British Yeasts, Fermentation Temps and Profiles, CYBI, Other Thoughts...

[bierhaus15]

Brewed a small 2.5 gallon batch of best bitter (90% MO, 5% c150L, 5% amber malt) this morning that I split into two fermenters. Pitched some washed wy1187 into both, one will be fermented at a constant 68F for two weeks before bottling with no D rest or crash cool and the other will be fermented at 68F for two weeks with D rest before crash cooling and bottling. I'm interested to see how much an impact crash cooling has on the flavor versus letting it ride at room temp. We'll see...

 

[KingBrianI]

Brewed a small 2.5 gallon batch of best bitter (90% MO, 5% c150L, 5% amber malt) this morning that I split into two fermenters. Pitched some washed wy1187 into both, one will be fermented at a constant 68F for two weeks before bottling with no D rest or crash cool and the other will be fermented at 68F for two weeks with D rest before crash cooling and bottling. I'm interested to see how much an impact crash cooling has on the flavor versus letting it ride at room temp. We'll see...

Will you be letting the one you will crash cool stay at 68 for two weeks, then d-rest and crash cool, or will the ferment, d-rest and crash cool all be completed in the two weeks? The reason I ask is that if both beers are at 68 for the full two weeks, I don't expect the crash cool to make much of a difference. If the crash cool happens as soon as final gravity is reached though, I think the difference would be much larger. It will be interesting to hear your results!

 

[bierhaus15]

If the crash cool happens as soon as final gravity is reached though, I think the difference would be much larger. It will be interesting to hear your results!

Yeah, I think you are right about crash cooling right after gravity is reached. I pitched the yeast yesterday and both are fermenting pretty steadily at 67F now. I'll let one ferment at that temp for two weeks with a d-rest before cooling (as I normally do) and the other I'll do as you suggest and ferment it until it reaches terminal gravity and then crash cool immediately. I'll keep everyone posted.

 

[KingBrianI]

Sounds good bierhaus. I think the results of your experiment should really help to shed light on the fermentation questions I have.

I'm boiling my batch of bitter right now and I've already had a good omen. The weather outside today is just like what most days were like in England when I was there! Mid-upper 40s, gray sky and a dampness to the air. Call me crazy, but I actually enjoy this kind of weather. Anyway I hope it tricks the beer to thinking it was brewed in the UK! I'll know in about 3 weeks whether it worked.

 

[KingBrianI]

I believe this has been discussed before, but since I LOVE talking about English yeast, here I go... sorry long post!

Since you love talking about English yeast, I figured I'd shake you down for some more info! You said this has been discussed before, do you have any links to those threads?

- wy1968. I really like this one. Lots of esters and clean maltiness and very British character when fermented properly. I get GOOD attenuation (70-80%) and am not afraid to rouse the yeast if necessary. I pitch at 65F and raise to 68F for one week before a D-rest at 70ish and then crash cool at week two before kegging. I DO NOT bottle with this yeast and only force carb. Something about adding sugar to the beer seems to throw off the malt profile and gives funky esters. This one does well with dry hopping. Does 'ok' in closed fermenation, though much more complex with open ferment. Best within 3 months.

I'm fermenting the test batch I just made "semi-open". I have just lightly set the lid on the bucket without snapping it down. Can you go into a little more detail on what complexities the open fermentation gives with 1968? Is it an ester complexity, a malt complexity or both? I really should have made a 10 gallon batch and split the wort into two buckets and fermented one "open" and one closed. Oh well. My fermentation freezer isn't really big enough to fit two buckets anyway.

 

[Bottenbrew]

I am tracking this along with you guys, I brewed 8 gallons of my ESB yesterday and split it into two batches with the Wyeast West Yorkshire Ale. I am going to let one ferment out in my 67 degree closet, and I am going to crash cool the other once it hits the FG.

 

[KingBrianI]

I am tracking this along with you guys, I brewed 8 gallons of my ESB yesterday and split it into two batches with the Wyeast West Yorkshire Ale. I am going to let one ferment out in my 67 degree closet, and I am going to crash cool the other once it hits the FG.

Awesome! Definitely report back with results. The cool thing about homebrewing is that it is still a young enough activity (at least the kind we're doing) that we can still explore "new" techniques and question existing convention. Pioneering these new ideas is not only exciting, but will help expand the knowledge available to homebrewers and allow us to more precisely attain the results we desire.

 

[bierhaus15]

Since you love talking about English yeast, I figured I'd shake you down for some more info! You said this has been discussed before, do you have any links to those threads?

Yeah I was pretty certain this topic came up before, but of course I can't find it now that I look for it! Though in all honesty, it may have been a discussion I read on another homebrewing forum or maybe even probrewer. It's pretty hard to find good info on English yeasts so I do look around on other sources pretty frequently. I probably should just email a bunch of English breweries and try to get them to talk yeast with me.

