Danstar Winsor

[Samaral]

Anyone use this yeast. I was thinking about it for a porter.

 

[krahm]

It gives a lot of character to the beer and tends to under-attenuate, even if you mash low. That leaves the beer somewhat fruity/yeasty and sweet. If you like a dry porter made with a "clean" yeast, then it's a bad choice for you. If you like a sweeter porter with a lot of esters, then give it a try (you might want to up your bittering hops slightly, possibly your roasted malts, too, to balance the beer). Some people have had bad experiences with Windsor, but not me. In my experience, it's more a matter of what you're trying to achieve in the final beer. Either Windsor is going to give you the results you want or it isn't. If you want a more neutral yeast and a drier beer, use Nottingham. BTW, Windsor is an extremely vigorous and fast fermenter. Good luck!

 

[somerandomguy]

I recently did a moose drool clone with Windsor. The beer attenuated very well. However I had an issue controlling temps as it was one of the hotter weeks of the summer. Fermentation took off like a rocket within 12 hours and my swamp cooler struggled to keep the beer cool. Fermented in the mid to upper 70s and resulted in significant green apple acetaldehyde flavor. I plan to use this yeast and try making this beer again soon once the weather cools off a little in fall. I think it could be a good yeast for this type of brown ale, as long as you can carefully control temperatures.


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[GinSlinger]

My experience with Windsor was slightly different than many report. I knew esters could be an issue, and tried to keep the fermentation below 65 for the first few days. I didn't notice a particularly poor attenuation, and no fruit esters. What I did get was a (good) minerally flavor, reminiscent of oyster shells in a way. If that character comes from the fermentation temperature, I could see it pairing nicely with a porter.

As to the attenuation issue (again, I got better than 70%, and in my case it worked for me), there's something called "biphasic fermentation" to look out for. Basically, Windsor will look like it's finished for a few days, then start right up again: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/windsor-fg-woes-391931/ So, you might consider ramping the temps up a bit if it appears stalled.

 

[jfr1111]

I have used windsor extensively in the past. Here's a whole thread about it: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/danstar-windsor-review-using-my-house-bitter-272762/.

It's a yeast where you have to tailor the beer to the yeast, not the other way around. It provides very good body and mouthfeel, but it does tend to under attenuate compared to most american and english yeasts, so I wouldn't use it on really big beers or if I did, I would replace some base malt with sugars.

It's a decent enough yeast, but there are much better alternatives with liquid yeast which have a superior flavour profile and are easier to work with. 1318 comes to mind.

 

[Wolfbrau]

It's a great yeast, I use it frequently since I like lower gravity beers. Don't try to force it on a high-ABV style. But for an English porter or any English style under 5.5% it's great. Don't expect much attenuation. That's not a bug, it's a feature.