Another dry yeast vs liquid yeast thread - questions ands discussion

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bwible

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So I've started down this rabbit hole, exploring different dry yeasts. I’ve been a liquid yeast guy, 90 % Wyeast for as long as I’ve been brewing from 1997 until now. It has taken me awhile, but I'm coming around.

It seems overall like the dry yeasts all have higher attenuation rates compared to the liquid. This is by no means comprehensive, but here’s what I just looked up sitting here, looking up some dry yeast I have and some I am thinking of using:

Dry
Lallemand Nottingham 78-84% mid: 81 tolerance: 14%
Lallemand Windsor 65-72% mid: 68.5. tolerance: 12%
Lallemand London 65-72% mid: 68.5 tolerance: 12%
Lallemand Kolsch 75-80% mid: 77.5 tolerance: 9%
Lallemand Munich Wheat 76-83% mid: 79.5. tolerance: 12%
Lallemand Diamond Lager 77-83% mid: 80. tolerance: 13%
Cellar Science English 75-83% mid: 79 tolerance: 12%
Cellar Science Cali 75-84% mid: 79.5 tolerance: 10-11%

Liquid:
Wyeast 1028 London 73-77% mid: 75 tolerance: 11%
Wyeast 1056 American 73-77% mid: 75 tolerance: 11%
Wyeast 1084 Irish 71-75% mid: 73 tolerance: 12%
Wyeast 1099 Whitbread 68-72% mid: 70 tolerance: 10%
Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire 67-71% mid: 69 tolerance: 9%
Wyeast 1728 Scottish 69-73% mid: 71 tolerance: 12%
Wyeast 2001 Pilsner Urquell 72-76% mid: 74 tolerance: 9%
Wyeast 2035 American Lager 73-77% mid: 75 tolerance: 9%
Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager 73-77% mid: 75 tolerance: 9%
Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephen Wheat 73-77% mid: 75 tolerance: 10%

Outside of the 2 dry outliers, Windsor and London, It seems like the dry yeasts are all around more attenuative where the liquid yeasts all around attenuate less. Nottingham goes up to 14% which could be useful for restarting stuck fermentations or I wish I had that when I had my issue bottling my Christmas beer last year. Now I know. I’m pretty sure 1728 and 1084 are Wyeast’s highest tolerance, 12%.

Nottingham says 78-84%. Wyeast Scottish says 68-73%. If I'm doing the math right:

If I started a 1.090 beer with Nottingham 78-84% means it would finish between 1.015 and 1.019.

If I started a 1.090 beer with Wyeast 1728 68-73% means it would finish between 1.024 and 1.028.

Thats a pretty big difference - one is going to have less body and be thinner and bit more alcoholic.

The ones with the numbers in the 80s on the high end scare me. 83-84%. The liquid yeasts don’t go past about 77% at the highest. If I'm seeing 83% or 84% attenuation with any of my Wyeast strains, that's a pretty good indicator I have an infection.

I guess this is where you can try to control some of this with mash temps?

What is the collective experience here? Are you guys seeing 83 and 84% attenuation with Nottingham and some of these other dry yeasts? From what I read on here, I see quite a few posts where Nottingham is recommended and many like it. I know we have scientists and technical people on here. And many with years of experience.

Thanks for insight.
 
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Lots to discuss here.

First... You are onto something. Dried yeasts do often tend to attenuate higher than their supposed liquid counterparts. It's not always true, but often enough.

By the way...

Windsor is a bit of a stinker, actual average attenuation for me has been about 60%, or low 60s at best. Don't expect anywhere close to 65-72%.

Lallemand London, Koln, and Belle are no longer available in little 11g packages. Not sure about brick sizes.

US-05 and BRY-97, so called "Chico" strains or close relatives, attenuate around 82%, quite a bit higher than liquid Chicos at 75-ish.

