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

[TallDan]

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.

 

[CKing]

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!

 

[HamiltonBrian]

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]

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.

As of this point, the Nottingham has dropped completely. There is still a layer of krausen on the London ESB.

 

[HamiltonBrian]

As of this point, the Nottingham has dropped completely. There is still a layer of krausen on the London ESB.

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]

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.

 

[HamiltonBrian]

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.

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.

 

[HamiltonBrian]

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.

 

[Hanglow]

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.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

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.

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]

Which one ends up dryer, Nottingham or London esb?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Which one ends up dryer, Nottingham or London esb?

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.

 

[Miraculix]

Yes I meant that, thanks!

 

[Hanglow]

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.

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

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

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

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?

 

[Hanglow]

19c for both I think

The weaker one was OG 1.040 fg 1.008 so AA of 79%
Stronger one og 1.074 fg 1.016 so AA of 77%

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

19c for both I think

The weaker one was OG 1.040 fg 1.008 so AA of 79%
Stronger one og 1.074 fg 1.016 so AA of 77%

Great attenuation plus the esters of a nice ESB yeast. Gotta love it!!! I'm going to remember this for my next ESB.

 

[HamiltonBrian]

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.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

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?

 

[shoreman]

Sorry if this has been asked but did anyone try mashing low? 146-8 with this yeast or try drying out with sugar?

 

[Miraculix]

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?

After rereading this thread again, I was wondering the same.

However, I just used this yeast unintentionally in a historic ipa recipe and it turned out to be one of the best beers, if not the best, I've brewed so far.

I used nbs classic English ale yeast, thought it would be mauribrew 514 but turned out to be a rebranded version of London esb instead.

I did not take a final gravity reading yet but the beer was on the dry side and most definitely not cloyingly sweet. Maybe my accidentally low mash temperature saved the beer, I think it was in the region of 60c, If i remember correctly. I used gelatin for fining and the bottles do clear quite well. Had better clearing yeasts but it is definitely not as horrible for me as it is described in this thread at some points.

Next time I try co pitching with 04.

 

[Shenanigans]

After rereading this thread again, I was wondering the same.

However, I just used this yeast unintentionally in a historic ipa recipe and it turned out to be one of the best beers, if not the best, I've brewed so far.

I used nbs classic English ale yeast, thought it would be mauribrew 514 but turned out to be a rebranded version of London esb instead.

I did not take a final gravity reading yet but the beer was on the dry side and most definitely not cloyingly sweet. Maybe my accidentally low mash temperature saved the beer, I think it was in the region of 60c, If i remember correctly. I used gelatin for fining and the bottles do clear quite well. Had better clearing yeasts but it is definitely not as horrible for me as it is described in this thread at some points.

Next time I try co pitching with 04.

Sounds like the old trick of using Notti and windsor yeasts together.
Haven't done it myself but should give nice results.
Just keep in mind that 2 packs of dry yeast almost cost as much as a vial of liquid yeast. Still more convenient of course.

 

[Sawwal]

I split a 6.5 gallon bitter batch using two packets re-hydrated Nottingham on half and the same, but ESB, on the other half. Temp was at 74F after wort 'chilling'. Pitched then and with-in 4 hours 1/2 inch white krausen on Nott and the yeast in the ESB was preparing to go. Chilled as much as I could with ice baths and t-shirts and got it down to 68. 48 hours later the Nott is at 1.012 and the ESB is at about 1.010. Both taste about right, yeasty, bitter, and clean. Both are starting to clear. 11 lbs Maris and 6 oz amber mashed at 150F for about 1 hour.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

It's worth mentioning here that on one crude DNA fingerprinting technique, Windsor and ESB come out looking very closely related - that work needs to be repeated though. Recent genome sequencing puts Windsor as near-identical to Fermentis S-33 (traditionally thought to be the old EDME strain important in British homebrewing back in the 1980s), and in the "mixed" group of yeasts that includes the bread yeasts and some distilling yeasts. That means they're relatively unrelated to other brewing yeasts apart from a few weird ones like WLP036 Alt and Fermentis T-58.

