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

[isomerization]

Someone previously mentioned dry hopping affecting final pH (didn't see it with a quick search of the last couple pages though), here is some data regarding the increase in pH that others have seen (e.g. Scott Janish's blog: http://scottjanish.com/increasing-bitterness-dry-hopping/): http://www2.uwstout.edu/content/lib/thesis/2014/2014schmickm.pdf

From the abstract (always read the abstract first!):
"Results showed that a mean pH increase of between pH 0.040 ± .003 and 0.056 ± 0.006 at a rate equivalent to 0.5 lb./bbl. of dry hops added. When adding dry hops equivalent to 3.0 lbs./bbl. there was a mean pH increase of pH 0.233 ± 0.022 and 0.332 ± 0.031. There was no significant correlation between the hop attributes analyzed and the increase in beer pH during dry hopping, and there was no significant correlation between the beer attributes analyzed and the increase in beer pH during dry hopping."

3 lb/bbl is just over 1.5 oz/gal, which I think a lot of us come close to (I'm a 1.2 oz/gal kind of guy myself).

 

[TheHairyHop]

Is anyone concerned about the fact that CBS-1 is considered to be a killer stain? This seems a bit incompatible with what we're seeing. Perhaps this explains the high ratio?

 

[skibb]

I am still trying to wrap my head around the timing of everything. We know Nate is very meticulous, so I doubt he would want to give up fermentation control by pitching everything into the same vessel. This would argue for what StinkyBeer is doing, blending separately fermented beers together. The different ratios could reflect the volumes blended, but these yeast are going to flocc differently too. So...

The high amount of CBC-1 we see, does suggest it is being added late in the process, but its not going to eat any simply sugars, so does that argue for a sugar/dry hop addition? Do other breweries naturally carb this way?

What I'm picturing now is, when fermentation is nearing the end they may crash the tank down to 60 F or so to promote some flocculation (lots of breweries do this before dry hopping), harvest/drop yeast and then dry hop + add CBC-1 + add sugar for carbonation. Some of the original strains from primary (SO-4/T-58/whatver) will still be floating around finishing up fermentation and will make it through to the end product.

That way the CBC starts fermenting the conditioning sugar while you develop the haze/mouth feel of beers dry hopped during active fermentation. Man I really wish I could get a better look at those tanks! Makes me wonder if they are adding the full amount of sugar to get to their finished CO2 volumes.

 

[isomerization]

Is anyone concerned about the fact that CBS-1 is considered to be a killer stain? This seems a bit incompatible with what we're seeing. Perhaps this explains the high ratio?

I'm glad you brought that up. I do have evidence that the red square strain takes over after several rounds of propagating the dregs. I am only going off memory (take better notes!) but I believe I allowed the TH Green dregs to propoagate in a small amount of YPD over the weekend (most of my samples are obtained during Friday happy hour). This would explain the skew towards CBC-1. This might explain others issues with continued pitching of TH dregs. Strasser might be able to comment more on this.

Now the question becomes, is this the IP protection/sabotage route everyone's mentioned OR is there a benefit here? To me, using WB-06 as the dry hop/natural carb yeast makes a lot of sense, as it's going to have sugar to eat after a S-04/T-58 ferment has finished.

 

[TheHairyHop]

They may be adding fresh wort instead of sugar. I've wondered if they pitch yeast, wort and massive dry hops into something attached to the fermenter, wait for the O2 to be consumed and then dump it into the already O2 purged vessel. It kind of goes along with my theory of gradual sugar additions that I think trillium could be doing. It's all hypothetical, but that's where my mind natural went when thinking about low O2

 

[skibb]

Well CBC-1 does ferment well and fast under high amounts of pressure, so for me, using that as the conditioning strain makes the most sense, especially if the are adding sugar/simple extract into the tank for it to consume (when they may also be adding the dry hop).

 

[couchsending]

If CBC-1 is a "killer" strain then then I doubt they are using it. There wouldn't have been any of other yeast to harvest at all...
The beer I made with dregs was very T-58 dominant. There wouldn't have been any T-58 if they used a killer strain to carbonate.

 

[TheHairyHop]

If CBC-1 is a "killer" strain then then I doubt they are using it. There wouldn't be any other yeast to harvest at all I believe.

did you see the genetic analysis?

 

[Ruckusz28]

I'm glad you brought that up. I do have evidence that the red square strain takes over after several rounds of propagating the dregs. I am only going off memory (take better notes!) but I believe I allowed the TH Green dregs to propoagate in a small amount of YPD over the weekend (most of my samples are obtained during Friday happy hour). This would explain the skew towards CBC-1. This might explain others issues with continued pitching of TH dregs. Strasser might be able to comment more on this.

Now the question becomes, is this the IP protection/sabotage route everyone's mentioned OR is there a benefit here? To me, using WB-06 as the dry hop/natural carb yeast makes a lot of sense, as it's going to have sugar to eat after a S-04/T-58 ferment has finished.

