Isolated Yeast (Tree House): How to Identify and Characterize?

[NJGeorge]

Update: “WB-06” beer is still fermenting, albeit slowly now and I’m a little worried it’s not going to fully attenuate. First sample on day 2 was straight juicy fruit gum. I’ve never experienced that taste/aroma in fermenting beer. I know it’s been a prominent descriptor of TH beers aroma (or used to be before the production got even bigger). There are no phenols present that I can tell. That “juicy fruit” character has faded a bit and hops are starting to come through a bit more.

I’m wondering if this is some sort of POF- wine yeast. Based on how the PCR looks and what we know from the yeast genome study the likelihood of this being a wine or wine like yeast is quite high. Or higher than other yeasts. It’s definitely not WB-06, nor does it seem to be wlp644.

Anyone ever fermented a hoppy beer with 71B wine yeast? I’ve used K1v-1116 before but never 71B.

How’s your beer doing? I’m so interested now in trying 71B.

 

[HopsAreGood]

How’s your beer doing? I’m so interested now in trying 71B.

If you were to try the 71B, how would you do it? A certain % of s-04 and a certain % of 71B? Mix together and pitch at the same time?

 

[NJGeorge]

If you were to try the 71B, how would you do it? A certain % of s-04 and a certain % of 71B? Mix together and pitch at the same time?

Listen to that podcast. You can blend those yeast or do two separate batches and blend them at the end.

 

[HopsAreGood]

So after listening to this I’m definitely interested in trying out 71B as well. He suggests, or at least alludes to, a brewery that uses 70% beer yeast and 30% 71B, pitching them together. This seems simple enough to do with s-04/71B and I think i’m Definitely going to give it a go.

 

[TheHairyHop]

You may have just been speaking generically or about the differences between the reddit thread and this one, but 3-5 different TH cans were tested. Always had the same profiles popping up.

@Clyde McCoy said he was going to pick up the torch, would be interesting to screen something like Bells 2 Hearted.

I was referring to the difference in results between the two different testers. I did miss where 3-5 cans were tested.

It does seem that something similar to a control could help the deduction process. Since Bells uses a house yeast, I don't know if that would be the best example. But, I do think it's a start.

 

[isomerization]

I was referring to the difference in results between the two different testers. I did miss where 3-5 cans were tested.

It does seem that something similar to a control could help the deduction process. Since Bells uses a house yeast, I don't know if that would be the best example. But, I do think it's a start.

They sell their house yeast: Imperial Yeast A62 Bell's House Yeast

Looks like it’s sold out for now though.

 

[couchsending]

Bell’s yeast is also available through The Yeast Bay... It’s incredibly clean. Floccs better than Chico. More similar to 1272 it seems.

So as expected whatever yeast I used only got down to 1.022. I mashed at 148 for 75 minutes in hopes of preventing that as much as possible but to no avail. I tried adding 2g of SO4 but that didn’t seem to do much.

So I just did a dry hop charge of the hops that I’ve heard can be the biggest Hop Creep perpetrators. Amarillo, Centennial, El Dorado, Mosaic. 9oz total somewhat split evenly. Gonna give it 4 days to see if I can get closer to 1.016 hopefully. For some reason I doubt it but we’ll see.

 

[brewpharm Hill]

Bell’s yeast is also available through The Yeast Bay... It’s incredibly clean. Floccs better than Chico. More similar to 1272 it seems.

So as expected whatever yeast I used only got down to 1.022. I mashed at 148 for 75 minutes in hopes of preventing that as much as possible but to no avail. I tried adding 2g of SO4 but that didn’t seem to do much.

So I just did a dry hop charge of the hops that I’ve heard can be the biggest Hop Creep perpetrators. Amarillo, Centennial, El Dorado, Mosaic. 9oz total somewhat split evenly. Gonna give it 4 days to see if I can get closer to 1.016 hopefully. For some reason I doubt it but we’ll see.

Could it be the conditioning strain like F2 or CBC1? They don't ferment maltotriose if I remember correctly so likely wouldnt fully attenuate?

 

[TheHairyHop]

They sell their house yeast: Imperial Yeast A62 Bell's House Yeast

Looks like it’s sold out for now though.

I was intending to point out that it's not a dried yeast from the same supplier, therefore it wouldn't be a good check on purity. Knowing what commercial brewery supposedly uses just S-04 is the hurdle though

 

[HopsAreGood]

So after listening to this I’m definitely interested in trying out 71B as well. He suggests, or at least alludes to, a brewery that uses 70% beer yeast and 30% 71B, pitching them together. This seems simple enough to do with s-04/71B and I think i’m Definitely going to give it a go.

I just brewed an ipa and pitched 7grams of s-04 and 3grams of 71B. Very typical ipa that I brew all the time so hopefully I’ll be able to pick out anything different and or interesting the 71B is contributing. 1.072 OG.

 

[NJGeorge]

I just brewed an ipa and pitched 7grams of s-04 and 3grams of 71B. Very typical ipa that I brew all the time so hopefully I’ll be able to pick out anything different and or interesting the 71B is contributing. 1.072 OG.

