Nottingham vs. Pacman

last weekend I brewed my first 10-gallon batch - it was an ordinary bitter from Jamil's recipe. OG was about 1.041 (Target was about 1.033... learned some lessons about efficiency with heavily-sparged low-gravity batches, among other things)

I used it as a great opportunity to try out a couple of different yeasts side-by-side: Nottingham and Pacman. I've used each one just once before. Nottingham was rehydrated, Pacman was pitched from a washed yeast cake from an APA done recently. Both took off within 24 hours. They fermented in my bedroom, which in retrospect wasn't the greatest idea because we don't keep it heated much, so the wort temperature during fermentation was about 60F.

What a difference! The nottingham half developed a big, fluffy krausen that climbed up near to the neck of the carboy before subsiding, and when it dropped it left the surface pretty much clean except for small, white bubbles from the little fermentation still going on.



The Pacman never developed a krausen higher than about 1/2" or so, and when it fell it dropped down to a really thin, gooey layer on the surface which hasn't yet shown any signs of disappearing. Most of the krausen ring on the fermenter is actually from the jostling around when I moved the carboy in from the other room.


It's been one week since I brewed these. I was expecting them to ferment out VERY fast due to the low gravity and aggressive yeasts, but then again, I hadn't planned on fermenting at 60F either. I moved them out to the living room where they're in the mid-60's about 3 days ago, so I'm surprised that they still haven't finished, but oh well. It's been very interesting seeing the differences in fermentation between these two yeasts in identical wort - and also how much of a difference 5 or 10 degrees makes.

 

Great experiment. 60F is ok for both of those yeasts and should give you very clean ferments. It will be interesting to see if the Pacman out attenuates Nottingham.

 

I am trying to get some Pacman out of the Shakespeare stout, where did you get yours?
Keep us posted

 

I got the pacman from a combination of the dregs from one bomber each of shakespeare stout and brutal bitter. I am quite certain you'll get what you need from the stout.

I'm very excited to have these finish. I'm counting on there being some subtle differences between these similar clean/neutral yeasts. I hope to make 10-gallon batches my regular batch size so I can do this more often with different yeasts, as I think it'll help me greatly in making informed choices about yeast in future batches.

 

Is it possible that Rogue filter the Pacman and then add another like a clean lager yeast to bottle condition and not alter the flavour from the Pacman?

 

It's pretty widely stated that Rogue bottle conditions with Pacman. Use of the same yeast for fermentation and bottle conditioning may not be the case for all bottle-conditioned beers, but I am pretty confident that it is for Rogue's.

 

Funkenjaeger.. how did this beer turn out?
I'm planning to make a Newcastle clone on top of my dead man ale yeast cake.

thanks

 

I did the same experiment with Ed's pale ale but I had different results. The pacman for me had a explosive fermentation so much so I had a ton of foam coming out of the blow off tube, the Notty on the other hand was just like always 2-3" foam head throughout active fermentation. You'll notice the difference in taste, Pacman has a distinctive signature.

 

No...Rogue uses pacman in the bottle for the majority of their beers...They indicate it on most of their bombers.

 

Another thing to take into consideration is the health of the pacman at time of pitching...I'm assuming you pitched the notty from a pack, while you grew the pacman from a few dregs...unless you grew it, harvested it, washed it, rested it, than made a starter from it, it's going to be a bit more stressed then the notty.

It's still a good experiment, but it would be interesting to see the results from fresh pacman culture going head to head with the notty.

 

I'm curious too. I haven't seen a good comparison of these yeasts side by side. For example, for an IPA. I've been thinking, long and hard, of culturing PacMan for my first big double IPA, since I want to dry that sucker out. But, it's such a PITA to step up the starter vs just pitching the notty from a packet! I plan to ferment at 60*F which is (from everything I've seen) the sweet zone for pacMan.

 

Rather than starting from dregs you can buy a smack pack from great places like Austin Homebrew Supply. It's seasonal, but seems to be in stock at the moment.

I made a point not to say AHS

 

But it's more fun to harvest from bottles of delicious rogue beers....

 

OORRR you could just drink Rogue and pitch the smack packs I always like to drink the style of beer I'm making while I'm making it. I think a stout is on the horizon anyway, I'll see if the LHBS has the pacman around.