In my experience, Notty quits at about 9 to 9.5% ABV. I find it attenuates to about 78% regardless of mash temp, but have seen it as high as like 81 or 82% on rare occasion (only for <9% ABV of course). Similar stories for S-04.

But yeah... most yeasts you can eek more or less attenuation by playing with mash temps, or most importantly, mash TIME/LENGTH.

Much of what I know is summarized on my doohickey...

tinyurl.com/yeastmaster
 
The ones with the numbers in the 80s on the high end scare me. 83-84%. The liquid yeasts don’t go past about 77% at the highest. If I'm seeing 83% or 84% attenuation with any of my Wyeast strains, that's a pretty good indicator I have an infection.
I don't worry about the high stated attenuation numbers indicating infection. But since I bottle condition, I do check closely to see if any particular strain is diastaticus. Very high stated attenuation makes me suspicious, but you can check the specs and find out about it. There is some disagreement about this, but I wouldn't feel safe using a diastaticus strain when bottle conditioning. It doesn't relate to dry or liquid though.
 
I wouldn't feel safe using a diastaticus strain when bottle conditioning.
Why not? There shouldn't be an issue if it's the same strain you fermented with and you're sure it's done. If it's not done, then you risk bottle bombs whether it's diastatic or not. If you're talking about carrying over diastatic yeast when you re-use the bottles, then yeah you have to be careful. But there are some pretty simple ways around that.
 
Why not? There shouldn't be an issue if it's the same strain you fermented with and you're sure it's done. If it's not done, then you risk bottle bombs whether it's diastatic or not. If you're talking about carrying over diastatic yeast when you re-use the bottles, then yeah you have to be careful. But there are some pretty simple ways around that.
I wasn't clear. I don't use diastaticus yeast in the fermenter or for bottling since I bottle condition. I don't want it in my brewery at all.

From Master Brewers Podcast, 12/20/21, Eposode 68:
https://www.masterbrewerspodcast.com/068
Quick summary paraph includes "Over-carbonation. Exploding bottles. Lawsuits. Super-attenuation caused by diastaticus contamination is a hot topic in the brewing industry."

Direct quote at 4:45: "Like most things, you only need one cell, one colony forming unit, and there really is no threshold that’s acceptable to the strain. It’ll do you wrong - that’s for sure."

Direct quote at 8:20: “Our current plan is basically just to centrifuge it, possibly filter it, just basically get the yeast load greatly reduced.”

I don't trust my cleaning to be 100% effective, and I definitely don't want bottle bombs.
 
I wasn't clear. I don't use diastaticus yeast in the fermenter or for bottling since I bottle condition. I don't want it in my brewery at all.
That's fine. But many do and live to tell the tale. It's not that hard to kill yeast. And FWIW, those two direct quotes sort of contradict each other.
 
I guess this is where you can try to control some of this with mash temps?
For the most part this and/or using malts that don't fully convert like crystals.

I tend to use 34/70 a lot for lagers which can go up to 84%. Of my last few lagers i got attenuations of 81%, 83%, 76%, and 72%. For the two beers that got into the 80's they were both mashed at about 149 with no crystals, the only malt I used other than base malts were a touch of melanoidin. My lagers at that hit the 70's were both mashed at 152 along with the addition of some crystals and chocolates in them leaving more residuals and less attenuation.

Its important when making a recipe to add your yeast to the calculations for this reason.
 
Lots to discuss here.

First... You are onto something. Dried yeasts do often tend to attenuate higher than their supposed liquid counterparts. It's not always true, but often enough.

By the way...

Windsor is a bit of a stinker, actual average attenuation for me has been about 60%, or low 60s at best. Don't expect anywhere close to 65-72%.

Lallemand London, Koln, and Belle are no longer available in little 11g packages. Not sure about brick sizes.

US-05 and BRY-97, so called "Chico" strains or close relatives, attenuate around 82%, quite a bit higher than liquid Chicos at 75-ish.

