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

[Rockape66]

KingBrian, I know you have a lot more experience than I, but I'm also a British beer lover. I have a Northern English Brown that hit it on the nose. I used Palmer's Oak Butt Brown recipe, but replaced the 2-row with Fawcett Maris Otter and upped the Crystal by a half pound. Mashed @ 158, and used US-04. Fermented in my basement which has an ambient temp of about 63*F. Four weeks in primary and bottled. 5.25%ABV and it is absolutely lovely. Creamy and malty with well balanced bitterness. Almost more of a Cream Porter profile or a more robust Boddington's or Tetley's.

 

[jfr1111]

I've been interested in temp. and its effect on fermentation for the last few batches, so this thread has been enlightening (to say the least). I've been reading in other threads that the fermentation process can raise the temp by as much as 10 degrees over ambient. This has led me to wonder how people are measuring the temp of the brew? Or are we talking about controling ambient at 64-68-64-drest-coldcrash?

my current batches (octfest 2633 and scottish 1728) i have run at an ambient 58. but those are off the topic of english ESBs etc.

Always measure the temperature of the beer: ambiant doesn't mean much in terms of accuracy and repeatability.

 

[gbx]

Wow...i read the entire thread. Having cask bitter in the UK was what inspired me to brew. Some day I'll go back, until then I will home brew as no commercial brewery on this continent will ever put out a flavourful beer with less than 5% alc.

I bottle condition with 1968 and I've noticed it does keep fermenting. I don't think it has anything to do with infection or priming. I've been distracted by life and left batches in the carboy for a month and they always keep slowing bubbling. My thought is it finishes primary fermentation in the 70% range after a few days, flocs but keeps slowly fermenting the last few points. It will change the beers character and over carb so I put the bottles in the fridge after about 10 days of bottle conditioning. They seem to stay pretty good if keep cold. This is probably why kegged beer holds up better because you are keeping it cold. It is my favourite bottle conditioning yeast as it clears up really fast and forms bullet proof sediment.

 

[Dr. Francois]

Wow...i read the entire thread. Having cask bitter in the UK was what inspired me to brew. Some day I'll go back, until then I will home brew as no commercial brewery on this continent will ever put out a flavourful beer with less than 5% alc.

I bottle condition with 1968 and I've noticed it does keep fermenting. I don't think it has anything to do with infection or priming. I've been distracted by life and left batches in the carboy for a month and they always keep slowing bubbling. My thought is it finishes primary fermentation in the 70% range after a few days, flocs but keeps slowly fermenting the last few points. It will change the beers character and over carb so I put the bottles in the fridge after about 10 days of bottle conditioning. They seem to stay pretty good if keep cold. This is probably why kegged beer holds up better because you are keeping it cold. It is my favourite bottle conditioning yeast as it clears up really fast and forms bullet proof sediment.

I emailed the head brewer at Otter Brewery in Devon. He said that they expect renewed fermentation in the cask. It's a way to get mild carbonation without adding any priming ingredients. I imagine Otter treats bottled beers differently, much like Fuller's (removing most yeast).

Has anyone tried any of the Otter beers? I got a bottle of Otter Head at my local beer supplier. Great stuff!

 

[motobrewer]

I just brewed a ESB using 1469. 90% MO with 10% Simpsons Medium.

OG was 1.054, it's been over a week and only down to 1.018. Started at 64, shot up to 68 within 24 hours, only held there for about 12 hours or so until it gradually started to decline back to 64 over the course of another ~12 hours, been there since. Measuring beer temp.

A bit on the sweet side, will it continue to drop a few points in the next few days?

 

[rockfish42]

I just brewed a ESB using 1469. 90% MO with 10% Simpsons Medium.

OG was 1.054, it's been over a week and only down to 1.018. Started at 64, shot up to 68 within 24 hours, only held there for about 12 hours or so until it gradually started to decline back to 64 over the course of another ~12 hours, been there since. Measuring beer temp.

A bit on the sweet side, will it continue to drop a few points in the next few days?

You might have to rouse the yeast, for me it flocced like mad. Other reports have stated that it had a persistent krausen, did yours drop already?

 

[motobrewer]

mine dropped, yeah. it was a very vigorous ferment, blew off a ton. I have a 1L mug I use for a blowoff - there was at last a solid 1.5 inch cake. maybe closer to 2". It was intense. I poured off the liquid expecting the cake to slide out, nope. it wouldn't budge. It took my spray nozzle on my sink and 122F water, even then it didn't come out easily. Had to "drill" it out with the sprayer.

