Any experience with Jolly Pumpkin yeast?

[crawfman]

Hi guys,

I brewed a basic saison recipe with just 2-row and malted wheat around 4 weeks ago. I used solely Jolly Pumpkin yeast for fermentation. I grew this yeast up for around a month. At two weeks my gravity was 1.002 and almost 3 weeks after that it's now 1.000. It's been in a ale pail dedicated to sour/Brett now the entire time. It has some "snott" bubble pellicle starting to form and has a slight sulphur aroma. The taste is slight sulphur and clean. Should I be good to bottle at this point? If so, do I need to reduce the priming sugar amount used for any reason?

P.S. I've used the JP yeast before in mixed cultures and also got the sulphur notes. It goes away after being in the bottle. Any ideas why?

Thanks!

 

[jtejedor]

Man that chewed through the beer or quick. At that gravity I suppose there isn't much else for the bugs to chew on so I guess no fear of bottle bombs.

 

[spenghali]

What JP beer dregs did you use?

 

[crawfman]

Used a bottle of La Roja.

 

[sweetcell]

at 1.000 you'rprobably safe to bottle, but i'd keep carbonation on the low side just to be safe. so yes, go easy on the priming sugar.

however, if you have a pellicle forming on the surface of the beer it means that there is still activity going on in there. i'd let it sit in the bucket a while longer until the bugs finish doing what it is that they are going to do. if you bottle the beer now, the pellicle may reform inside the bottle. it's not very pretty (but perfectly harmless).

 

[crawfman]

I went ahead and bottled. I used 4 oz. of priming sugar. The big snot pellicle bubbles had dissipated. I'll let you know soon if it was a good choice.

 

[suprchunk]

I've never had a pellicle form from JP dregs. I've only brewed with them three times so far though. Mostly a regular fermentation, albeit a bit quicker. I just let it sit for a while then throw some oak in. I've only done it with Madrugada Obscura dregs in a Madrugada clone (all three times) and the taste has been spot on. Very good dregs. I'm going to start up again and see how long I can take repitches until it mutates too much, or one of the bacteria overpowers everything else.

 

[crawfman]

Do you only use the JP dregs? What final gravities do you regularly get? Any sulphur notes when its young?

 

[suprchunk]

Do you only use the JP dregs? What final gravities do you regularly get? Any sulphur notes when its young?

For those clones, yes. I only used JP dregs from MO. Gravities, from checking my notes in BeerSmith (don't have my notebook with me, it's packed along with the rest of my household) seems to finish around 1.009 - maybe a bit lower. These beers all started at around 1.075 though. I'm sure your saison started a bit lower - hopefully. And I have never had any sulphur notes. I fermented in my basement in Germany at the time though, and it was a steady 65ish during the summer when I brewed these. Not sure what temps you fermented at. I also had some caramel, roasted barley, black patent, and Munich in there. You probably had a better source of completely fermenatable fermentables.

I also don't check my beers daily. I have way too much to drink to worry about when a beer will be done. So there could have been some sulphur in the first few days. When did you notice it?

Also, I find the longer you let these sit in the bottle, the creamier the carbonation gets. I'll send you a bottle, or two, once my stuff gets here if you want to compare.

 

[crawfman]

I noticed the sulphur a few weeks after fermentation had ceased but when I checked it a second time a couple weeks later it had went away. I splash racked at bottling time just to make sure it was mostly all out. I'd be interested in trading a couple bottles for sure. Stay in touch.