I'm fermenting the test batch I just made "semi-open". I have just lightly set the lid on the bucket without snapping it down. Can you go into a little more detail on what complexities the open fermentation gives with 1968? Is it an ester complexity, a malt complexity or both?

Sure thing. In my experience, open fermentation doesn't really make for a more 'complex' beer per se, as it doesn't add any new flavors to the beer, but rather takes those malt, yeast, and ester profiles produced during fermentation and bumps them up a bit in the finished product. It's sorta like turning up the volume, it's the same music but louder. In that sense, I guess you could say it increases the malt and ester complexity, though not in a way that would make the beer taste unbalanced or muddled tasting. We are not looking for an estery beer. I have had the best results with open fermentation using wy1968 and 1187 and the worst with 1275 (way to estery and minerally).

When I say I open ferment, I am basically fermenting in a bucket with lots of head space and leaving the lid on very gently for the first 5-7 days of primary fermentaiton. Once high krausen has been reached and starts to fall (or after I top crop), I'll snap the lid on tight let it ride until I'm ready to crash cool and keg. I should mention that I don't always ferment like this - it depends on what style I am brewing and what type of character I want in the finished product. For instance, if I want a lot of hop character in a beer, I'll ferment it normally. Lastly, I got on this open fermentation kick after visiting a few of my local Ringwood breweries and talking to the head brewers about their fermentation process. In both instances, they said they get a better flavor profile from the open ferment than a closed. Regardless, I have been pretty happy with my results.

Edit: I'll email a few English breweries tonight and see if I can get any info on the best ways to ferment their yeasts. I'm thinking Fullers, Youngs, and Timothy Taylor. Hopefully I'll get something back.

 

[KingBrianI]

Cool, sounds like I'll enjoy what the open ferment will do to my beer.

Edit: I'll email a few English breweries tonight and see if I can get any info on the best ways to ferment their yeasts. I'm thinking Fullers, Youngs, and Timothy Taylor. Hopefully I'll get something back.

Fullers and Youngs might respond but I've heard Timothy Taylor is very close-lipped. I think it's a good idea to contact the breweries making the beer we are trying to emulate though. They are the ones who are obviously doing something right (and different from other countries' breweries too, I suspect). It's funny, because I can perfectly imitate american, german and belgian beers, but british beers have been a bit more elusive.

 

[bierhaus15]

I think it's a good idea to contact the breweries making the beer we are trying to emulate though. They are the ones who are obviously doing something right (and different from other countries' breweries too, I suspect).

Yeah. Fullers and Young's (1968 & 1318) are both strains I use a lot. Though I have always been curious about Timothy Taylor's strain (supposedly 1469) as I have not had the best of luck with it - though I love its malt profile. I had heard they were pretty tight lipped too. I might be better off sending an email to Black Sheep as they have the same yeast and the head brewer worked at Tim Taylor. There are a few Ringwood breweries around me and I know one of the brewers, so getting their advice is easy.

Anyways I'll email them sometime tomorrow probably. Got lots of food to make for the superbowl party...

 

[GuldTuborg]

Is 1318 the Young's strain? I had always understood it was Boddington's. Or, do they use the same yeast?

 

[bierhaus15]

Is 1318 the Young's strain? I had always understood it was Boddington's. Or, do they use the same yeast?

No my bad, it's Boddington's. I always get 1318 and 1768 mixed up. Both great yeasts, haven't used Young's in a while, though 1318 has become a favorite as of late for bitters and milds.

 

[Saccharomyces]

One thing bothers me, though. If real English beer goes into a cask without being filtered, and if there are still unfermented sugars in there (not to mention priming sugar), and yeast which are asleep due to crashing--woudn't the yeast just wake up at some point and ferment the thing to thier limit? Is it the 55-degree cellar temp that allows priming without "cleaning up?" That makes ale a pretty parishable product, doesn't it?

They add a fining agent when priming in the cask, usually isinglass. That causes a quicker and more compact sediment to form in the cask. (Pale Ale, from the BA Classic Beer Style series, covers this topic)

 

[jmo88]

Not sure if this helps anyone or not, but I used 1187 a few times using both open fermentation and closed and slightly different fermentation temp regimens. My goal with the yeast was to emulate the ester profile of some beers from Portland Maine. If you haven't had some of the Ringwood, Sea Dog, or other pale type ales from this city, you should definitely seek them out. Though I wouldn't consider them to be similar to Fuller's or Young's, the unique ester profile is over the top.

