Mixing different yeast strains

This might seem like a dumn question, and it probably is, but has anyone ever tried mixing two or more different yeast strains in one ferment? Would it matter? Would the different yeasts fight it out like in West Side Story? What would happen?

 

As long as you pick two yeast strains from a similar geographic location, or similar ethnic backgrounds, it should be fine.

Although there is some possibility of a few of them attempting to mate and create an all new strain, they'll probably just end up dying before anything like that happens.

 

its fairly hard to get different yeasts to work equally. generally the one that gets going first/fastest will dominate.
you also need to match their competition factor. a sensitive yeast will simply get kiled by an active yeast.

you would be better to do separate batches and then blend them.

 

This is actually how a cream ale is sometimes made. You mix an ale and a lager yeast together and ferment at ale temps. As stated above though most of the time it would make more sense to use just one as they might not work well together.

 

Which is not entirely correct, as the two yeasts that were historically used by the late Brother Adam at Buckfast Abbey are quite close geographically, but he originally used "Maury" yeast, the closest now, which is Lalvin D21 (Maury being a small AOC accredited region itself), and when he couldn't get that, it appears he moved to using the UK packaged version of the Montpellier strain, which is better known here as Lalvin K1-V1116.

If you mixed those two, despite them having relatively similar fermentation properties, the D21 would lose out quite quickly as K1-V1116 has the "killer" property as well (hence the K1 designation), and would wipe the D21 out becoming the dominant strain.

I understand though, that some places will use something on their wines that gives a lower ABV start, then after a while when the %ABV has reached a certain level, they'll then repitch (or would it be like restarting ???) something that is more robust, with a higher level tolerance ABV, which finishes the ferment.

I don't know if their technique is to cold crash or otherwise somehow kill off the first yeast before using the second one or not, but it does seem that this method is used with some wines, I just haven't read of anyone experimenting like this with meads.......

 

I regularly mix WLP550 and WLP500 when I do Belgians. I find it gives me a taste profile I prefer over either of them alone. In fact I have a Triple that is fermenting with that mix that I just started last night and it's bubbling away nicely. Fermenting separately and blending sounds like an interesting option as well though, I might try that sometime.

 

You could blend yeasts of the same species which have different flavour profiles, to get the flavour you desire, but I highly doubt that you could blend yeasts of different species. One would totally dominate the other.

 

you have to be a lot more specific than just same species. there is a lot of differences in just one species.
even if they are both killer, what ever one has the less lag time and faster growth will outdo the other.

now that gives me tons of ideas

 

I was just reading an article that talked about doing just that to try to get a more complex flavor. Unfortunately, I have just misplaced it in the last couple days and cannot seem to find the site again. It only gave one example suggestion with a sharaz, I think, and then listed a variety of wines and the effects certain yeasts had on the different varieties.

I wonder if you played with types such as floating yeasts vs. sinking yeasts, similar strains with similar needs (temperature, nutrients, alcohol tolerance,) or different types at different stages in fermentation I wonder what types of results could come about.

So, I was wondering, what types of yeasts do most people use in meads. What are the effects of styles of yeasts on mead? Do most mead makers use white wine yeasts and what effect would red wine and ale yeast have on a mead?

edit:
I just found the web site with the article and another that talks about yeasts and the flavors the yeasts impart.

http://morebeer.com/public/pdf/wyeastpair.pdf
Winemaking: Strains of Wine Yeast

Tomico

 

the article suggests blending yeasts, which i take to mean ferment separate batches and blend together which is, afaik, very common in the wine industry.

 

So who's gonna do the following experiment:

3 batches...
1 with yeast A
1 with yeast B
1 with yeast A+B mixed during ferment. Probably will taste like A or B if one yeast totally out-performs the other.

 

I had tried using a small amount of brewer's yeast when I start to kick start the fermentation process. But this has me thinking about controlling the other variables by splitting my must and trying one batch with the brewer's yeast additive, and one without and reporting the findings. I tried once using just the brewer's yeast and the result was way too whiskey-ish.

 

I tried blending a mix of Safale-05 with Wyeast 1056. This combo did well together since they are similar strains. (a lot of recipes use either one.) I originally made 1 batch of beer with each, then combined them for a 3rd beer and it fermented very well. (hard to tell a difference in tastes at all.)

Now, I tried adding some recently used LONDON ALE III, to the same batch of previously used 05/1056 combo. It's in the fermenter now with my Glacier Pale Ale, doing nicely at 70 degrees.

I wonder if I can get the crispness of the 05/1056 with the fruitiness and sweetness of the London Ale III?? I'm curious to see how it ferments? I will tell you this.....the starter went bonkers and the krausen was thick!!

Hopefully, the beer will taste OK and the yeast doesn't destroy it. (we'll see?)

 

Know this a few years old, but how did that turn out Brdrumz?

I'm just learning about washing yeast and yeast in general and curious as can be about designing taste profiles of my own with yeast.

Just curiosity factor at this point now though.