Danstar London ESB Dry Ale Yeast - Anyone use it yet?

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Just updating my experience with this yeast.

The apple aroma and taste went away about 5 days after bottling, I think the yeast itself tasted bit appleyish. I was bit worried how this beer would end up since the recipe was quite basic and this is quite a clean yeast, but I think it worked quite well. Now two weeks after bottling the beer tastes quite hoppy and refreshing, although it was hopped mildly (hop schedule was from Jamil's best bitter with fuggles instead of EKG). It was good idea to carbonate to only 1 vol, judging on carbonation the yeast did munch those two surplus gravity points in the bottles.
 
Good to hear rkzi

i kegged my ESB, and it smelled and tasted really good. so this yeast makes decent, although a little sweet, esb.

Then I pitched a no crystal single malt Dipa on the cake. mashed in at 149, it was in active fermentation in 4 hours, (only judging by airlock activity, which I know, and preach is not an indication of fermentation). but 7-8 bubbles a second...... it was going.
 
Yea i really liked the short lag phase and fast fermentation, but then again i disliked the fact that it had not fully attenuated before bottling. I was comparing the rehydration instructions of Fermentis and Danstar, and noticed that the latter recommends higher temperature (30-35 vs 25-29 C). I wondered if this could be the reason for the faster start with this yeast (haven't used other Danstar products so don't know if they all start this fast). In my latest batch i tried to rehydrate S-04 at Danstar temp range but still it took at least 24 h for the airlock to start showing positive pressure (1 pack to 5 gal 1.060 wort).
 
rkzi, in case you missed it, I pitched right on the full yeast cake. so I have a 5 gallon starter.

with the esb it was going as normal in 24 hours.

This fermentation started monday at 8, and was done by 6pm the following day. I am going to dry hop it Sunday, late, and bottle this batch Sat morning. (I am dry hopping with 1.5 oz Citra, 1.5 oz Amarillo, 2.5 oz Galaxy, .5 oz Apollo total= 6 oz)

I have used two track Dakota M3 malt before, but usually in addition to, this one was 100% Dakota, 16 lbs, and it's decribed as having "Subtle reminders of honey, almonds and hazelnuts" which I could taste when 4 lbs was added to 9 lbs of 2 row, so am hoping those flavors come through.

Next round if this is good will have a 1/2 to 1 lbs addition of honey malt on top to bring that forward...
 
Sounds nice kristiismean!

Mix of vienna and munich sounds like a good option. In my case the vienna might have needed something else on it's side since the hop amounts were not that big and this is quite a clean tasting yeast, but it was a smash after all. The beer is also not sweet at all, but instead refreshing and crisp.

Now that I think of it, I could have used this yeast also on a batch of american brown with El Dorado and Waimea hops that I'm probably bottling this weekend. I ended up using S-04 since I wanted it to have nice maltiness and good mouthfeel in addition to the big hop taste. I haven't made hoppy American styles with S-04 before but I think that others have done it with success.

And regarding the lag time, maybe I had a very fresh packet or something since it seemed to start so fast. I'll see when I use it again, I was thinking that this kind of recipe would be a good way to test different British hops. I would also like to brew a batch with Windsor just for comparison, since it seems to be quite similar in terms of attenuation and flocculation.
 
I used it on a test batch (1.5 gallons) of English golden ale. The weather was bad the day I made it and I tried boiling on the stove and couldn't get a good boil going, so my OG was low. I was shooting for a 4.5% beer and came out after fermentation to 3.92%. Mash bill was 50% marris otter, 50% pilsner and I think maybe an ounce or two of unmalted wheat by accident. That being said, I really like the finished beer. It has a good crackery/biscuity English quality, but still light and refreshing. It's been in my mini keg for a few weeks now and honestly, it's pretty clear. I'll try to put some pics up later. I'm going to try a 5 gallon batch, but so far this is my favorite English yeast.
 
Well, bottled it. It's golden, but only dropped down to 1.020.. oh well, it'll be good. Has great flavor.
 
I'll gladly try this yeast again on Milds or Ordinary Bitters where I want more residual sugars, but I doubt I'd ever use it on an ESB or anything with a higher gravity.

I really regret using this on a Wee Heavy, I ended up pitching White Labs 099 Super High Gravity Yeast because I read that it will finish lower in a hostile environment (hoping for the best). The original Danstar ESB yeast barely achieved 50% attenuation.
 
davidst said:
I'll gladly try this yeast again on Milds or Ordinary Bitters where I want more residual sugars, but I doubt I'd ever use it on an ESB or anything with a higher gravity.