I tried to research as much as possible about how to achieve this, but I ended up finding it sort of hopeless. In an interview on Sunday Session, Pugsley was asked about his Ringwood yeast and he claimed that homebrewers do not have access to it, despite the title of 1187 and the supposed derivation of WLP005. If I recall correctly, Pugsley's beers have been repitched thousands of times without using a fresh culture. So the way I understand it is that if 1187 was the original strain used in these beers, it has mutated so far from its original characteristics that it isn't even close to the same yeast.

I understand that it's not everyone's goal to get that profile from Ringwood. But, it is something to think about when trying to reproduce certain fermentation profiles from commercial beers. I don't think this is the case with Fuller's, but it may be for Tim Taylor or Sam Smith, for instance.

 

[GuldTuborg]

Here's another wrinkle I think is well on topic. Perhaps you guys can help me wrestle through it a bit, as this is a new angle for me, anyway. I was reading Stan Hieronymus's "Brewing with Wheat" today when I encountered this quote below, from Schönram's Eric Toft. To put it in context, he was talking about some of the challenges in brewing his Festweisse, in particular determining the flavor and color.

"I wanted the cloviness, esteriness to start...I would like to have more on the estery side. That's hard with the Vienna; the higher solubles cut down on the esters. But I want honest color"

So darker colored malts bring more solubles (hence the darker colors of the wort), but those solubles alter, and apparently suppress, the production or the presence (in terms of taste) of esters. That seems to be what he's claiming. Is there any reason why this phenomenon would be limited to weisbeir brewing? If not, would it be equally applicable to brewing an English bitter, for example? If so, does the choice of grainbill not only influence the malt character, but the ester character of the beer? This is totally new ground for me. Can anyone chime in with more information?

 

[rockfish42]

The higher kilning destroys the enzyme that liberates ferulic acid which is the precursor to 4-vinyl guiaiacol the clove ester he was looking to increase.

 

[GuldTuborg]

4-vinyl guiaiacol the clove ester

I thought that was a phenol, not an ester. Perhaps he misspoke, but he seems to think the malts affect the ester production, not phenol. Or, maybe I'm just still confused.

 

[KingBrianI]

Here's the progress of my test batch so far.

Pitched Saturday afternoon @ 63*
Allowed temp to free-rise
Beer hit 68* Sunday night - beer was SG ~1.034
Held at 68*
This morning (Monday) beer was SG ~1.020
Set fermentation freezer to 66*
Will set freezer to 64* this afternoon when I get home from work. I'm a little nervous about dropping the temp since this yeast doesn't need much persuasion to drop out. Hopefully it's got enough momentum that dropping it slowly to 64 doesn't stall it. I'm also a bit worried that there is going to be too much diacetyl in the beer and I won't be able to drop to 44 when FG is hit. I may have to do a short d-rest which will screw with the fermentation profile Fullers does. Oh well, I can cross that bridge when and if I get there.

 

[14thstreet]

KingBrianI, if it's a test batch, don't worry and don't deviate from your initial plan. Otherwise you may not learn something because it will be similar to what you've done before!

Someone mentioned oxidation and that touched my memory of the Fullers rebrew show on The Brewing Network. They mentioned that a fresh bottle was actually hoppier than the bottles we get over here. That would suggest this "malt flavor" is subdued, more balanced or even not present in the fresh product. That said, they also mentioned a noticeable difference in bottles that had been pasteurized or not. Apparently this process enhances oxidation products which could enhance some of the flavors one may be after.
Check out: http://www.professorbeer.com/articles/oxidative_staling_beer.html

 

[bierhaus15]

Someone mentioned oxidation and that touched my memory of the Fullers rebrew show on The Brewing Network. They mentioned that a fresh bottle was actually hoppier than the bottles we get over here. That would suggest this "malt flavor" is subdued, more balanced or even not present in the fresh product.

I've had Fullers ESB on cask a couple times now in England and while it is very hoppy when fresh (they dry hop it), more so than most people realize, the balance of flavors is still towards the malt. You don't get that oxidized-caramely taste like you do in the bottles we get over here, but the yeast and malt character is still pretty vibrant and well balanced. I don't think anyone here is looking to produce those oxidized, caramel flavors in their beer.

 

[KingBrianI]

Hopefully too much diacetyl doesn't even become an issue. I'm going to taste the gravity sample this afternoon and if it's not buttery then I think since it's almost completely attenuated I'll be in the clear. I'd just hate to have 5 gallons of undrinkable beer.

I don't think it is oxidation or pasteurization alone causing the malt flavors I'm looking for. I've tasted those flavors in fresh casked and bottle conditioned beers too. That's not to say it doesn't have some kind of symbiotic role, but it isn't the lone factor.

 

[14thstreet]

Thank you for the clarification. Sometimes with a broad yet rather narrow spectrum of flavors and thresholds, methods, ingredients, etc it all gets confusing. I can't say I've had the real McCoy but possibly the same malty characters I've experienced have either been missing or dissipate real early in the process, open ferment or not. I'm definitely interested in what you guys are trying to sort out.