 

[motobrewer]

actually, i forgot i used this last year with an ESB, slightly different recipe (Brewday was 12/12/2010 at 1.050):


12/14/2010: Airlock had gone crazy 6 hours after pitching. Now, a bigger krauesn has formed, but airlock activity has slowed.

12/17/2010: Moved upstairs because temps in the basement were dropping to the high 50's [ed: this was before I had my ferm chamber and temp probes]. 7 brix, adjusted to 1.014. Decent bitterness, aroma was light.

12/21/2010: Krausen fell.

12/22/2010: 6.5 brix, or 1.011.


so, maybe i'll leave it a few more days.

 

[bierhaus15]

I still can't figure out 1469. It seems to have the propensity to either ferment strong and flocc like a champ or take forever to ferment out and stay cloudy. The only thing it does do regularly is throw a huge, beautiful krausen.

I've had some batches with this yeast get a weird, tart-apple-pear esters flavor to them while others are beautifully balanced and malty - with the same ferment temps/pitching/ect. The only thing I can figure is that this yeast likes lots of headspace and to be roused a few times. I can see why the pros ferment this one in open squares. Got to get me one of those!

 

[gbx]

I still can't figure out 1469. It seems to have the propensity to either ferment strong and flocc like a champ or take forever to ferment out and stay cloudy. The only thing it does do regularly is throw a huge, beautiful krausen.

I have a mild using 1469 sitting in a carboy that did virtually nothing in terms of krausen. I think I may have started it too cold (I pitched at 62F) it took a while to get going but when it started bubbling, it looked more like a rolling boil - thousands of bubbles and churning wort but only a thin wispy krausen that dissipated quickly. It finished really high too - it only went from 1.038 to 1.015 despite repeated rousing and warming to 72F. It tastes decent but a little too thick to be the session beer it was intended to be. I've had this happen once before with a 1968 - see the anonymous comment on your Fermentation Woes blog post. I emailed BN's brewstrong about this and had few followup emails with John Palmer and Jamil asking for addition details but no answers about why it happens. Hopefully they will discuss on the next Q&A show.

 

[badhabit]

I think I am as obsessed with German as it sounds like some on this thread are about British. I have only recently discovered how much I have to learn about British and this thread has been very helpful. I have a couple pretty basic questions.
1) If you only had one British Yeast to use for ALL British ales what would it be?
2) Are Wyeast 1968 and WLP002 basicly the same yeast strain?
3) What are your thoughts about Gambrinus ESB malt in general and in comparison to MO?
Thanks for any help!

 

[bierhaus15]

I have a mild using 1469 sitting in a carboy that did virtually nothing in terms of krausen. I think I may have started it too cold (I pitched at 62F) it took a while to get going but when it started bubbling, it looked more like a rolling boil - thousands of bubbles and churning wort but only a thin wispy krausen that dissipated quickly. It finished really high too - it only went from 1.038 to 1.015 despite repeated rousing and warming to 72F.

Luckily I haven't had a krausen-less fermentation with 1469. As you know, my latest batch of mild (1968) did not put up a krausen and I ended up dumping it. I suspect it has to do with a too cold of a growth phase or not enough oxygenation.

Aside, I did some looking around last night on the british and aussi homebrew forums concerning 1469 (they use this yeast a lot) and found a number of posts suggesting that this yeast likes a cooler fermentation than what we may assume for english yeast. Then I came across an old yorkshire brewing bit in google books about fermenting in yorkshire squares and how they pitch at 17C (62F) and raise to 18C (65F). I have a brown ale in the primary now going on two weeks with this yeast and it looks like it will be one of those well-behaved batches. Put up a huge krausen, 74% attenuation, and floccuated nicely. I used the swamp cooler for this batch and my probe registered a pretty constant 65-66F.

I think I am as obsessed with German as it sounds like some on this thread are about British. I have only recently discovered how much I have to learn about British and this thread has been very helpful. I have a couple pretty basic questions.
1) If you only had one British Yeast to use for ALL British ales what would it be?
2) Are Wyeast 1968 and WLP002 basicly the same yeast strain?
3) What are your thoughts about Gambrinus ESB malt in general and in comparison to MO?
Thanks for any help!

Ok, I'll bite.