I really regret using this on a Wee Heavy, I ended up pitching White Labs 099 Super High Gravity Yeast because I read that it will finish lower in a hostile environment (hoping for the best). The original Danstar ESB yeast barely achieved 50% attenuation.
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Just out of curiosity, what was the OG, mash temp and percentage of crystal in the grain bill? I hope that wlp099 works for you but like london esb it is rumored to not be able to utilize maltotriose.
 
First taste test. Holy crap it's going to be good, needs 5 more days... (It's only been 4 days, yeast is still the raring to go, just not below 1.020.....
 
rkzi said:
Just out of curiosity, what was the OG, mash temp and percentage of crystal in the grain bill? I hope that wlp099 works for you but like london esb it is rumored to not be able to utilize maltotriose.
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OG: 1.088
FG: 1.040 (and almost undrinkable).


Only 1/2 lb crystal 90, but I also took about 1 gallon of first runnings and boiled it down to about 1/4 gallon, it wasn't a thick syrup.

Yeah if wlp099 doesn't utilize maltotriose, I probably won't see much difference, I'd be very surprised if there are many simple sugars left. I'll give it a month and then keg it again.
 
Well, I can report that London ESB will ferment honey down to 1.000 from around 1.080 in a reasonable amount of time... interesting! the ESB yeast didn't do as well with a mixed fermentation of honey and malt extract (braggot) ended much higher at around 1.025.

In addition, the resulting mead is nice and clean. i need to compile my findings from my yeast comparison test (mead and braggot) and will update here.
 
davidst said:
OG: 1.088

FG: 1.040 (and almost undrinkable).





Only 1/2 lb crystal 90, but I also took about 1 gallon of first runnings and boiled it down to about 1/4 gallon, it wasn't a thick syrup.



Yeah if wlp099 doesn't utilize maltotriose, I probably won't see much difference, I'd be very surprised if there are many simple sugars left. I'll give it a month and then keg it again.
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So I just kegged it and the wlp099 took the gravity all the way down to 1.006 (about 10-20 points more than I wanted, but now it's at least palatable and not like drinking syrup).

In the future I'll probably only use the ESB yeast on low gravity beers that I want plenty of sugars left over.
 
davidst said:
So I just kegged it and the wlp099 took the gravity all the way down to 1.006 (about 10-20 points more than I wanted, but now it's at least palatable and not like drinking syrup).

In the future I'll probably only use the yeast on low gravity beers that I want plenty of sugars left over.
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Good that WLP099 worked for you! I don't think that this yeast will necessarily leave that much sugars. With a grain bill consisting mostly of base malt and low mash temp you can get relatively dry tasting beer which still has good mouthfeel. If the carbonation would be more predictable this would probably replace US-05 for me for normal-strength beers.
 
Two weeks ago I brewed a bitter and used this yeast for the first time. Simple recipe, 10lb MO, .5lb carapils, .5lb Fawcett crystal 1. Warrior (bittering) and EKG hops. Somehow messed up measuring or calculations on the mash and ended up with a very high mash temp initially (around 163F) which i corrected. Ended up with an OG of 1.048.

Hydrated and pitched the yeast into oxygenated wort and put the the fermenter in my temp controlled chamber per my usual routine. Had obvious fermentation activity within a few hours, which is faster than I typically see. A day later it was clearly going well, and at 36 hours had seemingly already finished. I ramped temp up over a couple days, then took it out of the chamber and let it sit in the house (around 70F) aiming to give the yeast some warmth and time to finish up. Saw no activity.

About a week into fermentation (a week ago) i took a gravity sample and was sad to see it at 1.020. Recalling my high initial mash temp, I couldn't be entirely surprised though. Looking around, found this thread and saw lots of reports of low attenuation and figured that I may need to pitch some more yeast or brett to get close to target FG and not have a terribly sweet beer. As I don't rush my beers, I just let it sit and figured I'd at least take another gravity sample in a few days.

About a week later brings me to this morning. Take a glance at the fermenter and see airlock activity. That seems strange, there's been no big temperature changes in the room, so I take a closer look. There's a thin (but normal loooking) krausen on the beer and it seems to be actively fermenting again.

