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

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T58 - Pitched and fermented at 25degs, heavy dry hop produces an intensely fruity and tangy beer. Minimal spice. It does throw some sulphur but by day 5-6 it has gone. I can't say it simpler than that really. I'm sure it's also a great yeast to can/keg/bright tank condition/carbonate too...but so are many many other strains. It also produces a beer with a lovely creamy thick mouthfeel.

I would suggest trying the above before making any conclusions regarding primary fermentation yeasts.

I still stand by my 'spunding' for 'natural carbonation' proclamations. It is common practice to dry hop and cap to achieve some CO2 dissolution and then to finish off through force carbonation.

The S-04/T58 50/50 beer I recently made is a mango and pineapple bomb with slight spice, tangy finish, huge murk, slight bubblegum.
 
I brewed a session ipa batch yesterday featuring centennial/cascade/simcoe. OG 1.044. I did not oxygenate the wort. I did not use any fining agents. I treated the mash with chloride only. Mash of 150 for 60 minutes at a ph of 5.2. Grist of pilsner, carafoam, and 2% honey malt.

At the time of pitching I added half of my dry hops.

I direct pitched the equivalent of 1 sachet by weight consisting of 50% US04, 25% T58, 25% S33. Fermenting at ambient temperatures in my home with the AC on. After about 5 hours, the entire house smells like a tropical oasis. Peach, banana, gooey fruit, insert ambiguous fruit descriptor.

Updates to follow.
 
S - 33 was a red square 'hunch'. So far it is not a Treehouse yeast. It does appear in the right hands to throw some pleasant fruity esters though.

Ruckusz28 - Can't wait to see how that one finishes up! Any idea what temp it's at?
 
TheHairyHop said:
Was S-33 pegged as being in a Tree house culture? I may have missed that bit
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As StinkyBeer mentioned, it does not appear to be one of the 4 yeasts. My current hypothesis is that the red square could be a strain added after the initial pitch (something like F-2), which could account for the higher ratio we see with this strain. The primary dry yeasts would then be S-04, T-58 and WB-06. Needs to be tested though.
 
Word. Thanks. This thread is especially hard to follow on mobile haha. I have a NEIPA that I fermented with 1318 as a test of my new system. A 50/50 of T-58 and S-04 is my next move. Unfortunately, I no longer have temp control for fermentation. I'll be sure to add to the reports
 
TheHairyHop said:
Word. Thanks. This thread is especially hard to follow on mobile haha. I have a NEIPA that I fermented with 1318 as a test of my new system. A 50/50 of T-58 and S-04 is my next move. Unfortunately, I no longer have temp control for fermentation. I'll be sure to add to the reports
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Well the advice with that yeast combo is to ferment at 25 C, which is around 77 F, so I think you're ok w/o temp control!
 
couchsending said:
The T-58 is either for natural carbonation or has to be blended in after ferment. I have a hard time believing that they would be copitching yeasts that benefit from such wide range of ferm temps. T-58 fermented cold is definitely spicy and while I've never tried S-04 warm everything I've read says it gets really messy. Maybe start the ferment wit T-58 and when it stalls (which it notoriously will) pitch in some S-04 at a lower temp to finish it out. Not sure if droppin the temp would produced Diacetyl or not and if it did would the S-04 clean it up...

I'm convinced that both HF and Treehouse naturally carbonate their beers. I just don't think there is any way you can get that soft feel without it. Everyone thinks it's not good for hoppy beers but that usually refers to bottle conditioning. In a keg (or bright tank) it makes much more sense and if you think about it, it pulls any available oxygen out of the beer. I've got two beers on tap now. One fermented with 007 and then naturally carbonated with T-58 and dextrose. The other one is 75% S-04 and 25% T-58 then naturally carbonated with bagged hops in the keg. Just used Dextrose for carbonation and it didn't quite get there. Next round I'm going to try carbonating with highly hopped Gyle and T-58 to see affect that might have on the aroma...