1. Hard question. So many amazing strains out there. If I was running a production brewery and could only have one british strain, I'd be Thames Valley II (wy1882). It makes some really wonderfully balanced beers and pretty much has the best attributes of a lot of british yeast. But for my home brewery, I'd have to go with wy1318 London III. It makes very nice bitters but really, really shines in dark beers. Makes the best mild IMO.

2. Yep.

3. The gambrinus esb stuff is canadian 2-row kilned a bit longer. Its fine for your American and English-lite styles, as it does have some nice toasty flavor, but its not MO. It lacks the depth of flavor of the real stuff and another reason I don't use it is that it has smaller kernels and more husk material than a real MO.

 

[gbx]

3) What are your thoughts about Gambrinus ESB malt in general and in comparison to MO?

I've used ESB a lot as its whats available locally and cheap. If you're brewing a porter or something using a lot of specialty malts, you probably wouldn't notice a difference. You would notice in a bitter but the difference between fawcetts and bairds Maris Otter is also noticeable in a simple grist. I always seem to get a few points better efficiency in when using MO vs ESB, probably because the grain is bigger.

 

[badhabit]

Luckily I haven't had a krausen-less fermentation with 1469. As you know, my latest batch of mild (1968) did not put up a krausen and I ended up dumping it. I suspect it has to do with a too cold of a growth phase or not enough oxygenation.

Aside, I did some looking around last night on the british and aussi homebrew forums concerning 1469 (they use this yeast a lot) and found a number of posts suggesting that this yeast likes a cooler fermentation than what we may assume for english yeast. Then I came across an old yorkshire brewing bit in google books about fermenting in yorkshire squares and how they pitch at 17C (62F) and raise to 18C (65F). I have a brown ale in the primary now going on two weeks with this yeast and it looks like it will be one of those well-behaved batches. Put up a huge krausen, 74% attenuation, and floccuated nicely. I used the swamp cooler for this batch and my probe registered a pretty constant 65-66F.



Ok, I'll bite.

1. Hard question. So many amazing strains out there. If I was running a production brewery and could only have one british strain, I'd be Thames Valley II (wy1882). It makes some really wonderfully balanced beers and pretty much has the best attributes of a lot of british yeast. But for my home brewery, I'd have to go with wy1318 London III. It makes very nice bitters but really, really shines in dark beers. Makes the best mild IMO.

2. Yep.

3. The gambrinus esb stuff is canadian 2-row kilned a bit longer. Its fine for your American and English-lite styles, as it does have some nice toasty flavor, but its not MO. It lacks the depth of flavor of the real stuff and another reason I don't use it is that it has smaller kernels and more husk material than a real MO.

Thanks for the info. Now can you compare Whitbread to the Thames Valley and especially the London III. I have never used the London III and it looks interesting. I am ready to do a Bitter and a Porter and am wondering how it may work for those. Thanks again.

 

[motobrewer]

If I was running a production brewery and could only have one british strain, I'd be Thames Valley II (wy1882).

i'd agree with that, even though i've only used it once, lol.

looking at my notes, turns out my last beer with 1469 wasn't very good. this one isn't headed toward where i'd like it either. pretty sweet, kind of citrusy...yeah i donno, we'll have to see.

 

[bierhaus15]

can you compare Whitbread to the Thames Valley and especially the London III. I have never used the London III and it looks interesting. I am ready to do a Bitter and a Porter and am wondering how it may work for those.

Here is my take on them.

Whitbread (1098 & 99, s-04, wl007) produce dry, balanced beers with some esters and tartness. If you want a more characterful s-05 type of yeast, with better flocculation, this is a good choice. I find it 'ok' in IPA's and more malt neutral styles, though to my tastes it borders on boring for anything else. Also, when fermented warm (68F+) it can get throw off some really nasty esters (think greek yogurt). I mostly don't like how tart this yeast is.

Thames Valley (1275, wlp023), is quite different than Whitbread. It can give some of those nice, rich malt esters like you'd get in wy1968 but it also tends to have a mineral character. Esters are low and it makes mildly clean beers. However, as the flocculation is med-low, it can take a while for the yeast to drop. Also, when young, this yeast can give the beer a "pond water" quality as the beer looks and tastes like muddy, minerally water. I'm not crazy about this yeast in bitters or IPA, but it makes some nice porters and milds.

