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

[ThePaleAleIndian]

Just curious what are you guys finishing at for a FG? my last two batches finished dry at around 1.006 how can I increase the FG but not lose the ABV more grain? higher mash temp? longer mash? not sure what to do as the s-04 seems to blast through fermentation before the second dry hops are even in and leaves a dry beer

According to the spec sheets for the three yeasts WB-06 is the really attenuative one. IIRC S-04 and T-58 both have similar and not super high attenuation according to the spec sheets.

I would imagine lengthening a mash would go the wrong direction if you're trying to end up at a higher F.G. I have been mashing high with my attempts, 157F +. My last complete attempt was a co-pitch that was at something like 1.018 at packaging. Seemed to be done because carbonation was good (natural carb).

If you have room to bump up your mash temp I would try that. Increasing OG would probably work but of course that has side effects. What's your carafoam/caramel/crystal %? Could try increasing that if there's room there too.

 

[couchsending]

yeah WB-06 is the attenuator, definitely not S-04

Mash higher and shorter with more grain.

Longer mash gets you more fermentable wort.

 

[ThePaleAleIndian]

Just started chilling the blended batch down to serving temp. Should be able to post a full report this weekend!

 

[-Matteo-]

Fermentis just confirmed that WB-06 is a Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. diastaticus. They also said that both WB-06 and T-58 are POF+. This info was just pubilshed on Milk the Funk. Did anyone think about the possibility of a diastaticus contamination problem in their house yeast culture? (Would that explain the presence of WB-06 in such small quantities?)

 

[couchsending]

That’s good to know! Thanks for posting that. Definitely not going to be using any WB-06 ever again.

I wonder if maybe an original infection is where the presence of it came from and they liked it so kept it going? Maybe the CBC-1 is used to prevent the WB-06 from attenuating further? If you left a TH can out for a few weeks at room temp what would happen?

I have heard that Diastaticus can survive multiple rounds of acid and caustic in professional breweries.

 

[ThePaleAleIndian]

I don't know, I would lean towards thinking that WB-06 is in there intentionally. Based on my 100% WB-06 batch that I blended in with the bigger one, it seems to me like that's the strain responsible for the banana-bubblegum flavor that seems to get mentioned often and consistently. Seems like getting the ester profile without the clove phenolics from WB-06 (which IMHO is exactly what TH is doing) is pretty tricky without some major manipulation of yeast behavior, and if it's a contamination there's no manipulation going on.

If you look at post #180 by @isomerization, the colonies he found corresponded to 10% or more of WB-06 and T-58. That seems like more of a population than I would think a contamination would cause.

Just my two cents.

 

[-Matteo-]

(Sorry for the OT) but this beautiful episode from from MBAA podcast regards this yeast: http://masterbrewerspodcast.com/068-diastaticus-part-1 Can anyone tell me what is she saying at 19:14? I can't understand where did she find the diastaticus contamination: "then I went and looked..." ???

 

[chieftain]

Thanks for everyone's contributions to this endeavor. I utilized some of the recipes up-thread, and I confess I'm not thrilled with the results so far, but I believe they are a result of my flawed approach. I'm a big Tree House fan, so I'm going to keep plugging away.

Forgive the lack of nuanced tasting notes, but my chief complaints are that 1) the taste is a bit muddled, for lack of a better word, and lacks the velvety softness and "juiciness" of a TH beer; and 2) there is little to no hops aroma. I think the primary culprit is that I was too stinting with the hops - 5.25 oz in the boil/hopstand, and 7.5 oz split into 2 dry hops. I kept the boil/whirlpool numbers low because I was concerned about adding too much bitterness. Next time I'll add more to the whirlpool, and more to the dry hop. I'll also try to hit a lower ABV, since at 8.6% this one is a bit hot. Welcome everyone's feedback on grist/hops/yeast/process.

I fermented in a temp controlled keezer at 65 for 2 days, then 67 for another 5 before cold crashing and closed transfer to keg. It's only been on tap for 5 days, so it is still conditioning in the keg.

