Gigayeast Sour Cherry Funk GY150

Anyone care to share their experiences with this yeast? Does is really create a beer with cheery like flavors or aromas? I just ordered a pack from Farmhouse Brewing and thought I would get some reviews after the fact haha. Any recommendations or just experiences with this strain would be much appreciated. I will keep everyone posted on what/how I use mine and what the finished product is.

Also interested to see what others/you think of it. Im slowly getting away from buying premixed cultures and just blending my own but there are several out there that sound good. This one included.

Bueller......

I don't have experience with that yeast but I get very strong cherry juice flavor from some of the ECY blends and from Roesalare, presumably the brett lambicus is to blame.

Early on the 100% brett B beers I sent you had a good cherry/ stone fruit flavor, probably well past that now.

finsfan said:

Anyone care to share their experiences with this yeast? Does is really create a beer with cheery like flavors or aromas? I just ordered a pack from Farmhouse Brewing and thought I would get some reviews after the fact haha. Any recommendations or just experiences with this strain would be much appreciated. I will keep everyone posted on what/how I use mine and what the finished product is.

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Did u brew with it yet? Any thoughts or sensory evaluation to share?

I think that is a newer strain. It is not on their webpage, but my lhbs received their order sheet and this along with tart cherry brett were in red, that usually means new on their order forms.

I pitched it into a dark dubbel-inspired wort a few weeks ago. Within 12 hours it was rocking like a champ! Unfortunately it will be a while before i can comment on its flavor. However, I am a big fan of the giga blends. My stance is if you are going to use a premixed blend, go giga or TYB. wyeast and whitelabs are out.

505-Brewer said:

Did u brew with it yet? Any thoughts or sensory evaluation to share?

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I have not. I'm hoping to brew with it next weekend but we will see how crazy life gets between now and then.

finsfan said:

I have not. I'm hoping to brew with it next weekend but we will see how crazy life gets between now and then.

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Here that. I was supposed to brew the last three weekends but am just getting to it today..........I think.

I too have been debating making a batch with this yeast. It seems too interesting. They say you can use it as a primary yeast.. and that's what I'd like to do. My Sour carboy is currently occupied with a peach sour i've paired with some JP and Lidemanns dregs that I've cultured a starter from.

I ended up brewing with this yeast back on August 1st. I just racked it to secondary last week and the primary taste is not too impressive. I didnt pitch a sacch strain so I could harvest the yeast, and I think that affected how the brett mix performed. It wasnt bad, but not a lot of brett or cherry character, if any at all. I am hoping that time does this strain good, but either way I do plan to use it again. I will NOT be using it without a sacch strain the nest time though. I believe pitching them simultaneously or waiting a few days to pitch the GigaYeast would do wonders for the flavor profile I was hoping for. Will try to keep you all updated as this progresses. Cheers!

finsfan said:

Anyone care to share their experiences with this yeast? Does is really create a beer with cheery like flavors or aromas? I just ordered a pack from Farmhouse Brewing and thought I would get some reviews after the fact haha. Any recommendations or just experiences with this strain would be much appreciated. I will keep everyone posted on what/how I use mine and what the finished product is.

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FWIW, I create beer with cheery flavors all of the time. It's my general disposition while brewing that transfers to the wort.

I was also interested in hearing the results. It is a bummer that there was lack of cherry, or cheery for that matter.

Hello said:

FWIW, I create beer with cheery flavors all of the time. It's my general disposition while brewing that transfers to the wort.

I was also interested in hearing the results. It is a bummer that there was lack of cherry, or cheery for that matter.

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dammit haha I really gotta start reading my posts before I post them. You got the point though.

sounds like a flanders red would be a good style to try with it. or maybe a blonde/saison with some sour cherries/juice added a month or 2 before packaging.

I agree with masonjax. I have a flanders with roeselare going that is about 11 months old. It has a bit of the cherry/fruit flavor, some funk. I really like it but not much sourness which would make it near perfect. The 2nd generation is on a blond ale, only 4 months old and already quite tart n sour but was fermented in a plastic bucket(oxygen perm? vs the flanders in glass). if the flanders doesnt get much more sour by years end, i may do a bit of blending.

sorry didnt mean to get too off topic - regardless, id pitch without a starter or additional sacch strain. unless u have some good dregs to add. seems like most commercial blends dont get too sour/funky 1st generation.

I was considering pitching some of the slurry back into the beer just to see if it would start to consume the more complex sugars. If i dont see any change in the next couple months i will probably try that.

oops, just realized there was page 2 and you already brewed with it.
edit:
I just read the farmhouse description. id pour some slurry back in it. try it again in 6 months.

I really like the wyeast brett L for cherry Flava. Ferment with lacto for a few weeks, then yeast strain of your choice, then brett L and 6 months.