London III. Moving more towards the malty, fruity end of the spectrum, this yeast has everything I like in an English strain. First, it has a really nice malt character that goes great with toasty british malts and isn't so strong that it overpowers the other flavors of the beer. It also does well with high hopping. Secondly, this strain is one of the best top croppers and also has the benefit of being a great flocculator. You can go two weeks grain to glass (or less) with this yeast and have beautifully clear, flavorful beer. The esters on this one are mildly fruity and it doesn't throw bad esters at low or high temps. It also doesn't produce much, if any diacetyl. Lastly, I think this yeast really shines with how balanced it is. You get good malt flavor, esters, flocculation, attenuation, and it doesn't require lots of time before you can drink it. What more could you want in a yeast? Oh, but it also gives the finished beer a slightly 'sweet' flavor - almost like a very mild rock candy - without being under attenuated. This sweetness does a few things... balances out really hoppy, bitter beers and gives those really dark and malty styles a an extra bit of complexity. Best yeast for milds. Period. Makes one hell of a brown porter too.

Ok, I'll shut up now. I'm sure ya'll are tired of me blabbering on and on about british yeast and fermentation.

 

[lud]

Bierhaus15 what's your take on 1968?
Thanks

 

[KingBrianI]

Bierhaus15 what's your take on 1968?
Thanks

Have you read the second post of this thread?

 

[lud]

That's the prob with 47 pages of blog... thanks though!

 

[poley]

@bierhaus15, your description of London III is spot on. It's the yeast my local uses, and I have the great fortune of getting freshly cropped yeast from him on a regular basis. When I first started using it, I had only used s04 & s05, but after using London III for 2+ years now, I always miss it when I try something else. A fantastic yeast, very diverse with the styles you can make with it, and also a very good worker. I've done grain to glass bitters in 6 days with this yeast and it's great. Super clean flocculator. Cheers man.

 

[gbx]

@bierhaus15, your description of London III is spot on. It's the yeast my local uses, and I have the great fortune of getting freshly cropped yeast from him on a regular basis. When I first started using it, I had only used s04 & s05, but after using London III for 2+ years now, I always miss it when I try something else. A fantastic yeast, very diverse with the styles you can make with it, and also a very good worker. I've done grain to glass bitters in 6 days with this yeast and it's great. Super clean flocculator. Cheers man.

Thats the way I feel about 1968. I had only used nottingham prior to making the jump to all grain and liquid yeast on the same batch. I tried the 1318 on a batch but it keep floc'ing out and required repeated rousing. 1968 has worked well in my setup and repitched well at my sporadic brewing schedule. And on the subject of sporadic brewing schedule, I'd love to be able to use a dry yeast again. I bought several packs of nottingham when the price was about to go up and have used them for 2nd runnings and split batches when the top crop of 1968 from the previous batch was getting a little old and I wasn't confident in its viability. I've always liked it when it was done alone but compared to even a 2 month old repitch of 1968 in a split batch, the nottingham seemed lifeless with minimal malt flavour. Has anyone had any success with nottingham or windsor (the 2 dry yeasts available at the LHBS)? Maybe increasing the crystal malts or ferment temp? I have a bags of grain, a freezer full of hops and a tap full of water...but I still have to go to the store for yeast. It would be great to have a decent dry alternative that i could store in the fridge.

And as this is more the "ask beirhaus about british brewing" thread than a strict "british yeast" thread...what are your thoughts on brown malts? The LHBS has Baird's brown. How does this compare to other brown malts from Fawcetts or Simpsons?

 

[Dr. Francois]

Yeasts I don't like: wy1098, 1099, 1275, 1026, 1028, on the fence about 1469 (too fruity, but love the malt profile) and 1335. Still want to try thames valley II.

BierHaus et. al.

What are brewers' general reactions to WY1098 and WLP007?

I know many in the American ale crowd like them for their slightly-more-malt-forward profile compared to 1056/001. I think the 1098/007 strain is similar to what Bell's uses. How do they fare in a bitter?

 

[rockfish42]

WY1098 and WLP007 attenuate a bit too much for me and they also have an issue of a certain tartness if fermented too warm. I like either of them well enough in Stone Brewing clone recipes but I wouldn't recommend them for a bitter.

 

[poley]

I'd recommend a more flavorful yeast (such as london ale III) for a bitter. The gravity's low, and you count on the yeast for a good part of the beer's character.

 

[llamabox]

Hello yeast lovers,

I am among a number of homebrewers who post videos on youtube. Many of us have started posting weekly homebrew updates. The homebrewers who participate tag their videos with "homebrew wednesday" so it can be searched for. As well as whatever topic the week's update is about. As you can see here homebrew wednesday - YouTube it is a fairly new thing that has just started the last couple months.