I'm going to let this sit for at least a couple more weeks at this point. Just thought I'd share this in case anyone else is seeing this odd dormant period with this yeast. I won't rule out some sort of infection (which would explain what I'm seeing) but it seems unlikely.
 
TallDan said:
Two weeks ago I brewed a bitter and used this yeast for the first time. Simple recipe, 10lb MO, .5lb carapils, .5lb Fawcett crystal 1. Warrior (bittering) and EKG hops. Somehow messed up measuring or calculations on the mash and ended up with a very high mash temp initially (around 163F) which i corrected. Ended up with an OG of 1.048.

Hydrated and pitched the yeast into oxygenated wort and put the the fermenter in my temp controlled chamber per my usual routine. Had obvious fermentation activity within a few hours, which is faster than I typically see. A day later it was clearly going well, and at 36 hours had seemingly already finished. I ramped temp up over a couple days, then took it out of the chamber and let it sit in the house (around 70F) aiming to give the yeast some warmth and time to finish up. Saw no activity.

About a week into fermentation (a week ago) i took a gravity sample and was sad to see it at 1.020. Recalling my high initial mash temp, I couldn't be entirely surprised though. Looking around, found this thread and saw lots of reports of low attenuation and figured that I may need to pitch some more yeast or brett to get close to target FG and not have a terribly sweet beer. As I don't rush my beers, I just let it sit and figured I'd at least take another gravity sample in a few days.

About a week later brings me to this morning. Take a glance at the fermenter and see airlock activity. That seems strange, there's been no big temperature changes in the room, so I take a closer look. There's a thin (but normal loooking) krausen on the beer and it seems to be actively fermenting again.

I'm going to let this sit for at least a couple more weeks at this point. Just thought I'd share this in case anyone else is seeing this odd dormant period with this yeast. I won't rule out some sort of infection (which would explain what I'm seeing) but it seems unlikely.
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I think that Windsor is also prone to do this from what Ive read, and given that its flocculation and attenuation characteristics are similar to London ESB, i wouldnt be surprised if the latter does it also. I think that few people have actually reported a slight gravity drop during extended conditioning with this yeast strain. I have no idea what causes it, but one possibility is cross-contamination with other brewers yeast since windsor and London ESB are unable to utilize maltotriose. The other yeast might come from our equipment or be already present in the package at low numbers, explaining why it takes so long.

My batch made with this yeast seems also to be slowly picking up carbonation, but luckily i have only few bottles left. I just used Windsor for the first time on a bitter, which i bottled only after one week (probably not a good decision). I carbed to only 1 vol since there was again 2 point difference between FFT and FV, lets see if it ends up higher.
 
Followup on my previous post:

After that stall period, I have a beer that might have over attenuated. OG 1.048 FG 1.006.

Gravity sample tastes good though. Nice yeast character, we'll see how it is after it force carbs.
 
Used this yeast for the first time last weekend, and wanted to post about my positive experience with it so far.

Grain Bill: 9 lbs Maris Otter, 14 oz Crystal 40, 10 oz Victory
Mashed at 148-149 degrees F for 90 minutes
O.G. ended up at 1.053
Pitched rehydrated yeast at 3:00 pm Saturday onto 70 degree wort then chilled down to 64 degrees within 5-6 hours.
By 11:00 pm Saturday had a thin krausen forming and some minor blow-off tube/airlock activity.
Sunday morning this thing was bubbling steady with thick krausen, by Sunday afternoon it was going crazy!
Monday morning activity was slowing down, by Monday evening blow-off tube was bubbling every 15-20 seconds.
Tuesday evening krausen had fallen, swapped out blow-off tube for airlock.
Measured F.G. on Tuesday was 1.015
Sample tasted good, very complex still needs time to finish up but I was impressed overall.

This yeast is the fastest starter and most intense fermenter I've used so far!
 
I should have read this thread before ordering, and trying, this yeast. I did a split batch Ordinary Bitter this weekend. I planned to use Nottingham in one and Windsor in the other. Decided to swap the Windsor out for the London ESB. I mashed more for a medium body...around 152. Wound up with an OG of 1044.

I'll post my experiences once fermentation is complete.
 
HamiltonBrian said:
I should have read this thread before ordering, and trying, this yeast. I did a split batch Ordinary Bitter this weekend. I planned to use Nottingham in one and Windsor in the other. Decided to swap the Windsor out for the London ESB. I mashed more for a medium body...around 152. Wound up with an OG of 1044.

