's ale yeast. You can also add it 48h after pitching another yeast in order to co-flocculate it.

US-05 is the default dry yeast for US styles, but isn't the best at dropping. Ditto for 34/70 and lagers (and it's expensive). But I'd consider Mangrove Jack M54 Californian in this role, it's clean, drops better than either of those two and is flexible about fermenting at either lager or room temperatures.

If you're just making British beers, then you really want something a bit more characterful, like Mangrove Jack M15 or the EDME family - Windsor, S-33 or Munton "ordinary" (which also seems to get white-labelled as a lot of own-brand ale yeasts). They give you more character but aren't as easy to brew with in terms of flocculation, attenuation etc.

Then you get into having some dried kveik around, which is not that hard - the trouble is more getting the kveik in the first place, certainly in the UK.

Personally "not having any yeast" is not the problem, the problem is finding time to brew with all the liquid yeast I keep buying/harvesting!
Click to expand...
I read it as "using in a lot of beers so it's always on hand to harvest from" but I recognize that not everyone brews or harvests like that.
 
In the past it has been Nottingham, but going forward it will be W-34/70 (for both ale and lager styles).
 
balrog said:
WY1450. Denny's Favorite.
I mean, it's got "Favorite" in the name.
Click to expand...

I’ve used this a couple of times and found it to finish sweeter than other yeasts, or certainly the hop bitterness was more rounded. Did you find this?

In terms of a good all-round yeast, I’ve brewed more beers with Wyeast Ringwood than anything else. I love it’s balanced ‘bite’ to the bitterness.

Recently I’ve brewed more with Saf-04 as it’s easy to have on hand in the freezer.
 
HTH1975 said:
I’ve used this a couple of times and found it to finish sweeter than other yeasts, or certainly the hop bitterness was more rounded. Did you find this?
Click to expand...

I like it for the maltiness in my pale ales, ambers and stouts. I don't do highly hop flavored beers; I prefer balance where one actually notices malt as much as hop character.

Yeah. I'm old. Just ask my kids.

EDIT: RE: finish--I just looked an on the 18 brews w this yeast, the avg OG was 1.052 and avg FG was 1.011.
 
balrog said:
I like it for the maltiness in my pale ales, ambers and stouts. I don't do highly hop flavored beers; I prefer balance where one actually notices malt as much as hop character.

Yeah. I'm old. Just ask my kids.

EDIT: RE: finish--I just looked an on the 18 brews w this yeast, the avg OG was 1.052 and avg FG was 1.011.
Click to expand...

Makes sense, I could see how that would work. It didn’t floc very well I recall. Nothing finings didn’t sort.
 
I do find it powdery, eventually I'll push to another keg when transporting somewhere, but if it sits in the basement I have no issues.
 
Outside of the standard American Ale strain family, I probably use London III (1318) the most, great for hoppy and dark beers alike, at diff temps of course!
 
Thanks all for the responses.

I should have been clearer (my fault) - what I mean is a standby yeast to do a 'mop up' brew of all the scraps of malt and hops.

Generally, I don't do anything too specialist: English ale, US IPA and stout. I've just done my first lager.
 
Northern_Brewer said:
The implication is for something to have on standby, which realistically means dry yeast (or at a pinch, home-dried kveik).

It depends a bit on what range of beers you brew - the answer will be different if you only brew lagers or only brew Belgian styles. For it to be all-purpose it should probably be pretty clean and well-behaved from brewing POV (dropping etc).

I sense you're maybe in the UK? In which case the default is generally Nottingham which ticks all the above boxes but which some people don't get on with. Plus you can get it for half the price from any High St as Wilko's ale yeast. You can also add it 48h after pitching another yeast in order to co-flocculate it.

US-05 is the default dry yeast for US styles, but isn't the best at dropping. Ditto for 34/70 and lagers (and it's expensive). But I'd consider Mangrove Jack M54 Californian in this role, it's clean, drops better than either of those two and is flexible about fermenting at either lager or room temperatures.

If you're just making British beers, then you really want something a bit more characterful, like Mangrove Jack M15 or the EDME family - Windsor, S-33 or Munton "ordinary" (which also seems to get white-labelled as a lot of own-brand ale yeasts). They give you more character but aren't as easy to brew with in terms of flocculation, attenuation etc.

Then you get into having some dried kveik around, which is not that hard - the trouble is more getting the kveik in the first place, certainly in the UK.

Personally "not having any yeast" is not the problem, the problem is finding time to brew with all the liquid yeast I keep buying/harvesting!
Click to expand...

Many thanks.

Yes I'm in the UK (Greater Manchester) and brew US IPA, stout and English ale. I've just done my first lager too.

A very helpful reply though; I think Nottingham seems to be the safest bet.
 
Northern_Brewer said:
The implication is for something to have on standby, which realistically means dry yeast (or at a pinch, home-dried kveik).

It depends a bit on what range of beers you brew - the answer will be different if you only brew lagers or only brew Belgian styles. For it to be all-purpose it should probably be pretty clean and well-behaved from brewing POV (dropping etc).

I sense you're maybe in the UK? In which case the default is generally Nottingham which ticks all the above boxes but which some people don't get on with. Plus you can get it for half the price from any High St as Wilko's ale yeast. You can also add it 48h after pitching another yeast in order to co-flocculate it.

US-05 is the default dry yeast for US styles, but isn't the best at dropping. Ditto for 34/70 and lagers (and it's expensive). But I'd consider Mangrove Jack M54 Californian in this role, it's clean, drops better than either of those two and is flexible about fermenting at either lager or room temperatures.