We have one member who likes to come up with experiments we can all do. In the fall they did a single hop IPA in which all the participants used the same grain bill but different hop strains and exchanged bottles. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlvffIOfbtM]YouTube Brewing Experiment - Hops JOIN IN! - YouTube[/ame]
The tastings were then also posted on youtube as well as many members posted their brew day. hokie IPA - YouTube
We have just finished getting our next 16 participants for an English yeast experiment where we all brew the same recipe but with different strains of English yeast. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXb5EX_r2FI]Yeast Experiment 2012 Final Instructions and Kick Off Party! Homebrew Wednesday! - YouTube[/ame]

 

[jonmohno]

Im pretty happy with wlp005 so far,I dont know if its because its my first liquid yeast or what but it beat 04 as it is nothing like that.Im not a big fan of a certain english taste,but this british yeast is pretty nice.

 

[bh10]

London III. Moving more towards the malty, fruity end of the spectrum, this yeast has everything I like in an English strain. First, it has a really nice malt character that goes great with toasty british malts and isn't so strong that it overpowers the other flavors of the beer. It also does well with high hopping. Secondly, this strain is one of the best top croppers and also has the benefit of being a great flocculator. You can go two weeks grain to glass (or less) with this yeast and have beautifully clear, flavorful beer. The esters on this one are mildly fruity and it doesn't throw bad esters at low or high temps. It also doesn't produce much, if any diacetyl. Lastly, I think this yeast really shines with how balanced it is. You get good malt flavor, esters, flocculation, attenuation, and it doesn't require lots of time before you can drink it. What more could you want in a yeast? Oh, but it also gives the finished beer a slightly 'sweet' flavor - almost like a very mild rock candy - without being under attenuated. This sweetness does a few things... balances out really hoppy, bitter beers and gives those really dark and malty styles a an extra bit of complexity. Best yeast for milds. Period. Makes one hell of a brown porter too.

I agree with 1318, great yeast and what I love about it is like you said, it lets grains like MO shine while staying balanced. Only issue Ive ever had with it, is every once in a while it wont drop out and the krausen stays a while, sometimes Ill have to cold crash it to get it to drop. But this has only happened twice, both on my house beer a British Bitter. One other thing I noticed is depending on where you ferment, you can get an extremely fruity beer, not saying its a bad thing, but you'll definitely get some esters.

As for 1968, we've found its a mutater, it conforms to your brewery very quicky and changes (which isnt to uncommon), but it really will change. At our brewery 1968 is our house strain and after using it a couple time it'll turn into a very clean strain like us-05, itll attenuate quite a bit more also, but the one good thing is it'll still drop out very quick, granted Im not sure how this translates to 6 gal better boys, but using 200 and 400 bbl conicals, change is rapid.

 

[AnchorBock]

Awesome thread - doing the fullers ESB/LP partigyle this weekend and was already planning on following their fermentation temperature regimen. Probably a stupid question, but when they say to drop down to 17c at half gravity, I assume that they mean half of your expected OG to FG (for instance, 1.060 beer you expect to finish at 1.010 - you'd drop to 17c at 1.035). Quarter gravity when you drop to 6c would be about 1.023 with that example?

In any case, it seems like the consensus in this thread is to leave it at 17c (63-64F) for a couple of days after reaching terminal gravity to allow for any diacetyl/off flavors to be cleaned up prior to crash cooling - is that about right? That way you still preserve the bulk of that unique character that seems to fade the longer the beer is on the yeast at fermentation temperatures while ensuring there is not too much diacetyl.

In the interview the head brewer at Fullers said they warm mature at 50F after crash cooling - seems like that might be where their diacetyl is being cleaned up, but just a guess.

 

[yjfun]

I've been having trouble with 1968 lately. The recipe is an ESB with 1.060 sg. I pitched it at 7 pm at 66 deg. and by 7 the next morning temp was up to 70 and it blew the top of the airlock right off. I dropped temp down to 68 and let it hold for 10 days before checking gravity and it still read 1.030. What the heck is wrong with this yeast? I would have thought it'd be near final gravity by now. I gave the carboy a good shaking and raised the temp to 74 and after 24 hours I started to see some slow airlock action.

Is this a common issue with 1968? Does it really need a good rousing every couple days during primary?

 

[poley]

What was your recipe/mash temp, and have you calibrated your brewing thermometer recently?