In my experience, Notty quits at about 9 to 9.5% ABV. I find it attenuates to about 78% regardless of mash temp, but have seen it as high as like 81 or 82% on rare occasion (only for <9% ABV of course). Similar stories for S-04.

But yeah... most yeasts you can eek more or less attenuation by playing with mash temps, or most importantly, mash TIME/LENGTH.

Much of what I know is summarized on my doohickey...

tinyurl.com/yeastmaster
London and Koln have been discontinued. London due to lack of demand; they already have Windsor, Verdant, Notty, and New England. Kolsch yeasts are difficult to dry.
 
If I'm seeing 83% or 84% attenuation with any of my Wyeast strains, that's a pretty good indicator I have an infection.
I have gotten 82-83% AA from 2124 and the beer was fabulous. I think the difference may not that one is dry and one is liquid, it may have something to do with nutrients baked into dry yeast.

I can coax the yeast to a higher attenuation by pure oxygen aeration, growing the yeast in a high FAN starter (300-400ppm of FAN) and adding the yeast nutrient on the cold side. I'm mainly after zinc from the nutrient addition and if you add it to the boil, the cold break acts as a chelation agent and the zinc drops with the break. With dry yeast I usually don't worry about the extra steps and I get 80-84% depending on the grain bill.

On the other hand, I just made a Dunkel with dry 34/70 and it gave up the ghost at 71% AA. This usually happens when there is a lot of Munich malt in the recipe. The beer is really good, surprisingly dry, but very malty.
 
While there may be an attenuation difference between dry and liquid, there are potentially some sampling issues with your methods. The companies may not follow the same procedures for reporting attenuation. Is that a range or a confidence interval or something else? Notice the Wyeast intervals are all 4%. The midpoints are all pretty close and depending on how they estimated attenuation, it's possible they used say a confidence interval. On the other hand, perhaps they just calculate a mean and say +/- 2%. Wyeast is also just providing an interval and not saying what the mean is. It doesn't have to be the middle of the interval unless they are specific about how this is calculated. And with Wyeast the only liquid yeast presented, that could bias the comparison. At the very least, you would want to sample yeasts from the population of yeast manufacturers (randomly). A different way to consider it might be to look at the yeast strains that are known to be the same strain but in dry and liquid forms. That can eliminate a lot of unknown variation. I know White Yeast Labs has some like that but I don't know about others.
 
I'm pretty similar in that i used liquid for many years exclusively, but now i use mostly dry ( WY3726 i use for my saison ).

I really don't find much difference in attenuation, though all my beers i aim for high attenuation. Very rare a beer finishes above 1.010. Most of my beers are 1.045 or less though. I mash for this and don't use much crystal malt at all.


The diastatic yeast "issue" i find odd. I've never had an issue at all, ever. I use WY3726 and am not scared of using my equipment after i've used it. No special precautions etc. I bottle my saison with it no issues.
 
I tend to use 34/70 a lot for lagers which can go up to 84%. Of my last few lagers i got attenuations of 81%, 83%, 76%, and 72%. For the two beers that got into the 80's they were both mashed at about 149 with no crystals, the only malt I used other than base malts were a touch of melanoidin. My lagers at that hit the 70's were both mashed at 152 along with the addition of some crystals and chocolates in them leaving more residuals and less attenuation.
I brewed a 100% Pilsner malt West Coast Pilsner in December with 34/70 that got 89% apparent attenuation (SG: 1.038, FG: 1.004, ABV: 4.5%). Mashed it at 151F.
 
I brewed a 100% Pilsner malt West Coast Pilsner in December with 34/70 that got 89% apparent attenuation (SG: 1.038, FG: 1.004, ABV: 4.5%). Mashed it at 151F.
The amount of grain/sugar can also play a part in attenuation as well since the yeast are not going to be in such a hostile environment. Everyone's equipment will also work slightly different. Its crazy the amount of factors that actually go into brewing beer 😂
 
The worry with diastaticus is that the action of the glucoamylase can be slow, so you think fermentation is done long before it actually is, and then bottle bombs.