View attachment 683308

Yes! What temp will you ferment at? I would try at 66.

 

[HopsAreGood]

Yes! What temp will you ferment at? I would try at 66.

I have it set at 64 right now, I’ll prob keep it there for a day or two then raise to 66 after the krausen starts to drop.

 

[IBRUTOO]

Could you take a bunch of tree house beers and add some sugar to make a usable culture of their yeast? IE take a haze (or several) add some DME or dextros and let it ride on a stir plate and add sugar to get enough yeast and then harvest the yeast for a fresh brew day?

I have a fridge full of haze and Julius that I may give it a shot if it could work...

 

[couchsending]

Could you take a bunch of tree house beers and add some sugar to make a usable culture of their yeast? IE take a haze (or several) add some DME or dextros and let it ride on a stir plate and add sugar to get enough yeast and then harvest the yeast for a fresh brew day?

I have a fridge full of haze and Julius that I may give it a shot if it could work...

You should start at the beginning of this thread... won’t take long to realize that won’t work very well

 

[isomerization]

Could you take a bunch of tree house beers and add some sugar to make a usable culture of their yeast? IE take a haze (or several) add some DME or dextros and let it ride on a stir plate and add sugar to get enough yeast and then harvest the yeast for a fresh brew day?

I have a fridge full of haze and Julius that I may give it a shot if it could work...

There appears to be a conditioning strain that kills/suppresses other yeast, so you’re likely to just end up with a culture of that.

I think those that have tried did not care for the result.

 

[Clyde McCoy]

1st attempt. Two colonies per strain. delta12–delta2 primers. Quick-Load 100 bp ladder. Will need to re-run WB-06 with the other strains.

 

[stickyfinger]

Cool! I just did a Pils wort with Lalvin D47 alone. I also added glycoamylase to the carboy. Cant wait to taste it. Maybe I’ll split it into two kegs and dry hop half, or not. Interesting test of wine yeast either way.

I just brewed an ipa and pitched 7grams of s-04 and 3grams of 71B. Very typical ipa that I brew all the time so hopefully I’ll be able to pick out anything different and or interesting the 71B is contributing. 1.072 OG.

View attachment 683308

 

[isomerization]

View attachment 683430

1st attempt. Two colonies per strain. delta12–delta2 primers. Quick-Load 100 bp ladder. Will need to re-run WB-06 with the other strains.

Going to run 2-3x longer and what was your load volume/well?

Looks pretty similar to what I had, nice job!

 

[isomerization]

I was intending to point out that it's not a dried yeast from the same supplier, therefore it wouldn't be a good check on purity. Knowing what commercial brewery supposedly uses just S-04 is the hurdle though

Gotcha, I didn’t realize you were thinking along that line (dry yeast contamination). I don’t think that’s very likely, at least at the scale we are going to pick up on.

My thinking was to see how “clean” this process would be using a commercial beer with a known yeast. Like, I’d you plated the dregs and PCR’d 10-20 colonies, would they all be identical?

 

[GRBC]

sorry, I don’t understand. What does this tell you?

View attachment 683430

1st attempt. Two colonies per strain. delta12–delta2 primers. Quick-Load 100 bp ladder. Will need to re-run WB-06 with the other strains.

 

[HopsAreGood]

sorry, I don’t understand. What does this tell you?

Agreed...I’ve been following this thread for quite a while and have a very good understanding of all the pertinent details so far. I get a bit lost though with all the scientific babble..I mean that in the nicest possible way.

 

[TheHairyHop]

Gotcha, I didn’t realize you were thinking along that line (dry yeast contamination). I don’t think that’s very likely, at least at the scale we are going to pick up on.

My thinking was to see how “clean” this process would be using a commercial beer with a known yeast. Like, I’d you plated the dregs and PCR’d 10-20 colonies, would they all be identical?

Hmm, yea. Both might be necessary in order to rule out any outside introduction. In the case you were talking about, yea, Bells might be a great example.

Apologies for the skepticism, being doubtful of a result is definitely the first reaction I have, probably because of the conservative nature of my field. I guess that I'm just stuck on the WB-06 being diastaticus. Maybe I'm ignorant, but how reliable would a killer yeast be at suppressing the growth of an STA-1 positive yeast? From my understanding and just familiarity with biology, I can't imagine it's a 100% success rate, yet after countless batches, I haven't heard of TH beers exploding, gushing, or even over carbonation. If a diastaticus yeast was being used, I would assume they'd centrifuge it out, but it's being found in bottles

 

[couchsending]

Based on what I’ve experienced there is no WB-06 in their beers

 

[Eltes]

Hmm, yea. Both might be necessary in order to rule out any outside introduction. In the case you were talking about, yea, Bells might be a great example.