Dude, I've used several generations of TH dregs. I MAY have one vial left of Tree House and one of my Alchemist Conan. If I do, I'll send it to you to scope out.

The Tree House yeast kind of poops out after a while and will finish high. However if you're going to tag-in a new yeast, it may be exactly what you're looking for. I'd like to see somebody ferment solely with WB-06 on the high end of the temperatures threshold.

 

[couchsending]

did you see the genetic analysis?

Whoops missed that... I was under the assumption that the killer strains just anihilated everything.

 

[Ruckusz28]

Well CBC-1 does ferment well and fast under high amounts of pressure, so for me, using that as the conditioning strain makes the most sense, especially if the are adding sugar/simple extract into the tank for it to consume (when they may also be adding the dry hop).

I'm missing something. Why would they need to add sugar?

To me, it makes more sense to allow the beer to finish high (1.020 or so) using a less-attenuating yeast and then dry hop while adding in a higher attenuating yeast to take the beer down to 1.014 or so.

 

[skibb]

If they are adding a conditioning strain - especially one that only ferments simpler sugars (one and two chain), there should be no fermentable extract left in the beer after the primary strains are through with it because simpler sugars are consumed first as they require less energy to metabolize.

Also, adding sugar prolongs fermentation where you can possibly get biotransformation of hop oils and that classic NE haze.

As mentioned before some of these dry yeasts do not have the best attenuation, as in they do not ferment longer chain sugars easily, which leads these beers to have a more full mouth feel due to more residual sugars left behind. The picture I'm getting, is they are purposely going for lower attenuating yeasts because they want those longer chain sugars to come out on the other end of primary and secondary fermentation.

 

[melville]

If I knew why the heck they were using T-58 and WB-06, this could possibly make more sense.

S-04: Primary strain, the main workhorse. Probably goes in at the very beginning, probably under 70F.
WB-06: ?
T-58: Bubblegum? Doesn't clear. Also a conditioning strain.
CBC-1/F2: conditioning.

The whole thing just seems so random. Brewer loves Heady, Hill Farmstead, Sierra Nevada. Uses 4 dry fermentis yeasts.

 

[melville]

It will blow our collective minds when the HF analysis reveals they are also using the same 4 strains.

 

[Ruckusz28]

Not negating your idea (there are many different ways to do this), but the conditioning yeast of choice (particularly wb-06) would be perfectly capable of picking up where the lower attenuating yeasts would stop. I've done this before using a saison strain and had good results. @m00ps wrote an article on this and "new age" IPA probably a little over a year ago. I forget the title but it was published on the main page of HBT.

The whole "biotransformation" thing isn't something I buy in to. However, that's off-topic. Back to yeast.

 

[skibb]

I agree it would be - though I don't think they want a yeast to pick up where their primary yeasts stop... that is my point.

If there isn't any biotransformation (which I honestly do not know actually occurs), dry hopping during more active fermentation does produce significant haze. At least that has been my personal experience.

 

[isomerization]

Dude, I've used several generations of TH dregs. I MAY have one vial left of Tree House and one of my Alchemist Conan. If I do, I'll send it to you to scope out.

The Tree House yeast kind of poops out after a while and will finish high. However if you're going to tag-in a new yeast, it may be exactly what you're looking for. I'd like to see somebody ferment solely with WB-06 on the high end of the temperatures threshold.

Shoot me a PM if you'd like to send any yeast, and I will get you my mailing address.

I agree it would be - though I don't think they want a yeast to pick up where their primary yeasts stop... that is my point.

If there isn't any biotransformation (which I honestly do not know actually occurs), dry hopping during more active fermentation does produce significant haze. At least that has been my personal experience.

Why do you say that Skibb? I suppose its possible that they let WB-06 finish off the primary (where S-04/T-58 left off) and then add CBC-1 plus sugar (or wort) in the bright tank.

Does anyone think (or have seen pictures) that they might conduct primary under pressure the entire time? I have read that this would allow higher temps to be used, lower esters (maybe minimizing the "bad" kind) and higher glycerol production. There was a comment in the Scott Janish blog post I linked to above that mentioned Hill Farmstead does this...

 

[melville]

some interesting technical data from fermentis here:
http://www.seabrewasia.com/uploads/1/3/0/3/13033977/1._fermentis_yeast_selection.pdf

 

[skibb]

My thought is, if you are carbonating/ packaging you would want to add a yeast that is easily controlled, and not one that will over-ferment and over-carbonate the beer it is going into by eating more types sugars than you want it to.

A strain like CBC-1, where if added at the end and with simple priming sugar, should have less of a problem carbonating the beer under pressure do to its ability to ferment in stressful environments and its killer tendencies (to out compete the yeast already in solution). While at the same time, it will not eat the body contributing dextrins the lesser attenuating primary strains left behind.

All TH beers I've had share that fuller mouthfeel that I associate with dextrins and higher FG.

 

[StinkyBeer]

I've seen a video of a Treehouse blow off from one of their fermenters. Thing was going mad spitting out yeast all over the place!