T-58 seems to be very active in biotransformation, so it might be worth doing a test of a hoppy beer (something like a Chinook SMaSH) with different yeasts that included T-58 and Windsor or ESB, up against yeasts that don't biotransform well. I know Mangrove Jack M36 isn't great at it, but I suspect that any yeast with a reputation for "preserving hoppiness" is probably bad at biotransformation, so you could probably use one of the US yeasts like Chico.

 

[Sawwal]

Fascinating work you've posted. I had no idea people were doing work like this, but it makes sense that if someone can find an unknown first cousin using ancestry.com, that folks could work out genetic relationships among organisms which reproduce by budding. What a chart, too. Thanks for sharing.

So, ESB and Fermentis S-33 are likely 'siblings' as well?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

If anything it's the other way round - yeast was the first non-bacterial organism to be sequenced, it was something of a trial run for the original Human Genome Project. These days if you have the (not cheap) equipment, it's <$1000 to sequence a genome so it's pretty much routine these days.

So, ESB and Fermentis S-33 are likely 'siblings' as well?

I deliberately didn't say that, because the evidence for ESB/Windsor is far less solid than for the S-33/Windsor link, but the current evidence points that way.

The other possibility is that ESB is a blend of Windsor with something else - we know Lallemand do that with Nottingham, and the ESB/Windsor link is based on just one colony so wouldn't tell the full story if it was a blend. It's certainly curious that they would be selling separate products that appear to be so closely linked.

 

[Sawwal]

To close the circle on my little experiment...I thought both parts of the split batch were done, with the Nott at .009 and the ESB at .012 (I had mixed it up in my prior post), so I checked each for flavor. There was a noticeable difference, with the ESB tasting a little fruitier. But the next day, the ESB started up again in an odd way. It got very cloudy and had pinprick sized bubbles surfacing. This went on and on for some days. I worried about a wild yeast strain, but was dreading that somehow some brett had made it in from a kriek I had brewed in 2017, even though I like to think I rigorously sanitize. The most likely possibility was that somehow I crossed contaminated the ESB portion with yeast from the Nott portion, most likely when I was tasting, although I am very careful about contamination, always using an isopropyl spray and swabbing the neck of both carboys with separate paper towels laden with the isopropyl spray.
Losing patience, I just kegged it all together; sometimes you just have to sail into the unknown. WWCD? (What would Columbus do?) Two weeks later the beer has just about cleared and I have a very flavorful ordinary bitter of about 25 IBU and 4% alcohol. Nice, yeasty, fruity nose and a bready sort of flavor. No errant wildness from renegade yeast, and thankfully, no brett. It's a simple and plain beer reveling in its unsophisticated youth, a happy outcome. Two things I don't like about it: It has a lot of head and the carbonation leaves solution very quickly, but I'm pretty new to kegging, so my inexperience might be affecting things there.
Lessons to share: 1) Marris Otter is great. 2) The kegged outcome was similar to pitching Nott for a drier finish after having let the ESB get a jump on things to capture the ESB fruitiness, but I just went about things indirectly. 3) No matter how careful one is with sanitation, to err is human, but yeast is pretty forgiving. 4) If I'm going to split batches with different yeasts in the future, I'm going to keep the fermenters in separate rooms and not use the same sanitation tools on both fermenters. 5) Get a fridge.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Two things I don't like about it: It has a lot of head and the carbonation leaves solution very quickly, but I'm pretty new to kegging, so my inexperience might be affecting things there.

5% torrified wheat is your friend for head retention.

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself, kegging just doesn't really suit British bitters. Kegging a style meant for cask is a bit like watching a movie on a TV when it's meant to be seen in the cinema. You can fuss all you like with an ever-bigger TV and better surround sound and proper popcorn makers - but at the end of the day, it's still watching a movie on a TV.

 

[Sawwal]

5% torrified wheat is your friend for head retention.

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself, kegging just doesn't really suit British bitters. Kegging a style meant for cask is a bit like watching a movie on a TV when it's meant to be seen in the cinema. You can fuss all you like with an ever-bigger TV and better surround sound and proper popcorn makers - but at the end of the day, it's still watching a movie on a TV.

Nice analogy. I didn't think of that. So the result was as it was meant to be. I like that!

 

[Sawwal]

And I'm still enjoying the yeast family tree. Thanks for that. I have a colleague at the office who is really into yeast, so I shared it with her.