London was discontinued but you could still find packs for a long time after (though not so much now.) When they discontinued Koln it was gone almost immediately. That was a loss.

I use Nottingham for barleywine, well above 12%, with no problems whatsoever. It chomps through beers that Chico has a lot of trouble with.
 
The worry with diastaticus is that the action of the glucoamylase can be slow, so you think fermentation is done long before it actually is, and then bottle bombs.

London was discontinued but you could still find packs for a long time after (though not so much now.) When they discontinued Koln it was gone almost immediately. That was a loss.

I use Nottingham for barleywine, well above 12%, with no problems whatsoever. It chomps through beers that Chico has a lot of trouble with.
I actually just got 2 packs of London with August expiration.

When I originally wrote this I said:

If I started a 1.090 beer with Nottingham 78-84% means it would finish between 1.015 and 1.019.

If I started a 1.090 beer with Wyeast 1728 68-73% means it would finish between 1.024 and 1.028.

Thats a pretty big difference.

So when you make barleywine with Nottingham are you seeing a lower final gravity? And in this case, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Are you mashing higher to create less fermentable sugar, ie 155-157? I am thinking of trying a strong ale with Nottingham just to see. I’ve been staying around 9-9.5% for my barleywines due to alcohol tolerance of liquid yeast being between 10% and 12%. And the fact I bottle all my barleywines so the yeast needs to still be going. If Nottingham goes to 14% I feel like I could aim for 11% or 12%.
 
I have gotten 82-83% AA from 2124 and the beer was fabulous. I think the difference may not that one is dry and one is liquid, it may have something to do with nutrients baked into dry yeast.

I can coax the yeast to a higher attenuation by pure oxygen aeration, growing the yeast in a high FAN starter (300-400ppm of FAN) and adding the yeast nutrient on the cold side. I'm mainly after zinc from the nutrient addition and if you add it to the boil, the cold break acts as a chelation agent and the zinc drops with the break. With dry yeast I usually don't worry about the extra steps and I get 80-84% depending on the grain bill.

On the other hand, I just made a Dunkel with dry 34/70 and it gave up the ghost at 71% AA. This usually happens when there is a lot of Munich malt in the recipe. The beer is really good, surprisingly dry, but very malty.
I literally just picked up 34/70 half an hour ago for a dunkles I'm being today. Never used it before and just got into using dry yeast so curious how this will go. Was hoping it would bring out the maltiness.
 
So when you make barleywine with Nottingham are you seeing a lower final gravity? And in this case, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Are you mashing higher to create less fermentable sugar, ie 155-157? I am thinking of trying a strong ale with Nottingham just to see. I’ve been staying around 9-9.5% for my barleywines due to alcohol tolerance of liquid yeast being between 10% and 12%. And the fact I bottle all my barleywines so the yeast needs to still be going. If Nottingham goes to 14% I feel like I could aim for 11% or 12%.
Pack of EC-1118 for bottling is very cheap insurance, to guarantee that you'll get good carbonation. After my first imperial stout done with Nottingham failed to bottle carbonate at all, even 6 months later, I now use CBC-1 or EC-1118 for bottling everything over 9% abv.
 
The worry with diastaticus is that the action of the glucoamylase can be slow, so you think fermentation is done long before it actually is, and then bottle bombs.

London was discontinued but you could still find packs for a long time after (though not so much now.) When they discontinued Koln it was gone almost immediately. That was a loss.

I use Nottingham for barleywine, well above 12%, with no problems whatsoever. It chomps through beers that Chico has a lot of trouble with.
That's the issue with diastaticus Indeed. Been there more often than I'd like ...
 
My favorite Clint Eastwood quote:
“You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?”
Harry Callahan
Clint Eastwood
Dirty Harry
1971
 
I actually just got 2 packs of London with August expiration.