If you're just making British beers, then you really want something a bit more characterful, like Mangrove Jack M15 or the EDME family - Windsor, S-33 or Munton "ordinary" (which also seems to get white-labelled as a lot of own-brand ale yeasts). They give you more character but aren't as easy to brew with in terms of flocculation, attenuation etc.

Then you get into having some dried kveik around, which is not that hard - the trouble is more getting the kveik in the first place, certainly in the UK.

Personally "not having any yeast" is not the problem, the problem is finding time to brew with all the liquid yeast I keep buying/harvesting!
Click to expand...

I forgot to say a massive thank you for the Wilko tip - I've just done some online research and according to a Wilko buyer it is a repackaged Nottingham. Will pop to my local branch!
 
OMBHale said:
Yes I'm in the UK (Greater Manchester) and brew US IPA, stout and English ale. I've just done my first lager too.

A very helpful reply though; I think Nottingham seems to be the safest bet.
Click to expand...

Ok - that Hale. :) Given that most people on HBT are across the pond, it's worth putting your location in your profile, to stop people telling you to go to Walmart etc.

Yep - Notty is the safe option, not really the best at any one thing but a great allrounder that drops out cleanly, it appears to be a blend that includes a chunk of lager yeasts and it's clean enough to do a reasonable job with lager even.

I'd always be a bit wary of saying something *is* another yeast strain, as you don't know the exact history and even twins can come out differently. "Closely related" is usually more accurate, but that's just the yeast geek speaking, Wilko is close enough to Notty. They're also the best source of general brewing stuff on the High St, albeit just the basics; B&M used to have a few bits including the best choice of "Grolsch" bottles but it looks like they may have given up.
 
Northern_Brewer said:
Ok - that Hale. :) Given that most people on HBT are across the pond, it's worth putting your location in your profile, to stop people telling you to go to Walmart etc.

Yep - Notty is the safe option, not really the best at any one thing but a great allrounder that drops out cleanly, it appears to be a blend that includes a chunk of lager yeasts and it's clean enough to do a reasonable job with lager even.

I'd always be a bit wary of saying something *is* another yeast strain, as you don't know the exact history and even twins can come out differently. "Closely related" is usually more accurate, but that's just the yeast geek speaking, Wilko is close enough to Notty. They're also the best source of general brewing stuff on the High St, albeit just the basics; B&M used to have a few bits including the best choice of "Grolsch" bottles but it looks like they may have given up.
Click to expand...

Thanks for heads up on location. Yes am based in Hale :) I actually own a microbakery where I teach bread classes but also brew beer which I both drink (obviously!) and bake with, and use in my Bread and Beer class.

Am increasing the size of my cellar to give more customer choice, and as a result I have a good few part-bags of malts and hops that are going to be used for scrap brews so it looks like Nottingham will be my best shout to as it seems like a pretty neutral tasting one (so that's one less factor to worry about).
 
That's the good thing about Sunblest, it's a pretty neutral-tasting bread.... :) Neutral isn't always good, but you really need to get into liquid yeasts to get more characterful ones. WLP004/1084 is the obvious one for stouts but WLP540/1762 is a slightly unintuitive choice, it's called Trappist but is actually British.

Think that place by Stockport Crem has WLP004, don't know about closer to you.
 
Oh agreed, I usually use White Labs, they do brilliant yeasts. Am just stocking up on my 'emergency' yeasts is all :)



EDIT: I refuse to be goaded by references to Sunblest.........:eek:
 
Scottish Ale

Clean at almost any temp

Works well from 55-75

Floccs crazy well

Very alcohol tolerant
 
I always have a bunch of dried yeast around, but if I were to just have one it would probably be BRY 97
 
isomerization said:
Have you tried WLP029 versus WY1728? I’ve read that they don’t perform the same...
Click to expand...

They're not particularly related - 1728 Scottish is closest to 1028 London Ale in the WLP004 Irish group, whereas WLP029 is in the WLP002/007 group. Or did you mean WLP028 Edinburgh? That's even less related, it's out on a limb vaguely near WLP023 Burton and 1275 Thames Valley.

If we're talking liquid yeasts, then British ones that are labelled otherwise that I like what I've seen so far of, are WLP041 and WLP540.
 
Yes, Wyeast Scottish and White Labs Edinburgh are definitely not the same. I love the former, had access to the latter, tried to sub for the former, was not impressed, and ditched it for WLP004 Irish which I had on hand and found closer (though not identical, but preferable to Edinburgh). Given the info above, may explain why.
 
Northern_Brewer said:
They're not particularly related - 1728 Scottish is closest to 1028 London Ale in the WLP004 Irish group, whereas WLP029 is in the WLP002/007 group. Or did you mean WLP028 Edinburgh? That's even less related, it's out on a limb vaguely near WLP023 Burton and 1275 Thames Valley.

If we're talking liquid yeasts, then British ones that are labelled otherwise that I like what I've seen so far of, are WLP041 and WLP540.
Click to expand...

I did mean 028 (Edinburgh), just FYI. Good info thanks!
 

Similar threads

F
is there a real substitute for llalemand kolsch yeast
2
Replies
57
Views
2K
Slim M
S
brewdon
Not sure what’s going on here - KVEIK
Replies
12
Views
483
eliastheodosis
eliastheodosis
R
Split batch with different yeasts
Replies
2
Views
243
dmtaylor
dmtaylor
T
Safale T-58 low attenuation
Replies
19
Views
488
capt82
capt82
W
Maibock yeast instead of WPL833?
Replies
13
Views
933
Brooothru
Brooothru
wps-hbt2

Latest posts

Back
Top