 

[skibb]

StinkyBeer: If you can find a link I would love to see it!

A lot of videos I've seen where yeast is just shooting out is just after dry-hopping the beer during vigorous fermentation - all those hops create millions of nucleation points for the CO2 to just blast off. Curious if what's in the video is because of that.

 

[StinkyBeer]

[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QJW6k10JWP0[/ame]

9 mins in

 

[StinkyBeer]

I've had hop volcanoes before and that is fermentation in the video not a result of dry hopping. The most obvious reason being there doesn't seem to be any hop particles. That sludge would be green.

 

[couchsending]

Ok so what I don't get is what I've seen with the fermentation I did with the yeast I collected from the growler of Sap.

The last step of the yeast starter was very phenolic. Which is what I would associate with T-58. The beer I produced with what I harvested fermented down to 1.022 I believe. It was a rough clone of Swish but I mashed higher and used malted oats and no wheat, but plenty of sugar). The sample at 1.022 was super spicy, again indicating T-58 was at play. I bumped it up to 74 and roused the yeast with Co2 a few times and it wouldn't budge. Sooo I threw some harvested 1056 I had laying around and it brought it down to 1.015 I think... if there was CBC-1 in there none of that would have happened cause it would have killed all the other yeast and the 1056 wouldn't have worked. It could be that there was no CBC-1 in there because it was a growler??? But theoretically I think that would make less sense.

I'm still if the believe that most of the fermentation is conducted with S-04 maybe a blend of S-04 and WB-06 as they are generally similar primary fermentation temps. There is also a separate smaller batch of the same wort fermented with T-58 (or whatever it is) at higher temps. The two are then blended together to give the beer that added dimension of fruitiness and mouthfeel. Then it is naturally carbonated with CBC-1 or whatever.

Another though is instead of adding sugar with the carbonating yeast they could be adding heavily hopped Speise to the tank. That way they aren't adding even more hops during the natural carbonation stage.

The batch I'm fermenting with the yeast I harvested from an HF growler of S&S9 I pulled the last 1.5 quarts off and froze them with the idea that I would dry hop that batch once and then naturally carbonate it by adding yeast and the remaining Speise that I whirlpooled a ton of galaxy and Moteuka in. From what I've read it adds another layer of dimension to the finished beer and is quite different than dry hopping.

Also BTW Maine Beer Co naturally carbonates all their beers in the bottle. I've never had dinner but from the sounds of it it's a pretty good hoppy beer. Natural carbonation in a Bright tank would be much easier and maybe quicker as well?

 

[isomerization]

In my (literature) research on killer yeast strains, it appears that the RNA virus responsible for producing the toxin that kills other yeast can be cured by a couple different methods. It's possible that the TH CBC-1 like isolate could have been cured. I have legit CBC-1 and the TH isolate, if I have time I will try some co-culture experiments to see what happens. I agree though with what your saying, but maybe it's not a 100% kill efficiency over one generation?

 

[isomerization]

I won't be able to brew this for a couple weeks, but strategy will be as follows:

Brew 13 gallons using recipe very similar to Braufessor NE IPA with Citra/Amarillo/Columbus (2:2:1).

Split into 3 fermenters, 6 gallons getting 1318 and 3.5 gallons, 2 times, getting S-04 and T-58. Ferment at 68F (I always let it free rise after day 2) for 1318 and S-04 and 77F for T-58 (StinkyBeer style). Will keep track of gravities and pH. Active dry hopping will be done in all batches at appropriate ratios.

1318 batch will be kegged like normal, with 2nd dry hop in the keg. 2.5 gallon of each S-04 and T-58 beer will be combined in a corny and WB-06 plus the keg hop and a spunding valve will be added (at 72F), not sure how much WB-06 to add yet. I'm hoping enough sugar will be left to get me fully carbed. I cut my dip tubes short anyways, but if yeast/true is an issue, I can jump to a fresh keg. I'm not going to mess with the CBC-1 for now.

If anyone has a critique or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

 

[melville]

Is it still possible that cbc-1 is similar to F2, I mean everything else is fermentis here so...

 

[isomerization]

Is it still possible that cbc-1 is similar to F2, I mean everything else is fermentis here so...

That would be my suspicion too, but I don't know how "new" F-2 is in general. Like maybe it's new to us common folk, but pro brewers have had access for years?

I can't find it available stateside, but if anyone has some and wants to send it to me, I will test it.

 

[couchsending]

Looks like F-2 was launched in 2012 and I think you can get it through BSG??? Maybe a homebrew supply store can order it?

Fermentis doesn't mention anything about it being "killer"...

Sounds like you can achieve fermentation in a week (especially if there is already carbonation due to some spunding) and roundness of flavor in 2-3 weeks... who else thinks TH beers taste better with time? Nate even says he thinks so...

 

[TheHairyHop]

one of my takeaways from that video is that there isn't hop material in the blow off. So they either haven't added hops to the fermenter at that point, or there is a pre-filter for the blow off