DuncB
Well-Known Member
Tried a bottle of the yuletide yesterday, no condition at all, but just softest pff as the lid was cracked off. Very clear, not much aroma, very drinkable, but no body to talk of but given the recipe not surprised.
English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?
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Wow, that's an old bottle!!
Please do! And of course let us know what you think.
Just curious - would you guess this would be good, or not good, for a nut brown ale? Or, perhaps an Imperial Stout?
Colindo
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Got it in front of me now. Best before 28 Feb 2023. The beer has a fresh citrus note when pouring, so was probably handled decently by the distributor. Definitely better than some German online shops I tried before.
The notes I remember from Wyeast 1335 are definitely there. Intense spicy hoppiness and enhanced malt flavour as if from crystal malt. Together they give a liquorice note, especially if you drink in big sips. So I would say the yeast is great for an Adnam's clone. I need to point out though that Adnam's use a twin strain yeast, where the second strain increases the attenuation, which Wyeast 1335 will not do. Maybe co-pitch with Nottingham.
I have this bottled in the basement right now. Wanted to do the exact same comparison and made hopped starters so I could use them for this after decanting. Unfortunately I'm late on my brewing and video schedule since the birth of my daughter in November, so it might be a while before I can report.
The historic porter has been sitting ~5 weeks in the kitchen and are now to be cellared for a few months.
Had a sample just to be sure they were carbed about a week ago, tasted promising but will definitely need some age to smooth out a bit, it was not nearly as much roasty flavour as I had expected given the grain bill, so I guess the USians who would cry out loud seeing these types of grists have been proved wrong.
Should be ready to drink just about when we start to get some spring feeling up here in the cold north...
Had a sample just to be sure they were carbed about a week ago, tasted promising but will definitely need some age to smooth out a bit, it was not nearly as much roasty flavour as I had expected given the grain bill, so I guess the USians who would cry out loud seeing these types of grists have been proved wrong.
Should be ready to drink just about when we start to get some spring feeling up here in the cold north...
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I usually build up starters.
As I wrote above, I've run several yeast offs by the local brew crew with triangle tests. Imperial versions have always come out on top. To be clear, Imperial are ex Wyeast employees, and their catalogue is more a yeast "greatest hits" than a broad offering.
If you want to really brew like a brit you should build up a yeast bank of 2 yeasts you like together and mix them in the "pre-brew" starter for a house mix, as British brewery yeasts often are 2 or more strains.
Colindo
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I fear that word is debatable. I know of Adnam's, Ringwood and Theakston. Any other?
Timothy Taylor and Samuel Smith are likely multi-strains, Harvey's is confirmed to be. Fuller's yeast that Brits have gotten brewlab slopes of is reported as becoming "unstable" after a few generations, pointing towards a multi strain.
I think many of the surviving traditional breweries are using multi strain yeasts, that would explain why wyeast and whitelabs yeast reportedly sourced from the same breweries can exhibit diffrent properties, as if they were isolates of different components of a house culture.
But it gets tricky knowing which is which considering many newer breweries have saved old brewery cultures and how those have developed from the original...
Northern_Brewer
British - apparently some US company stole my name
I'm struggling to think of any of the traditional family breweries that use a single strain. Even Fuller's who went down to a single strain when they moved to conicals in the 1970s, can now distinguish two genetic variants even if they are microbiologically indistinguishable.
As an aside, it looks like Wyeast and White labs selected different halves of the Adnams multistrain.
Colindo
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@Erik the Anglophile
- Forgot about Harvey. I think they still use their original culture, i.e. it is more 1000 strains, rather than a twin strain.
- Fuller's used to be a triple strain up until 1970, they are using single strain now.
- Timothy Taylor uses a single strain, though I have not hard evidence for this one. I just believe it from the way they describe their yeast.
- I know no details about Samuel Smith.
- Edit: Just remembered Brakspear. They promote their double strain, believed to be WY1275+WY1882.
Colindo
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I find it difficult to get WLP025, else I would compare. How sure are you about this? I read it elsewhere, but find the attenuation is far too close between the two.
Edit: The flavour description on the White Labs page matches quite exactly the flavour I got from WY1335...
Didn't know the stuff about Fuller's. So they keep repitching and do not "refresh" the yeast regularly?
I got that, my point was more that for people wanting to emulate traditional British brewing, keeping a bank of 2 or more yeasts and mixing them for fermenting in a sort of "house blend" would probably be rather accurate for how it was, and in some cases, still is done.