I also built up some HF yeast harvested from a growler of S&S9. Willing to bet there are a few different yeasts in there too. It's doesn't smell as phenolic as the starter I built from the growler of Sap but it has a distinct Saison aroma to it. Pitched it in a 5g batch of fresh 2017 Galaxy hopped IPA this afternoon. Interested to see what happens.

One other suggestion I might have for the mystery yeast is 1450. Whatever was in that Sap harvest produced the thickest mouthfeel Of any beer I've ever made. Nothing I did was different than normal and I've never had that type of mouthfeel in any beer I've made even a 158 mashed 1.024 FG Porter. FG of that beer was 1.016. One of the biggest descriptors of 1450 is mouthfeel.
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Mind sharing your carbonation technique? How much t-58 do you add? How much sugar, can you do it without a spunding valve?

Also – Did you note any differences between 007 and S-04?
 
Ruckusz28 said:
I brewed a session ipa batch yesterday featuring centennial/cascade/simcoe. OG 1.044. I did not oxygenate the wort. I did not use any fining agents. I treated the mash with chloride only. Mash of 150 for 60 minutes at a ph of 5.2. Grist of pilsner, carafoam, and 2% honey malt.

At the time of pitching I added half of my dry hops.

I direct pitched the equivalent of 1 sachet by weight consisting of 50% US04, 25% T58, 25% S33. Fermenting at ambient temperatures in my home with the AC on. After about 5 hours, the entire house smells like a tropical oasis. Peach, banana, gooey fruit, insert ambiguous fruit descriptor.

Updates to follow.
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Did you rehydrate or sprinkle in?
 
@Melville

007 is quite different than us04. I recently did a side-by-side comparison on a Old Ale period one half of the batch using 007 and the other half using us 04. The batch using 007 is much thinner dryer and allows more of the roasty flavors to come through. The batch using Uso for is a little sweeter has a better mouth feel and has all kinds of vanilla toffee caramel notes. I'm not saying that one is better than the other, however I am saying that they are very different and I do prefer us 04.
 
skibb said:
I highly doubt they are naturally carbonating their IPAs - I'm not sure any brewery would want their fresh/hoppy beer 'aging' just to get carbonation into it. I've never heard or met any brewery who naturally carbonates their super hoppy IPAs.
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Several breweries within the NE-style dry hop under pressure, so my guess would be that they carb it at the same time as they do that.
 
Took a gravity reading this a.m. (still under 48 hours of fermentation) and the 50:30:20 combo has brought things down from 1.068 to 1.022. Smells nice, I do get a bit of something saison-y in there when tasting it. First round of dry hops going in.
 
Is anyone interested in asking TreeHouseNate on Twitter whether they blend their yeast pre-pitch or post fermentation? He seems to respond to a lot of questions, so his answer might be helpful.
 
I blended pre pitch, but multi step yeast additions during fermentation do make more sense IMO. Timing and temperature for each variety and addition become individually manipulatable. Temperature being most important in coaxing out the desired esters and suppressing the undesirable.
 
Ruckusz28 said:
I blended pre pitch, but multi step yeast additions during fermentation do make more sense IMO. Timing and temperature for each variety and addition become individually manipulatable. Temperature being most important in coaxing out the desired esters and suppressing the undesirable.
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They also become more difficult to reproduce! Or do we think that on a commercial scale, fermentation will proceed in equivalent fashion, say down to the hour, if all variables are kept the same from batch to batch?
 
I suppose that all depends. For me, I would measure the amounts of yeast and contribute them to the batch when the beer hits landmarks such as gravity or time. Gravity would be the best indicator IMO. As long as its the same recipe and equipment, I'd imagine things to be fairly direct to replicate as long as you have consistent measurement and monitoring practices in place.
 