When I originally wrote this I said:

If I started a 1.090 beer with Nottingham 78-84% means it would finish between 1.015 and 1.019.

If I started a 1.090 beer with Wyeast 1728 68-73% means it would finish between 1.024 and 1.028.

Thats a pretty big difference.

So when you make barleywine with Nottingham are you seeing a lower final gravity? And in this case, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Are you mashing higher to create less fermentable sugar, ie 155-157? I am thinking of trying a strong ale with Nottingham just to see. I’ve been staying around 9-9.5% for my barleywines due to alcohol tolerance of liquid yeast being between 10% and 12%. And the fact I bottle all my barleywines so the yeast needs to still be going. If Nottingham goes to 14% I feel like I could aim for 11% or 12%.
Looking over my notes:

1.128/1.026/80%/13.2%
1.111/1.014/87%/12.7%
1.111/1.017/85%/12.3%
1.100/1.020/80%/10.5%
1.097/1.012/88%/11.2%

Most of these are Tilt measurements, so the FG could easily be off a few points.

I always mash low (145-150 F) when I have this much malt, as the beer ends up chewy no matter what.

I've bottle-conditioned two of these, both times with CBC-1. One ended up flat anyway. It's think it's a dicey thing at this ABV.
 
That's the issue with diastaticus Indeed. Been there more often than I'd like ...

I only bottle saison, never keg, and the last ones i'm drinking around 9 months later. I highly carbonate them, and i've never had one gush or be over carbed.
 
I literally just picked up 34/70 half an hour ago for a dunkles I'm being today. Never used it before and just got into using dry yeast so curious how this will go. Was hoping it would bring out the maltiness.
I'm surprised how malty the beer the beer is. Usually 34/70 is really dry and the malt can be somewhat muted. Not this time.
 
Didn't the folks at clawhammer do a test on length of mash and found after 20-30 min almost 90+% conversion? I know temperature has a lot to do with fermentability, and I can't remember what temp they mashed at. I don't think overnight is necessary. I "accidentally" mashed overnight in a 1 gal igloo and didn't see any difference from my normal mash schedule.

EDIT: I also contradict myself because I do 75 min mash. I found I get better results, ie closer to my expected pre-boil SG and thus OG.
 
I do 90 minute low temp mash ( 60-62c ) for saison. A light bodied and dry beer. It finishes less than 1.005, but that's also with saison yeast.

My rice lagers get 45-60 mins at low mash temps, and finish around the same FG. Also quite light in body.
 
Didn't the folks at clawhammer do a test on length of mash and found after 20-30 min almost 90+% conversion? I know temperature has a lot to do with fermentability
TIME also has a bit to do with fermentability, at least in the first ~45 minutes of the mash. If mashing much shorter than that, like 20 minutes and then mashed out, the starches will be converted to dextrins and complex sugars, but not as much simple sugars that most yeasts are capable of eating. If I want a full bodied beer, one trick I've learned is to mash for just 20-25 minutes then immediately mash out. If I want a dry beer, then I mash for a minimum of 75 minutes at which point you're right it doesn't much affect the fermentability after that point anymore... you might still eek another point or two out of both efficiency and fermentability but it isn't much after that point, unless your crush really sucked in which case then go ahead and mash overnight. Crush has a bit to do with it all as well. My guidance above assumes a good quality crush where there is a good percentage of flour and all the kernels are broken into like 6 to 8 bits, not just in half or whatever.

But methinks we digress... isn't this thread supposed to be about yeast or something? I forgot...
 
