Experimenting With Yeast

[InsertMoreHops]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to brew a 5 gallon batch of IPA (recipe undetermined) and break it down into a few 1 gallon jugs to purely experiment with different yeasts.

Can I go crazy here in the name of experimentation? Will any yeast ferment any beer?

 

[eddiewould]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to brew a 5 gallon batch of IPA (recipe undetermined) and break it down into a few 1 gallon jugs to purely experiment with different yeasts.

Can I go crazy here in the name of experimentation? Will any yeast ferment any beer?

Yes any yeast will make beer. You might get more noticeable differences between the yeasts with a less hop-forward style.

 

[unionrdr]

There are so many yeasts out there, to experiment with. S-04, US-05, maybe a London ale yeast? Some yeast accentuate the hops, others the malts. So it comes down to west coast style or east cost, where one is maltier, the other more hoppy.

 

[mrgrimm101]

Were it me, I would split it something like this:

1.) Fermentis Safale US-05 (American style)
2.) Fermentis Safale S04 (English style)
3.) Danstar Nottingham (English)
4.) Mangrove Jack (American West Coast)
5.) Maybe a Belgian strain

I typically use US-05 with IPAs and they almost always turn out great. However, I've heard that the Mangrove Jack M44 is an awesome yeast, it just has a longer lag time which many people do not like.

Danstar Nottingham should be a bit dry and accentuate the hops..if you went with a Danstar Windsor it would accentualte the sweet maltiness a bit more.

Like Uniondr said above, it just depends on how you want the beer to end up.

Definitely stick with ale yeasts..and as long as you stay within the temperature ranges of each yeast (they can vary from strain to strain) you should be able to experiment away. Again, were it me, I would still stick with some basic American and English styles..maybe a basic Beglian yeast.

 

[InsertMoreHops]

Were it me, I would split it something like this:

1.) Fermentis Safale US-05 (American style)
2.) Fermentis Safale S04 (English style)
3.) Danstar Nottingham (English)
4.) Mangrove Jack (American West Coast)
5.) Maybe a Belgian strain

I typically use US-05 with IPAs and they almost always turn out great. However, I've heard that the Mangrove Jack M44 is an awesome yeast, it just has a longer lag time which many people do not like.

Danstar Nottingham should be a bit dry and accentuate the hops..if you went with a Danstar Windsor it would accentualte the sweet maltiness a bit more.

Like Uniondr said above, it just depends on how you want the beer to end up.

Definitely stick with ale yeasts..and as long as you stay within the temperature ranges of each yeast (they can vary from strain to strain) you should be able to experiment away. Again, were it me, I would still stick with some basic American and English styles..maybe a basic Beglian yeast.

Thanks for the feedback.

I have no exact outcome in mind, just curious to see how different yeasts affect the same beer. Look forward to giving this a shot.

 

[mrgrimm101]

My approach to this would be to pick a recipe that you are already somewhat familiar with. Maybe a commercial IPA clone. Pick one with hop flavors and aromas that you're familiar with. This way, the only changing variable is the yeast.

 

[Toga]

Were it me, I would split it something like this:

1.) Fermentis Safale US-05 (American style)
2.) Fermentis Safale S04 (English style)
3.) Danstar Nottingham (English)
4.) Mangrove Jack (American West Coast)
5.) Maybe a Belgian strain

I typically use US-05 with IPAs and they almost always turn out great. However, I've heard that the Mangrove Jack M44 is an awesome yeast, it just has a longer lag time which many people do not like.

Danstar Nottingham should be a bit dry and accentuate the hops..if you went with a Danstar Windsor it would accentualte the sweet maltiness a bit more.

Like Uniondr said above, it just depends on how you want the beer to end up.

Definitely stick with ale yeasts..and as long as you stay within the temperature ranges of each yeast (they can vary from strain to strain) you should be able to experiment away. Again, were it me, I would still stick with some basic American and English styles..maybe a basic Beglian yeast.

Highly recommend staying away from the Mangrove Jacks M44. Very long lag time and even when fermented at 65 degrees it is not very clean. I got some banana and clove esters almost heffe like which did not work in a DIPA but may work in a wheat. I have tried almost all of their yeasts and was at first impressed. Unfortunately I found their quality is not consistent after using their yeasts multiple times (fresh pitch) over the last year

 

[mrgrimm101]

Highly recommend staying away from the Mangrove Jacks M44. Very long lag time and even when fermented at 65 degrees it is not very clean. I got some banana and clove esters almost heffe like which did not work in a DIPA but may work in a wheat. I have tried almost all of their yeasts and was at first impressed. Unfortunately I found their quality is not consistent after using their yeasts multiple times (fresh pitch) over the last year

That's too bad. I've heard mixed things about the M44...some people love it, others have similar problems that you had.