Ruckusz28 said:
I suppose that all depends. For me, I would measure the amounts of yeast and contribute them to the batch when the beer hits landmarks such as gravity or time. Gravity would be the best indicator IMO. As long as its the same recipe and equipment, I'd imagine things to be fairly direct to replicate as long as you have consistent measurement and monitoring practices in place.
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It seems... counterintuitive to give successive yeast strains a crack at wort/beer with less and less to sugar to work with. In my mind I would think esters and phenolics would be a byproduct of conversion, the more there is to convert the more esters etc. (I have no idea if this is actually how it works.)

This is sort of what makes me so suspicious of T-58 as anything other than a carbonation strain.
 
The way I see it, is there are 3 (plausible) options here to end up with 4 different yeast strains in the bottom of TH cans.

1.) Yeasts are pitched into the same wort at controlled ratios
2.) Individual yeast strains are used to ferment various volumes of (the same?) wort and blended in a bright tank
3.) Yeasts are added at various times in the process, could be as either Strasser or Melville describe (e.g. staggered during primary or in the bright tank to help carbonate)

RE ester generation, its always been my understanding that esters/phenols are most abundantly generated during yeast propagation. This is why temp control within the first few days is so important, and also why you can use WY3711 to finish off difficult fermentations and not end up with a saison.
 
This is a crazy interesting thread. I look forward to seeing it progress.

I have heard that Nate From TH is crazy detail oriented, and meticulous about making sure everything is done the same every time. (so the opposite of me). That may or may not lend some credit to the idea of yeast being added at different times if he's gotten to the point of controlling what goes into fermenters and knows where in the fermentation process they are.

but at the same time, it's easier to control things with less moving parts. So trying to add different yeast mid fermentation just seems to be asking for variation.
 
WestumHjemmebryggeri said:
Several breweries within the NE-style dry hop under pressure, so my guess would be that they carb it at the same time as they do that.
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As stated in my follow up post I was referring to adding a bottling/conditioning yeast strain and carbonating that way. They may carbonate completely with spundigs and high-pressure rated tanks - might have to take a tour to find that out.

I do the same kind of half-way carbonation at my brewery: "Capping a fermenter after dry-hopping while fermentation finishes (something I personally do) does end up providing close to 1.5 volumes of CO2 in my beer. I then cold crash and force carbonate."
 
skibb said:
As stated in my follow up post I was referring to adding a bottling/conditioning yeast strain and carbonating that way. They may carbonate completely with spundigs and high-pressure rated tanks - might have to take a tour to find that out.

I do the same kind of half-way carbonation at my brewery: "Capping a fermenter after dry-hopping while fermentation finishes (something I personally do) does end up providing close to 1.5 volumes of CO2 in my beer. I then cold crash and force carbonate."
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No tours at tree house. It's show up, get in line, buy your beer, and get out. However the brewery is within full view while inside. You'd have to know what you're looking for. View is generally this. Far right are the kettles cropped out, and far left is generally obstructed by the canning line.

Tree-House-Brewing-600x343.jpg


New brewery opening soon too.
 
melville said:
Took a gravity reading this a.m. (still under 48 hours of fermentation) and the 50:30:20 combo has brought things down from 1.068 to 1.022. Smells nice, I do get a bit of something saison-y in there when tasting it. First round of dry hops going in.
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Another gravity reading (I swear I'm not normally like this, just curious how things are going). Now at 1.015 at just under 3 days so easily on target for 1.013 I think. One unusual aspect is that the trub is well over the spigot on the Speidel, that hasn't happened before. Smells fruity and tastes fruity (its galaxy, citra, and motueka, so yeah...), spicy but hop spicy, not yeast spice. Don't get that Saison-y thing now. Does seem a bit hot ABV-wise, but again that could be the hops.
 
melville said:
Another gravity reading (I swear I'm not normally like this, just curious how things are going). Now at 1.015 at just under 3 days so easily on target for 1.013 I think. One unusual aspect is that the trub is well over the spigot on the Speidel, that hasn't happened before. Smells fruity and tastes fruity (its galaxy, citra, and motueka, so yeah...), spicy but hop spicy, not yeast spice. Don't get that Saison-y thing now. Does seem a bit hot ABV-wise, but again that could be the hops.
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Did you say what fermentation temp? Are you going to spund? And any banana notes from the WB-06?
 