I have settled on a 50/50 mix of Verdant and MJ M36 as my house blend, the mix brings some of the kiwi/pear flavours of the M36 and tame the apricot from Verdant a bit and results in just a nice "Englishness" to the ales, not sure I would get that using only one of them.
Colindo
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@Erik the Anglophile Ah, I see. Yes, especially for historic brews you are absolutely correct.
But isn't M36 said to be a blend already, of M42 and M15, which are copies of Nottingham and Windsor?
But isn't M36 said to be a blend already, of M42 and M15, which are copies of Nottingham and Windsor?
Some say that, but I am not too sure. Others say it may be a Mauribrew yeast, looking at the yeast the grains look too uniform in color and size to suggest a mix to my eyes at least.
Although I plan to replace the M36 with m42 and introduce a third one, a domestic windsor like strain, for a blend intended for more neautral Scottish and Irish ales.
So m42+Verdant for English and m42+Brewly English for Scottish/Irish, this will give me three yeasts to manage instead of four.
So m42+Verdant for English and m42+Brewly English for Scottish/Irish, this will give me three yeasts to manage instead of four.
I found it pretty clean, so if there is Windsor inside, then the amount is small. From my perspective, it looks like something diferent than these two.
I am having troubles to get something British out of Verdant. It is a good or maybe even great yeast for anything american hop related, but at no point British. I like it and I brewed quite a lot of bitters with it, and just like you said, in the mix with Nottingham, it is even better for bitters. Otherwise, the fruit is taking over. But I am still not happy with this yeast for traditional British bitters. I found myself an old pack of Windsor in my fridge, I will use that one with Nottingham for my next bitter. Let's see how that goes. Otherwise, it will be liquid yeast again.
@Miraculix
I am gonna do some tests with the Brewly yeast I used before, but together with MJ M42.
I have done some reading on the m42 and have some experience with it, it seems like a slightly more expressive Notty, reportedly throwing some nutty, orange peel and subtle phenolic flavours if fermented at 20c or warmer.
The Brewly's dark fruit and red berries was a bit much, but if those esters are tamed a bit by the m42, and I get some of that phenolic and estery flavour from it, the mix could very well produce a Norhern/Yorkshire-y flavour profile...
I am gonna do some tests with the Brewly yeast I used before, but together with MJ M42.
I have done some reading on the m42 and have some experience with it, it seems like a slightly more expressive Notty, reportedly throwing some nutty, orange peel and subtle phenolic flavours if fermented at 20c or warmer.
The Brewly's dark fruit and red berries was a bit much, but if those esters are tamed a bit by the m42, and I get some of that phenolic and estery flavour from it, the mix could very well produce a Norhern/Yorkshire-y flavour profile...
That sounds lovely! Let us know how it goes.
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Whitbread is a multi strain include S-04 and WLP017. These two combined make a superior tasting beer, at least according to the triangle tasting and the local brew crew test vs individually.
It is maddingly complex. A SMASH yeast off can provide one result, but try comparing those yeasties in an English porter, and you can get a completely different result. For example, WLP002 vs WLP085 (which is WLP002 + WLP007) the chocolate notes are present in the 002 but stripped out of the 085.
Here is an old guide to blending yeast stains from White LABS: https://www.homebrewersassociation....df/2014/A Guide To Blending Yeast Strains.pdf
Which also more or less confirms the provenance that WLP085 is in fact WLP002 + WLP007
It is maddingly complex. A SMASH yeast off can provide one result, but try comparing those yeasties in an English porter, and you can get a completely different result. For example, WLP002 vs WLP085 (which is WLP002 + WLP007) the chocolate notes are present in the 002 but stripped out of the 085.
Here is an old guide to blending yeast stains from White LABS: https://www.homebrewersassociation....df/2014/A Guide To Blending Yeast Strains.pdf
Which also more or less confirms the provenance that WLP085 is in fact WLP002 + WLP007
I heard somewhere that wyeast British ale 1+2 + wlp 007 or So4 in a blend would create something probbly pretty close to the OG Whitbread multi strain.
Done with the mash for the KK/Stock Ale.
I overestimated how much my efficiency would suffer a bit, so I ended up at a pre-boil SG of 1.052 instead of anticipated 1.044, will add ~4g of extra bittering hops and sort of back calculate what approximate IBU I get from the OG I end up with.
