If you could only have 3 yeasts

[bwible]

Agreed. Choosing only 3 yeast varieties is barbaric.

Please, for the love of God, nobody ask the question, "pick only 3 hops". I will fight you.

I can only work with one yeast at a time anyway. Especially since I always try to re-use yeast at least 3 times. If I started running 2 or 3 yeasts in parallel I’d end with way too much beer way too fast.

Agreed there is no way I’d ever want to be limited to 3 hops. There must be 18 new ones I’ve never even tried.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

S-O4 is very close in genetics, character (including tartness), and other properties (including apparent attenuation and flocculation) to Wyeast 1026.

For details on WY1026: British Cask Ale | Wyeast Laboratories

 

[deuc224]

WLP 001
Wyeast 3068
Kveik Lutra

 

[Tancred the Brewer]

After reading through this thread I have come to the conclusion my beer preferences must be fairly narrow. I tend to brew no more than 5 batches of beer a year with another 3 or so batches of cider. The beer styles tend to be APA, Barleywine, Stout, Brown Ale and then an annual wildcard. This covers my tastes and what I like to have a variety of.

With all of that said it would be a pretty easy decision of which 3 yeast strains to keep on hand, because I really only use 3 different strains for all of thee above.

US-05 for the APA, the Barleywine (American Style), and the Brown Ale (American style) and Cider in a pinch
Nottingham for the Stout, the Brown Ale (British style), Barleywine (English style) and Cider in a pinch
71-B or E-1118- Cider and Applejack

If we are not considering the cider yeast in the mix and I am allowed one more for beer then I would probably add a nice yeast for a wheat beer that could be used for a hefeweizen or witbier, maybe Wyeast 3942, as they would be a nice wild card style that I like to brew. Has anyone tried Kviek on wheat beers?

Call me simple.

 

[beersk]

Mine as well

I think I'd go with:

Mt. Hood (British, German, and Belgian)
Simcoe (just plain awesome)
Columbus (all purpose bitter plus great flavor/aroma)

 

[MaxStout]

US-05
WY3787
WY2308

 

[chessking]

Call me simple.

Nothing wrong with simple.
A basic truth in brewing is, brew what you like, and the hell with everyone else. If your tastes run to a small selection of styles, the you are blessed indeed.

For those who are more prolific in their brewing, the chance of variety, and being true to style, will lend one to be more discriminating in their yeast choices. I know many home brewers make their one "go to" beer most often, and that's fine, but Ive got an 8 keg keggerator to feed. That requires a pipeline aproach to brewing. What good is it to have 5 kegs of APA, and 3 kegs of Stout on tap? Each tap should be differing in some degree.
Therefore I have no less than 8 yeasts on my ranch, that are in constant rotation. When a successful beer is packaged, the yeast is washed and a selected portion is separated, labeled, and put in cold storage awaiting its next use.

This is a copy of my brew log for this calendar year ( sorry, my handwriting is crap). I have brewed 14 times and used a total of 8 different yeasts, with the Guinness on 28 Apr. being the only one purchased new this year.

I guess my point is that I don't need to conform to three yeasts. I have my own supply, and brother, life is good.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I've totally replaced all clean ale yeasts with OYL057 hothead, it's amazing

 

[Elric]

Verdant, voss, 34/70 would be my three if I had to choose but I sure would miss my belgians.. can't I just sneak in a fourth?

 

[T Murph]

Agreed. Choosing only 3 yeast varieties is barbaric.

Please, for the love of God, nobody ask the question, "pick only 3 hops". I will fight you.

I agree AzOr I recently planted my seven most preferred hops and I know I'll still be using hops that I don't have growing. After all hops are to beer what spices are to food. I surely don't want to be confined to only 3 choices. Yeast on the other hand could be minimized if absolutely necessary. But fortunately we don't have to do that.

 

[Snuffy]

I gotta have 5, minimum. I could live on IPAs, English and Belgians for a good while, but eventually a person needs something French or German to keep it interesting. Lagers, I could live without. Hops, I could maybe make it thru hard times on Goldings, Cascade and Saaz, but what fun would that be?

 

[@RoyalGallon]

Great thread.
I tend to use dry yeasts so I can have them in the fridge and am ready for spontaneous brew days.

I’d go US-05, S-189 and then a ‘Belgian’

although this is where I’d be interested in opinions as I’ve yet to settle-on a dry ‘Belgian’ yet. I do like Mangrove Jack’s M47 Abbey.

 

[WesBrew]

i haven't tried a lot of the ones mentioned. if i could only grab 3 on my way to the doomsday bunker: wlp001 cal ale, wlp005 english ale , and wlp838 southern german- or wlp810 san fran lager, 005 english, and wlp833 bock

 

[cmac62]

Great thread.
I tend to use dry yeasts so I can have them in the fridge and am ready for spontaneous brew days.

I’d go US-05, S-189 and then a ‘Belgian’

although this is where I’d be interested in opinions as I’ve yet to settle-on a dry ‘Belgian’ yet. I do like Mangrove Jack’s M47 Abbey.

I'd look at lallamand's abbey ale (this works with the BOMM protocol as well)

for me I'm liking the kveiks, so far have tried Hothead, Hornindal, dried Voss and WL Opshag (spelling). I still have Loki, Lutra and Oly Voss to try yet. So far I'd go with hothead. But my 3 right now is chico (US-05, WL001, BYR 97), Abbey Ale and s-04 or Notty, not sure which. I'll buy lager, I can't do it better than what you can buy that are available and cheep.

For hops citra, mitelfrue and EKG or cascade.

 

[Jako]

easy, Imperial Pub, Harvest and Cable car.

 

[duffy5018]

Hornindal Kveik, 3724/565, wlp830.

Hornindal works for almost any ale, giving it different profiles based on temp.

3724/565 cuz I brew a Saison about once every 2-3 months.

830 cuz you always need a good well rounded lager yeast.