I have read most of this thread at this point. Has anyone considered that the T-58 may be added to the beer in small quantities to discourage people from propping up the yeast at home? I propped a bottle of everett a few years ago and it was awful. I could see using a blend of 05 and 04 or something to produce specific results, but this ratio conspiracy seems a little insane. I know people think there is some magic going on down there, but blending multiple dry yeast strains seems like a stretch.
 
it's far less of a stretch than throwing in T-58 to throw us off from propagating S-04 and one other strain. T-58 also doesn't have the best attenuation.
 
Today after work I'll be taking a gravity reading and a sample. It's been 4 days. With an OG of 1.062 it's probably finished and should be cleaned up. If all things are go, I'll rack to the dry hop keg, pressurize, and chill. I estimate transferring to the serving keg Friday and hitting my belly on Saturday.

For the record, here's my recipe. Yes - I know there are no flaked anythings.


Ball & Chain Pale Ale
Author: Mike Strasser
Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: American Pale Ale
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 3.5 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 5 gallons

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.062
Final Gravity: 1.014
ABV (standard): 6.28%
IBU (tinseth): 73.31
SRM (morey): 5.76

FERMENTABLES:
7 lb - German - Pilsner (84.8%)
0.75 lb - American - Carapils (Dextrine Malt) (9.1%)
0.5 lb - Canadian - Honey Malt (6.1%)

HOPS:
0.5 oz - Centennial, Type: Pellet, AA: 10, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 29.87
0.5 oz - Cascade, Type: Pellet, AA: 7, Use: Aroma for 5 min, IBU: 4.17
2 oz - Cascade, Type: Pellet, AA: 7, Use: Whirlpool for 20 min at 170 °F, IBU: 14.98
1 oz - Centennial, Type: Pellet, AA: 10, Use: Whirlpool for 20 min at 170 °F, IBU: 10.7
1 oz - Simcoe, Type: Pellet, AA: 12.7, Use: Whirlpool for 20 min at 170 °F, IBU: 13.59
1 oz - Simcoe , Type: Pellet, AA: 11, Use: Dry Hop for 7 days
1 oz - Cascade, Type: Pellet, AA: 7, Use: Dry Hop for 7 days
1 oz - Centennial, Type: Pellet, AA: 10, Use: Dry Hop for 7 days
2 oz - Simcoe , Type: Pellet, AA: 11, Use: Dry Hop for 3 days
1 oz - Centennial, Type: Pellet, AA: 10, Use: Dry Hop for 3 days

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Infusion, Temp: 150 F, Time: 60 min
FULL VOLUME MASH - NO SPARGE

OTHER INGREDIENTS:
1 tsp - Calcium chloride , Time: 1 min, Type: Water Agt, Use: Mash
1 tsp - yeast nutrient, Time: 15 min, Type: Other, Use: Boil

YEAST:
Fermentis / Safale - English Ale Yeast S-04 (50% composition)
Starter: No
Form: Dry
Attenuation (avg): 75%
Flocculation: High
Optimum Temp: 54 - 77 F
Fermentation Temp: 70 F (ambient first floor - carboy heater not working)
Additional Yeast: T56 (25% composition) w33 (25% composition)
 
mosaicbrewer said:
I have read most of this thread at this point. Has anyone considered that the T-58 may be added to the beer in small quantities to discourage people from propping up the yeast at home? I propped a bottle of everett a few years ago and it was awful. I could see using a blend of 05 and 04 or something to produce specific results, but this ratio conspiracy seems a little insane. I know people think there is some magic going on down there, but blending multiple dry yeast strains seems like a stretch.
Click to expand...