Apologies for the skepticism, being doubtful of a result is definitely the first reaction I have, probably because of the conservative nature of my field. I guess that I'm just stuck on the WB-06 being diastaticus. Maybe I'm ignorant, but how reliable would a killer yeast be at suppressing the growth of an STA-1 positive yeast? From my understanding and just familiarity with biology, I can't imagine it's a 100% success rate, yet after countless batches, I haven't heard of TH beers exploding, gushing, or even over carbonation. If a diastaticus yeast was being used, I would assume they'd centrifuge it out, but it's being found in bottles

I listened to this webinar (https://www.edudip.com/en/webinar-recording/20e688bb-239f-4041-9683-4a0931acd761) from Fermtis the other week and at the end there was an off-topic question about diastaticus yeasts where the Fermentis guy giving the webinar remarked that diastaticus doesn't equal hyper attenuator. He explicitly gave WB06 as an example of a diastaticus yeast which is not hyper attenuating.

 

[TheHairyHop]

I listened to this webinar (https://www.edudip.com/en/webinar-recording/20e688bb-239f-4041-9683-4a0931acd761) from Fermtis the other week and at the end there was an off-topic question about diastaticus yeasts where the Fermentis guy giving the webinar remarked that diastaticus doesn't equal hyper attenuator. He explicitly gave WB06 as an example of a diastaticus yeast which is not hyper attenuating.

Very interesting. Thanks for the link!
EDIT: I can't get it to load, but it might just be Chrome

 

[Eltes]

I listened to this webinar (https://www.edudip.com/en/webinar-recording/20e688bb-239f-4041-9683-4a0931acd761) from Fermtis the other week and at the end there was an off-topic question about diastaticus yeasts where the Fermentis guy giving the webinar remarked that diastaticus doesn't equal hyper attenuator. He explicitly gave WB06 as an example of a diastaticus yeast which is not hyper attenuating.

Very interesting. Thanks for the link!
EDIT: I can't get it to load, but it might just be Chrome

Actually it seems they took down the recording again. Luckily I recorded it myself too. I uploaded the video here:
The password to watch it is "HomeBrewTalk".

 

[isomerization]

I listened to this webinar (https://www.edudip.com/en/webinar-recording/20e688bb-239f-4041-9683-4a0931acd761) from Fermtis the other week and at the end there was an off-topic question about diastaticus yeasts where the Fermentis guy giving the webinar remarked that diastaticus doesn't equal hyper attenuator. He explicitly gave WB06 as an example of a diastaticus yeast which is not hyper attenuating.

See this link: The mysteries of diastatic brewing yeast | Suregork Loves Beer

I didn’t see WB-06 mentioned, but I wonder just how actively expressed the STA-1 gene is for WB-06.

 

[suregork]

See this link: The mysteries of diastatic brewing yeast | Suregork Loves Beer

I didn’t see WB-06 mentioned, but I wonder just how actively expressed the STA-1 gene is for WB-06.

WB-06 has the deletion in the STA1 promoter, so STA1 is not expressed very actively. It can still ferment dextrins, but it happens very slowly.

 

[GRBC]

sorry, I don’t understand. What does this tell you?

My best guess is it means you took a slurry of s04, t58 & wb06, streaked then onto Plates, took two colonies of each and compared the DNA markers. S04 & T58 appears to be the same and the wb06 is unreadable. Is that right? If so, I guess it’s. “Duh!” from me. Of course two colonies of yeast from the same packet are identical! What did you expect?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

My best guess is it means you took a slurry of s04, t58 & wb06, streaked then onto Plates, took two colonies of each and compared the DNA markers. S04 & T58 appears to be the same and the wb06 is unreadable. Is that right?

Pretty much, if you mean slurries of each strain grown separately, grown on separate plates.

If so, I guess it’s. “Duh!” from me. Of course two colonies of yeast from the same packet are identical! What did you expect?

It's not duh at all. It's proving two things haven't happened :

1) Contamination of the PCR - which does happen, although it's less of the problem for colony PCR like this where there's many copies of the target DNA. It's a real problem if you are eg looking for a few copies of virus genetic material in a messy sample of eg human blood or sputum. Control samples are always good.

2) It's not at all obvious that "two colonies of yeast from the same packet are identical" - in fact there's quite a bit of evidence that in the past dry yeast have not been particularly pure - back in 2014 Chris Giles of Surebrew was reporting finding up to 5 strains in US-05 (probably just flocculation mutants) and there were dark rumours about the purity of US-05 among some commercial brewers in 2017-18. Chris also suggested that Notty was 70% lager yeast and Ed Wray found strains in Notty that grew differently on WLN medium but both grew at 37C (traditional test of ale vs lager yeast).

So no, it's not obvious that one would necessarily find that the banding is the same because "two colonies of yeast from the same packet are identical". Although my personal suspicion is that after the lawsuits over diastatic contamination, all yeast companies probably cleaned up their production strains, so it may not be possible to reproduce the above results with modern US-05 and Notty. Still worth looking at a bunch of colonies though - even better if one could find some "old" Notty in a cupboard somewhere.

Me, I've just got a bit of a crush on how pretty those ladders are, having used old-school plasmid digests for ladders back in the day...