TIME also has a bit to do with fermentability, at least in the first ~45 minutes of the mash. If mashing much shorter than that, like 20 minutes and then mashed out, the starches will be converted to dextrins and complex sugars, but not as much simple sugars that most yeasts are capable of eating. If I want a full bodied beer, one trick I've learned is to mash for just 20-25 minutes then immediately mash out. If I want a dry beer, then I mash for a minimum of 75 minutes at which point you're right it doesn't much affect the fermentability after that point anymore... you might still eek another point or two out of both efficiency and fermentability but it isn't much after that point, unless your crush really sucked in which case then go ahead and mash overnight. Crush has a bit to do with it all as well. My guidance above assumes a good quality crush where there is a good percentage of flour and all the kernels are broken into like 6 to 8 bits, not just in half or whatever.

But methinks we digress... isn't this thread supposed to be about yeast or something? I forgot...
That‘s interesting…but aren‘t you sacrificing a lot of efficiency mashing for only 20minutes? I usually keep mashing until the SG stops going up, which is in fact usually about 75 minutes. Here‘s data from my last batch last sunday:

Dough-in 08:50; 09:16 1,060; 09:29 1,067; 09:40 1,070; 10:00 1,075;

So, up to 1.060 in 25 minutes, but the next 45 minutes brought another 15 gravity points, which is nothing to sneeze at, imho. On the other hand, my NEIPAs have also been a little too dry for my taste (1.012) lately. maybe this is why. 🤔
 
aren‘t you sacrificing a lot of efficiency mashing for only 20minutes? I usually keep mashing until the SG stops going up, which is in fact usually about 75 minutes
His mash isn't your mash and your mash isn't his. You're doing it right, but that doesn't mean he's doing it wrong.
 
I sometimes only mash for 20 minutes but then my brewhouse efficiency is only in the low 90% range.
"only"! :D

That‘s interesting…but aren‘t you sacrificing a lot of efficiency mashing for only 20minutes?... So, up to 1.060 in 25 minutes, but the next 45 minutes brought another 15 gravity points, which is nothing to sneeze at, imho.
But, how is your crush, and your mash pH? With a fine crush and a mash pH of around 5.5-5.6, you could get nearly all of your gravity points in about 30-35 minutes. Not 20, but only a few more minutes. At least, that has been my experience. YMMV, as @mac_1103 also indicated.

But we digress! Hugely! :off: :off: :off:
 
But, how is your crush, and your mash pH?

I‘ve fiddled around with the crush quite a bit. I brew in a recirculating all-in-one system with malt pipe. My current standard practice is to mill about 20% of the grist at 0.9mm, then 60% at 1.1mm and the final 20% at 1.3mm (these are the possible settings on my MattMill Master, which here in Germany is one of the best mills to be had) and dough this in in the reverse order, so the coursest is more or less on the bottom, where the malt pipe drains, and the finest near the top. This seems to get me a good balance between mash efficiency (usually around 75%) and good recirc with no stuck sparges.

I monitor pH constantly (say 4-8measurements in a given mash) and adjust with acid. I know my water well enough (which has high residual alkalinity, making pH adjustment somewhat delicate) that I usually add about 80% of the planned acid to the strike water, measure 10 minutes after doughing-in and adjust if necessary, measure and repeat if necessary. I usually don‘t need to adjust again after the first adjustment. I currently target 5.3 mash pH (measured at 20°C).

With a fine crush and a mash pH of around 5.5-5.6, you could get nearly all of your gravity points in about 30-35 minutes.

I guess I could try a higher mash pH, but it sure seems like a lot of good breweries recommend something around 5.2-5.3.

Not 20, but only a few more minutes. At least, that has been my experience. YMMV, as @mac_1103 also indicated.

Well, yes then, MMVs, as already indicated.

But we digress! Hugely! :off: :off: :off:
Should I start a new thread?

Cheers DM,
 
WHC Old English has replaced Notty as my house yeast for English beers. 80% attenuation on the button every time and mild orange esters. Think WLP007 but 1/4 of the price. Will play nice in 14% wort too.
Never heard of it, but consider me intrigued as I’m a big fan of WLP007. Care to share more thoughts?
 
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