At the rate they're pumping out beer, I kind of doubt they're doing anything to sabotage. They'll literally be selling beer as it's coming off the canning line.

What's the simpler explanation? That they're purposely sabotaging their beer at the risk of changing it so that a few home brewers won't build up their yeast? Or that they are using a yeast blend, which is something that a lot of breweries do?
 
mosaicbrewer said:
I have read most of this thread at this point. Has anyone considered that the T-58 may be added to the beer in small quantities to discourage people from propping up the yeast at home? I propped a bottle of everett a few years ago and it was awful. I could see using a blend of 05 and 04 or something to produce specific results, but this ratio conspiracy seems a little insane. I know people think there is some magic going on down there, but blending multiple dry yeast strains seems like a stretch.
Click to expand...

First I would say nothing about this thread makes any sense, that's what makes it so fun. Still, your suggestion seems the least plausible, though it is still possible. We know they naturally carbonate, some brewers use T-58 to condition — for me it makes the most sense that T-58 is used in this regard. The only other definite match is S-04. That of course makes a bunch of sense as their primary yeast strain. Then we have two mysteries (one sort of resembles wb-06) — if we could nail these down maybe we'd have something that made more sense.

After reading a bit more on T-58, I've noticed many describe or complain about fusels/hotness/alchohol, and I feel like I picked up on that tasting the hydrometer sample, which only heightens my suspicion that it's more for carbing the beer. Of course I could go the other way — why add a yeast/priming sugar when it'd be easier to spund a fermenter.

Also given everything we've seen on Brulosophy — does any of this stuff make a difference? Would tasters notice a difference between S-04 and a S-04 mix? Some didn't even notice a difference between Conan and S-05.
 
Been doing a lot more scouring of the internets and a few more test batches with a lot more to come...

So the one yeast "looks" like S-04 however S-04 is supposedly the dry strain of whitbread 1098? People say it's the version of 1099 which is also 007 but it doesn't seem to get quite the same attenuation as 007 does it? Also one thing about S-04 is that it produces lactic acid and you get that slight twang from it, which I would assume is due to the lower PH? Got a beer in fermentor now with S-04 that is down to 4.19 PH. We know their beers generally have PH in the range of 4.5 (Haze sample I sent to Ward was 4.6). I've yet to measure a final beer after dry hopping. Will dry hopping up it that much? .3?

Also the other yeast "looks" like T-58 which is suppose to be dry DuPont? WLP-565. However could WLP-566 "look" similar? 566 is supposed to be more fruity than spicy/peppery. Also been reading a lot about 3711 and it's citrus/fruity characteristics at high temps (75-79). 3711 also happens to be the one of the highest (if not the highest) glycerol producing yeast strains available. To me one of the biggest areas where Treehouse separates itself is the mouthfeel of their beers. Everyone's knee jerk reaction to more mouthfeel is flaked adjuncts, Oats in particular but Nate has stated they aren't using any in any of their core beers. If you think about it blending in beer higher in glycerol and with some potential citrus/fruity esters is just going to potentially magnify the highly hopped base beer.

in the photos of the brewery those are small fermenters at the front closest to the area you purchase cans correct? Could those be used for fermenting smaller portions of the same wort that goes into the larger tanks with a different yeast?

You don't get as many highly ranked beers as they do by doing things the standard way. Sure a little hype helps but from my personal experience I don't think anyone comes close to matching the complete balance of their hoppy beers from aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, bitterness, etc. They only sell direct to consumer which gives them the ability to do different things than your average Brewery. They can take their time, only produce certain beers when it's optimal, etc. that's the beauty of their business model.
 