I'm sure the OP could find another West Coast style yeast. I was just recommending some dry yeast strains, but they could easily use liquid yeast strains as well.

 

[joshesmusica]

i'm sure you're stuck on the IPA recipe idea. but that is really a style that, as others have mentioned, you don't necessarily want some crazy yeast. a little yeast character isn't bad, but you don't want anything you get from the yeast to overpower the hops. so especially if you're new to this, i would highly suggest to not go crazy. the good thing is that you are doing 1 gallon batches. that's definitely the size you want to experiment with! it's not very fun to have an entire 5 gallons of something you don't particularly enjoy.
all that said, i'm also for being a bit crazy and not necessarily sticking to the style guidelines. but i would say to go ahead and stick to those guidelines until you're consistently producing good beer with proven recipes (and unfortunately a couple of good ones in a row doesn't necessarily qualify a person as a good brewer). what i would personally do, again going off of the assumption that you're fairly new to the game (because it's in the beginners section) is try the different west coast ale yeasts and see which one you like best. some of the yeast strains are purportedly the same, but the will still create slightly different beers. maybe as the one commenter suggested to only get crazy with one of the five.

 

[joshesmusica]

Highly recommend staying away from the Mangrove Jacks M44. Very long lag time and even when fermented at 65 degrees it is not very clean. I got some banana and clove esters almost heffe like which did not work in a DIPA but may work in a wheat. I have tried almost all of their yeasts and was at first impressed. Unfortunately I found their quality is not consistent after using their yeasts multiple times (fresh pitch) over the last year

are you sure you didn't accidentally pick up the M20? it's a fairly clean bavarian wheat yeast, producing a low-mid heffe flavor profile.

 

[Toga]

Positive.

 

[InsertMoreHops]

i'm sure you're stuck on the IPA recipe idea. but that is really a style that, as others have mentioned, you don't necessarily want some crazy yeast. a little yeast character isn't bad, but you don't want anything you get from the yeast to overpower the hops. so especially if you're new to this, i would highly suggest to not go crazy. the good thing is that you are doing 1 gallon batches. that's definitely the size you want to experiment with! it's not very fun to have an entire 5 gallons of something you don't particularly enjoy.
all that said, i'm also for being a bit crazy and not necessarily sticking to the style guidelines. but i would say to go ahead and stick to those guidelines until you're consistently producing good beer with proven recipes (and unfortunately a couple of good ones in a row doesn't necessarily qualify a person as a good brewer). what i would personally do, again going off of the assumption that you're fairly new to the game (because it's in the beginners section) is try the different west coast ale yeasts and see which one you like best. some of the yeast strains are purportedly the same, but the will still create slightly different beers. maybe as the one commenter suggested to only get crazy with one of the five.

Thanks! I appreciate your feedback.

 

[jerryboy]

Recipe dependant but I'd suggest WLP 644 as something to consider. I like what it can do and is very different from your standard yeasts.

 

[nevertrustahipie]

I say as long as you have a reasonable expectation, go as crazy as you want. There are a lot of ways you can go with this.

a) You can pick similar yeast strains to find subtle differences.

b) You can pick "classic" strains of yeast (US-05, WY1007, WY1028) to find how they change the taste of the IPA

c) You can take it to the edge and see how non-traditional strains work with an IPA recipe (like a kolsh, belgian, or even lager-if you can lager)

If it were me, I would pick 1 standard IPA strain (US-05 or WY1056) and then pick a couple more yeasts by level of yeast fruitiness.

 

[joshesmusica]

Actually I recently used a kolsch on a red IPA recipe. Although I got crazy with the specialty malts and the hops, it didn't seem to do anything too crazy to the flavor profile. The name of the beer is restefest, which means leftovers party. It was to use up 5 different types of hops that I had. But I also followed the ferment temp schedule like those that use a kolsch yeast to make a hybrid pilsner, so it's meant to give a fairly clean profile.
I guess though that if you're comparing flavor profiles then you want to make sure you can be in the optimum temp range of each individual yeast.