The last beer I made this way I used the gigayeast sour saison blend. Another batch with jester king dregs had huge cherry/fruit flavors.

what temp did you pitch at?
I just did a simple blonde on Sunday and pitched at 98-100f
when I checked the ph on Thursday it was already down 25 points and the ph was at 3.6.
tasted just like a mouthful of sour cherries...can't wait for this to get some age on it

Just racked a batch of sour blonde I have going with this strain. It's a little over a month old. It is full of diacetyl, there must be some pedio in there somewhere. I hope it cleans up sooner rather than later because it's not too appetizing at this point.

I received my GY Sour Cherry Funk from Farmhouse yesterday. I pitched it into a starter with a wort consisting of 1 cup water, 1/4 cup extra light DME and stashed it in a dark closet. I intend to brew on Saturday.

My goal is to sole pitch the GY SCF for 4 days, then toss in my bugs cultured from Jolly Pumpkin. I'm hoping for a fast ferment and sour.

5 gallon batch

OG 1.050
Final Gravity (estimated): 1.011
ABV (standard): 5.05%
IBU (tinseth): 8.89
SRM (morey): 13.06

Fermentables
Amount
3.3 lb Liquid Malt Extract - Munich 34.6%
3 lb Liquid Malt Extract - Wheat 31.4%
6.3 lb Total

Steeping Grains
Amount Fermentable PPG °L Bill %
16 oz United Kingdom - Maris Otter Pale 38 3.75 10.5%
16 oz American - Vienna 35 4 10.5%
8 oz Belgian - Aromatic 33 38 5.2%
6 oz Belgian - CaraMunich 33 50 3.9%
6 oz Belgian - Special B 34 115 3.9%

Hops
Amount Variety Type AA Use Time IBU
1 oz Hallertau Hersbrucker Pellet 4 Boil 20 min 8.89

Brewed On 9/25/15

Cooled Using Immersion Chiller to 70F
Pitched JP Dregs and GYSCF At Same Time

I'm going to let it sit and check around halloween.

Last night I took a peek inside of the fermenter. I have a thin white pellicle atop half of the wort surface. Smells of cherry, leather, and acid. It's been stored at roughly 65 degrees for about 6 weeks in primary.

According to GY's site:
14 days at 71 F in 1060 sweet wort, Ph 5.0
Apparent Attenuation–51%
ABV– 4.1%
Final Ph– 3.3 (50X acidification)
1.9% lactic acid W/V
14 days at 71 F in 1060 10 IBU wort, Ph 5.0
Apparent Attenuation–89%
ABV– 7.1%
Final Ph– 4 (10X acidification)
0.7% lactic acid W/V
General Notes:
This blend creates an amazing complex, sour beer with fruity cherry esters. Fermenting in the presence of 7-10 IBUs will cause the fermentation to complete much more quickly but will slow the souring — expect to wait 3-4 months for significant souring. Fermenting with zero or less than 5 IBUs will allow souring to happen much faster (within two weeks) but will cause the fermentation to take up to 4 weeks to complete.

My recipe came in at around 9 IBU. I'll revisit this around thanksgiving and give it a taste and take a gravity reading. We will see how accurate the description is on the site in relation to real application.

Cheers

So up to this point, I havent been impressed with the single pitch that I used for a primary fermentation. I wanted to only use the Gigayeast in this beer so I got the full effect of only that mix. Unfortunately, the beer tastes like crap. Not sour or funky at all and just tastes very bland. I did have a one gallon-ish starter of the Sour Cherry Funk going and decided to give it a try the other day. Fantastic! Nice acidity that does resemble cherries. I added a hunk of that slurry to the larger beer I had sitting around and hope that it starts to create those same characteristics. Time will tell...


My only advice to anyone using this strain is to either pitch sacch at primary with the sour cherry mix, or pitch the sour cherry mix in secondary.

How many IBU was your recipe approximately?

I'm bottling another sour this weekend and when I have my "bug gear" out, I'll take a sample and see where my batch is at. I did make a starter for my batch so maybe that's the ticket. I also came in at less than 9 IBU according to brewersfriend software.

IBU was right at 5

Last week I brewed a Tart of Darkness grain bill to use with this culture. We'll see what happens.

I'm about to brew a golden sour using the GY150 in secondary and doing US-05 for a clean primary yeast.

Malt Bill something like...
10 lbs 2-row
~2-3 lbs acidulated
2 lbs rye
2 lbs wheat
1 lb caramel (20L?)
1/2 lb carapils

probably 1 oz Nelson Sauvin, maybe just half oz, depends on AA, but looking to stay under 10 ibu

mashing a little hotter probably around 156 with lots of adjuncts to get more unfermentable sugars for the brett and lacto to eat up after primary is done.