Now I am gonna cook soam breakfast oat porridge and then start the 2hr boil...
I overestimated how much my efficiency would suffer a bit, so I ended up at a pre-boil SG of 1.052 instead of anticipated 1.044, will add ~4g of extra bittering hops and sort of back calculate what approximate IBU I get from the OG I end up with.
Now I am gonna cook soam breakfast oat porridge and then start the 2hr boil...
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I managed to squeeze out wooping 77% Efficiency from my BIAB setup for a 18th century London Brown Porter inspired beer. I managed to get a preboil OG of 1.077 which is pretty high for my standards. 45 IBUS, Wyeast Whitbread 1099 and it is happylie bubbling. I will set 9 litres aside and throw some brett c inside. Curious how this will work out. 50/50 Chevallier and Crisp Imperial malt + 0.1kg carafa spezial 2. Admiral for bittering. 60 Minute boil. Pretty straight forrward and easy recipe.
I usually get 83% on my normal strenght beer, had turned down to 70 for calculating this one.
Will probably go with 75% for higher gravity brews, and adjust with some DME if needed pre-boil.
Will probably go with 75% for higher gravity brews, and adjust with some DME if needed pre-boil.
I do not do these higher abv brews very often. The wort was really thick, high viscosity, that always surprises me. I might brew a today's normal strength version of it. It smelled so good! The Imperial malt brought some really nice bready/toffee niceness to the table. Somehow a bit like a brown malt without the part that is harsh and astringent. I like it so far. Probably a nice combination with the Chevallier which adds its own special thing to it.
I think I will brew a 50/50 bitter out of these two without the carafa spezial 2. Kind of a bitter/brown ale hybrid, I'm curious what this will result in. Just bittering and 15 minutes addition, Goldings or similar.
For my normal brews, my efficinacy lies usually above 90%. Full volume BIAB and squeezing it is the key here.
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DuncB
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Yes.
India brown ale?
DuncB
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That's a good reference, I'm getting 89% mash, 90% conversion and 86% BHE on my all in one for 25 litre batch of beer to 1.055 and provided it doesn't have a tonne of hops in it.
I squeeze the grain as well.
Yep. I get 92% on my beers in the low 1040's. Just had a 1071 come in at 78%. I'm doing a 1100 (12% invert) today for which I estimated 75%.
That's with a sparge and no squeezing, just a free hanging drip.
That's with a sparge and no squeezing, just a free hanging drip.
I got a 18 l boiling pot in which I also do the biab. That way I obviously normally end up with less wort then intended (want the full 18 litres), so I squeeze the bag and then refill the missing portion with water. If the crush is very fine, I get about 90% efficiency this way. For this higher abv beer, this did not work because of the big volume of grain. So I mashed with about 11 litres of water in the pot, squeezed the whole thing. THAT was a process.... used the handle of a mop to hang the bag on it while it was laying above the corner of the kitchen surfaces. After squeezing, I managed to get about 8 or 9 litres of wort out of it. I Then transfered the whole thing to a bucket and added hot water for a sparge, stirred, waited, stirred, drained it and squeezed again.
Yes that is complicated and yes this is one of the reasons why I do not brew high abv beers so often
.For normal bitters it is just mashing, squeezing, adding a bit of water, boil, done.
Yes that is complicated and yes this is one of the reasons why I do not brew high abv beers so often
Yeah. This 1.100 barleywine is going to make for a long day. My equipment and process, like yours, is in fine tune for 'normal' gravity.
DuncB
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You'll be able to do a little partigyle batch on the remaining grains.
I could. But I'm also tending a little guy with a sore belly and I've got work to do too.
Colindo
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I'm trying to recreate the complete Fuller's parti-gyle right now to get their ESB, London Pride and Chiswick Bitter. I used 3kg of grain and hope to end up with 4 UK gallons of beer. First gyle had 16,9°B before boiling, which seems decent. But I still have to see whether the second gyle gets the same amount of liquor, i.e. whether I estimated the amount of wort I would get correctly. Then come the calculations with IBU and hopping and evaporation rate. Crazy stuff.
Ended up at 1.080 as can be seen, pretty much exactly what I guessed to my self when I saw the pre-boil gravity was a bit high.
Added 5g extra of bittering charge and calculated that with the new gravity, should be 70 IBU or close to that.
Added 5g extra of bittering charge and calculated that with the new gravity, should be 70 IBU or close to that.
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