 

[poley]

Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread, it's great reading!

I recently started doing english style, low-gravity beers, and while I've never had a true English example, I've done two batches using London Ale III (1368), and was very happy with the profile I got from that yeast in both an Ordinary Bitter and a Dark Mild. They were both fermented in plastic carboys with the screw-on lids left loose. They were fermented at ambient temps, which fluctuated from 65-72F.

 

[coypoo]

When you are talking about open fermentation is the space below the lid and the top of the krausen important? It sounds like you need a good amount of space there, so would it be better to ferment a 4 gal batch in a 6 gal bucket instead of 5 gallons in the same bucket?

 

[KingBrianI]

When you are talking about open fermentation is the space below the lid and the top of the krausen important? It sounds like you need a good amount of space there, so would it be better to ferment a 4 gal batch in a 6 gal bucket instead of 5 gallons in the same bucket?

I'm only just doing my first "open" fermentation but I think that as long as you have enough space that the krausen doesn't start overflowing you're fine. I think it is the (lack of) top pressure (and maybe a tiny bit of air exchange?) that is important.

 

[jmo88]

When you are talking about open fermentation is the space below the lid and the top of the krausen important? It sounds like you need a good amount of space there, so would it be better to ferment a 4 gal batch in a 6 gal bucket instead of 5 gallons in the same bucket?

The whole idea of open fermentation, from a homebrewer's standpoint is a mystery to me. I didn't notice any difference from my batches using the 'rest the lid on the top' method. But I am certainly not willing to write off the practice just yet. Also, does it really relieve that much pressure by doing this? How hard is it really for the co2 to be pushed through a standard airlock anyway? I've read that it's the lack of pressure that benefits the yeasts, but if it does benefit the fermentation to some degree, could diffusion also play a part here?

 

[poley]

I imagine it's the diffusion that helps, as the yeast probably likes the little bit of extra O2 that gets in, but that's just pure conjecture on my part.

As a note of comparison, in Stan hieronymus' Brewing with Wheat, many brewers that he interviews indicate the same thing about bavarian yeast getting O2 during fermentation, and how it's key to the yeast character in the beer.

 

[rockfish42]

I thought that was a phenol, not an ester. Perhaps he misspoke, but he seems to think the malts affect the ester production, not phenol. Or, maybe I'm just still confused.

Err, whoops
It is a phenol, I'd imagine depending on the ester the precursors might be destroyed by higher kilning.

 

[KingBrianI]

Just took a gravity reading and turned the temp down from 66 to 64. Gravity is at 1.016, so nearly there. The foaminess of the krausen had fallen but there are still chunks of yeast on the surface and the top of the beer is fizzing like a soda so I think the fermentation will finish out despite cooling the temperature. Tons of yeast still in suspension too, the sample was very cloudy.

Taste was very good for a beer this young. There was some diacetyl but not to "buttery" levels. It is pretty high though and could definitely stand to be reduced slightly. Hopefully the yeast will take it down slightly while finishing up the fermentation. Not too much though, since it's adding a nice butterscotch flavor and I think richening the mouthfeel. Esters are nice but subdued, I think because it took it so long to get up to 68*. I just need it to drop 5-6 pts now and I'll chill it down to 44 to hopefully "lock in" the flavors.

 

[bierhaus15]

The whole idea of open fermentation, from a homebrewer's standpoint is a mystery to me. I didn't notice any difference from my batches using the 'rest the lid on the top' method. But I am certainly not willing to write off the practice just yet. Also, does it really relieve that much pressure by doing this? How hard is it really for the co2 to be pushed through a standard airlock anyway? I've read that it's the lack of pressure that benefits the yeasts, but if it does benefit the fermentation to some degree, could diffusion also play a part here?

Put very simply: Top pressure is not really an issue with our homebrew setups, 5 gallons of fermenting beer is not going to create enough pressure to slow ester production significantly. Ferment temps, aeration, and pitch rate is way more important. Also, the amount of pressure it takes to push c02 out of an airlock is so small it's really a non-issue. Top pressure is important with large scale brewing since dissolved co2 inhibits, or slows the development of esters and yeast character - think lagers. Open fermentation allows for a greater surface area and more effiecient c02 dispersal in those styles where esters are wanted (thus English, Belgian, German wheat yeasts). Fermenter geometry for 5 gallons isn't going to make a huge difference either.

Homebrewers get benefits from open fermenting with some increased ester production (why and how I don't know - maybe oxygen diffusion?) and the ability to closely control fermentation development. Yeast rousing, top cropping, and easy removal of dead yeast/hop debris before high krausen all lends to a fuller, cleaner, and tastier beer.