Not sure if you need to for your mash ph, but that seems like a lot of acidulated malt. I'm not sure ive ever used more than 8oz in a recipe.

I agree, that sure does seem like a lot. I haven't seen much noise about using GY150 in the secondary so I'm pretty excited to see how it goes.

I had read you can use up to 20% acidulated in the malt bill, can't recall the source, i just wanted to drop the pH early so it might sour a little bit sooner...potentially. thoughts?

Okay, a couple a questions here:
What would the main differences between pitching the GY150 at the same time as a regular sacc yeast (US-05), or later in secondary?
Would it (the GY150) take hold a bit sooner if it just went in at primary with the US-05?
Would I lose any potential character/complexity by pitching at the same time as US-05 in primary and then racking off of the yeast into secondary?

I direct pitched the GY150 as indicated by the manufacturer's site. I've read that if you add the bugs in the secondary, it can take much longer to sour. I'd imagine that if you pitched the GY150 with a sacc strain, you'd get a reduced sourness due to the sacc and bugs fighting for the edibles. There's no wrong way to do it, it just depends on what you're looking for in an end result.

My first sour was brewed back in march. Primarily fermented with Wyeast Forbidden Fruit. When I reached FG, I racked it onto 4lb of peach puree and added in some bugs that I cultured up from JP and Framboise dregs. 8 months later and its still not sour. Its complex, but not sour.

Hope that helps.

peja436 said:

Okay, a couple a questions here:

What would the main differences between pitching the GY150 at the same time as a regular sacc yeast (US-05), or later in secondary?

Would it (the GY150) take hold a bit sooner if it just went in at primary with the US-05?

Would I lose any potential character/complexity by pitching at the same time as US-05 in primary and then racking off of the yeast into secondary?

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The difference in pitching with sacch or secondary is time to sour and flavor. Pitched in primary, it will be able to get ahold of some of the simple sugars as well as the complex sugars, producing a range of flavor or acidity. Secondary will only be complex sugars, which take longer to break down and produce different flavors than simple sugar consumption. So yes, the gy150 would take hold sooner if pitched with us05.

Well I went ahead and bottled my Flanders last night from using the GY SCF.

OG 1.050
FG 1.010
SRM ~12-14
IBU 2.7 (used lambic blend hopes from farmhouse brewing instead of original recipe)
PH ~3.75 (the strips aren't the best)

Primed with 3.5oz dextrose into 2 cups water. Added 1tsp yeast nutrient, 1 tsp yeast energizer. Pitched to bottling bucket, siphoned wort on top.

This brew finished nice. Recipe is post #21. Nice glowing orange/red color. Smells of tart cherry, leather, and acid. The taste isn't overpoweringly lactic. Taste starts as a brett / cherry and then the brett takes over. Light body. Dry finish. I could enjoy this uncarbonated and sip like a wine.

It's still a very young beer at about 6 months of age. I'm going to let this sit in the bottle until easter and then revisit. Once the brett tames, I feel that the cherry will really show through.

Popped my first bottle last weekend and WOW was I taken back. Time was very kind to this flanders. Notes of cherry, leather, dark fruits, combined with a rich texture and mild carbonation make for a very fine flanders red.

The final verdict: As with most wild brews, time prevails. Though the website and marketing imply that you can have a rocking sour beer in 2-3 weeks, don't believe it. I would use this yeast again. Perhaps next time, I would save a few gallons and blend old beer aged on oak with new beer.

Cheers!

Following back up. This brew is excellent. The cherry is very present. Time is this strains best friend

Ruckusz28 said:

Following back up. This brew is excellent. The cherry is very present. Time is this strains best friend

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The above post states that you also threw in JP dregs, which are famous for "taking over" mixed fermentations.
Any opinions on using GY sour cherry funk in the future? I'm planning to use it this weekend. I do have some JP dregs, but was planning to use this GY blend on it's own in primary (while the second part of this split batch will get S-33 and ECY Flanders slurry).

That may have something to do with it. For what it's worth I don't taste the jp style in this brew. It took off like a rocket.

I fermented cool at 62 degrees over 6 months before I even checked in on it. I used yeast nutrient. Basically set it forget it. Don't plan on drinking it until halloween.

I don't recall if I posted my recipe but I used 1/3 2 row, 1/3 munich, 1/3 white wheat. Keep the ibu under 5. I used aged lambic blend hops from farmhouse. No water treatment used.

I'm in a pretty hot climate.... I'll temp control for primary ferm, but ambient temp for long term aging (around 75-82F). Given the high aging temp, I was going to up the IBU's (around 8-9%), and if it's not sour enough I can blend in some overly sour beer later.

I wouldn't go that high in ibu. Mine was in that ballpark and it took 4 months to sour noticeably