I'm WAY late to this thread party (and apologize in advance if I missed mention of this already as I admit skipping a couple pages). At any rate, I came across an interesting beer yeast identification project today and the associated results, protocols, etc. that they used - looks like it was just posted 8 or 9 days ago. These folks out of Switzerland sequenced the various yeasts and fungi found in 39 beers (Orval and 2 Chimay beers among them) and identified the species, if not strain, of what they found. The project is called BeerDeCoded and website is www.genome.beer

From Protocol document:

"ITS mapping analysis
We downloaded the curated set of ITS sequences from the Refseq database (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/refseq/targetedloci/). We used these sequences to build an ITS index for the Burrows-Wheeler Aligner. We used BWA to map the reads of each beers from the fastq files to our ITS index. Subsequently, we counted the number of ITS per beer and per species and we kept only the species where we found more than 10 reads. We used R statistical software in order to plot the results and to perform the hierarchical clustering analysis with the ape library. Finally, we compared our results with the user friendly pipeline of One Codex using their targeted loci analysis. "


At any rate, I found the project interesting and hope they continue on with what was originally a kickstarter funded project. I'll attach the results they posted here so folks can take a look. As an aside, I found all this while looking up various protocols and methods for identifying yeast and bacteria as it's been a long time since I played around with DNA identification in college. I just enlisted some PhD's that work mostly with wine to help me investigate the pros and cons of wild sour beer fermentation locations. Figured I should get more up to speed but I'm very glad I don't have to be the final lab expert in these areas! Hopefully this source helps or at least you folks find it mildly interesting.

Cheers!

Peter

View attachment beer_analysis of yeast varieties in 39 Belgian Beers.pdf
 
Just to clarify, S-04 is the Whitbread B strain (1098/007) and while it does produce more lactic acid than many yeasts, the amount is not enough to significantly change final beer pH. Moreover, T58 is very close to the Ardennes strain and is often recommended as a substitute for probrewers.

Per glycerol production, some yeasts do produce more, although a bigger impact on mouthfeel is residual sugar. TH beers often finish north of 1.012, sometimes around 1.015. That high FG would seem cloying, if not for a relatively high bittering charge.

Moreover, if TH is using blends of dried yeast, they are certainly not storing or reusing the yeast. The whole point of dry yeast in a production setting is that you don't need yeast storage or management equipment. And considering dry yeast mutates readily after one generation, it doesn't make sense to re use it.
 
bierhaus15 said:
Just to clarify, S-04 is the Whitbread B strain (1098/007) and while it does produce more lactic acid than many yeasts, the amount is not enough to significantly change final beer pH. Moreover, T58 is very close to the Ardennes strain and is often recommended as a substitute for probrewers.

Per glycerol production, some yeasts do produce more, although a bigger impact on mouthfeel is residual sugar. TH beers often finish north of 1.012, sometimes around 1.015. That high FG would seem cloying, if not for a relatively high bittering charge.

Moreover, if TH is using blends of dried yeast, they are certainly not storing or reusing the yeast. The whole point of dry yeast in a production setting is that you don't need yeast storage or management equipment. And considering dry yeast mutates readily after one generation, it doesn't make sense to re use it.
Click to expand...

I've made plenty of hoppy beers that finishes between 1.014 and 1.017 with over 100 theoretical IBUs and tons of dry hopping that don't have the mouthfeel I get from Treehouse beers.
 
***Red Square Update***

BOOM! I feel pretty confident that we have identified the 4th yeast that I've pulled out of TH dregs. I ran out of the previous DNA ladder I had been using, so the first two lanes are two different ladders, just FYI.

qxvtih.jpg


My current hypothesis is that they are using CBC-1 (or possibly Fermentis F-2, I couldn't get my hands on that yeast w/o paying through the nose for shipping from the UK) during the dry hop/spunding portion of fermentation. This would then imply that the other 3 yeasts (S-04, T-58 and WB-06 like strains) go into primary (separately or not is still a question).

Shout out to @StinkyBeer for the suggestion of trying the CBC-1/F-2 type strains, I don't think I would have gone down that route ($5 a piece!) w/o the suggestion.
 

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