I'll post my experiences once fermentation is complete.
Click to expand...

As of this point, the Nottingham has dropped completely. There is still a layer of krausen on the London ESB.
 
HamiltonBrian said:
As of this point, the Nottingham has dropped completely. There is still a layer of krausen on the London ESB.
Click to expand...

Just transferred to secondary. The Nottingham dropped to 1.002 and the ESB to 1.010 from an OG of 1.044. That's an effect of my mash temperature which I botched. Nottingham is cleaner, almost devoid of much character. Hopefully the dry-hopping will help. The ESB is fruitier, but there's an apple-ish quality to it...possibly a symptom of yeast stress. Again, I expect the dry-hopping with the EKG will help it out.
 
ncbrewer said:
Gravity going from 1.044 to 1.002 seems really abnormal. Being almost devoid of character is a bad sign. Could be an infection - I hope not.
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It's not infected. It's really, really dry. I think my thermometer isn't calibrated any longer which impacts the temperature I am actually mashing at.
 
Kegged today. Essentially the same beers but for the yeast. The Nottingham is somewhat neutral, even with the dry-hopping. The ESB, however, was pretty damn good. It's allowing for the flavour of the hops to come through.
 
I've brewed two beers with this yeast, although both were co-pitched with a dry american ale yeast. Both were very cloudy at bottling, even with an extensive chill, however they have cleared perfectly with no finings other than irish moss during the boil. No chill haze either. Also the yeast adds an obvious and pleasant fruityness to the beers, so I can recommend it, at least with copitching with a more attenuative strain.
 
Hanglow said:
I've brewed two beers with this yeast, although both were co-pitched with a dry american ale yeast. Both were very cloudy at bottling, even with an extensive chill, however they have cleared perfectly with no finings other than irish moss during the boil. No chill haze either. Also the yeast adds an obvious and pleasant fruityness to the beers, so I can recommend it, at least with copitching with a more attenuative strain.
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What is your method of co-pitching, and what yeast do you co-pitch along with London ESB? I.E., do you pitch two yeasts at the same time, or one later on in the ferment? I can't wait to give this yeast a try in my own ESB recipe.
 
Miraculix said:
Which one ends up dryer, Nottingham or London esb?
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If by this you mean which one finishes with the lowest specific gravity, the answer is Danstar Nottingham.

The apparent attenuation of Nottingham is in the ballpark of 80%, and the apparent attenuation of London ESB is in the ballpark of 65%.

You can somewhat narrow the AA gap by mashing a brew that will use Nottingham at 156 degrees and mashing the identical brew sans for the intended use of London ESB at 148 degrees.
 
Silver_Is_Money said:
What is your method of co-pitching, and what yeast do you co-pitch along with London ESB? I.E., do you pitch two yeasts at the same time, or one later on in the ferment? I can't wait to give this yeast a try in my own ESB recipe.
Click to expand...



I just did it at the same time, one pack each. The yeast was called US Pale Ale, from a new local company. One time I just sprinkled both as it was a fairly weak wort, about 1.046 I think, the second was a stronger beer so I rehydrated them both

you could pitch the second one a bit later than ESB I suppose
 
Hanglow said:
I just did it at the same time, one pack each. The yeast was called US Pale Ale, from a new local company. One time I just sprinkled both as it was a fairly weak wort, about 1.046 I think, the second was a stronger beer so I rehydrated them both

you could pitch the second one a bit later than ESB I suppose
Click to expand...

I presume US Pale Ale yeast to be similar to US-05.

Lastly, what was your ballpark fermentation temperature profile, and what sort of OG/FG's did you end up with?
 
Regarding my bitters, very different ales with the different yeasts. The London ESB tastes like it stripped the hop and dry-hopping profile right out of the beer. It's more sweet. It's not bad, but it's just lacking. It's Nottingham twin, even though it went through a greater attenuation, just has a better malt body but with a solid level of hop bitterness and dry-hop aroma.

Winner of this round is definitely Nottingham.
 
I wonder how a dual pitch of London ESB and S-04 would taste in an ESB? And if it would give greater attenuation and exhibit a greater degree of flocculation and yeast compaction vs. London ESB alone?
 
Sorry if this has been asked but did anyone try mashing low? 146-8 with this yeast or try drying out with sugar?
 

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