Here are the brew details:

Brew size - 6 gallon
OG - 1.076
FG - 1.011
ABV - 8.6%
Est. IBU - 58
Mash - 75 mins at 154F

Yeast blend -
S-04: 82% (14g)
T-58: 15% (2.55g)
WB-06: 3% (.5g)

Grist
12 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 5 69.4 %
3 lbs Carafoam (2.0 SRM) Grain 6 17.3 %
1 lbs 8.8 oz Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) Grain 7 9.0 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 8 2.9 %
4.0 oz Acid Malt (3.0 SRM) Grain 9 1.4 %

Water Prep (100% Distilled)
11.00 g Calcium Chloride
5.00 g Gypsum
5.00 g Salt
3.00 g Epsom Salt

Hops
0.25 oz Warrior [15.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min 10.5 IBUs
0.50 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min 11.8 IBUs
1.50 oz Galaxy [14.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min 11.7 IBUs
1.00 oz Amarillo [9.20 %] - Boil 5.0 min 5.1 IBUs
1.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min 6.7 IBUs
1.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 30.0 min 12.9 IBUs

3.00 oz Mosaic [12.25 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days
2.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days
2.50 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days

 

[ThePaleAleIndian]

Alright, I've been drinking the blended batch for a couple of days now, here's my full report.

Overall I think it's decent, although it's not the 90%-there knockout i was hoping it would be. It's fairly sweet, which is a little surprising, although I have a theory on that. However, the big thing I'm happy with is that it has the subtle banana-bubblegum thing that TH seems to have. I don't have any TH for a side by side right now, but from what I remember of Doppelganger the character is close. Big tropical fruit character as well. There are no phenolics of any kind. No clove at all, which is great. But none of that almost-pepper spice that TH has, so maybe I need to bump up the T-58? At any rate, I plan on continuing to experiment with the blending since I'm happy with the ester character this turned out. The color is paler than Doppelganger, although I think that's not super apparent from the pics because of the lighting.

Here is the recipe/process:

Small batch:
~3.5 quarts into primary.
O.G. 1.092, "F"G 1.035 (underattenuated due to temp control failure)
Ca 78 ppm, SO4 97 ppm, Cl 196 ppm, K 144 ppm, HCO3 12 ppm (filtered tapwater cut with distilled, then additions of KCl, gypsum, CaCl2)
93% Weyermann Pils
2.9% C10
3.9% Acidulated malt
Single infusion mash at 147F
Mash pH 4.94 (what can I say, I don't do 1 gal batches enough to have it dialed in)
2 oz Citra at flameout, 10 min hop stand
0.35 g WB-06, sprinkled dry into intentionally under-aerated wort, pitched at 77F, fermented at 78F ambient until Murphy's law cooled it quickly to 60F ish, hence the underattenuation.
No dry hops
I think the WB-06 underattenuating is the reason for the sweetness, since it is the big attenuator of the three strains. My theory is that it never reactivated, even after packaging.

Large batch:
5.5 gal into primary
O.G. 1.075, F.G. 1.017
Ca 75 ppm, SO4 101 ppm, Cl 201 ppm, K 161 ppm, HCO3 12 ppm (filtered tapwater cut with distilled, then additions of KCl, gypsum, CaCl2)
72.4% Weyermann Pils
20.7% Carafoam
3.5% C10
3.5% Acidulated malt
Intensified double decoction, sacch. rest at 157F, mashout at 177F
Mash pH 5.37
Sparge water pH 5.21
1 oz Mosaic at 5 min
6 oz Citra, 2 oz Amarillo, 1 oz Mosaic at flameout for a 15 min hop stand.
14 g S-04, 2.5 g T-58, rehydrated, pitched at 59F, fermented at 61F and ramped to 67F at 72 hours.
DH1: 2 oz each Mosaic, Citra, Amarillo at ~36 hours, loose in fermenter
DH2: 4 oz Citra, 2 oz Mosaic at ~72 hours, loose in fermenter
Keg hop: 4 oz Citra, 2 oz Mosaic again, loose in keg with dip tube filter.

Packaging: kegged with 2g CBC-1, keg hops and 12 oz gyle essentially canned on brew day from large batch. CO2 transferred both batches to keg. For the small batch, I used the method I described in post #1661. Conditioned at room temp for 12 days.

 

[couchsending]

May I ask why you brewed a separate little batch instead of just splitting a gallon off one big batch?

 

[ThePaleAleIndian]

May I ask why you brewed a separate little batch instead of just splitting a gallon off one big batch?

It was a combination of wanting to hit a certain gravity and wanting to stack the odds against clove phenolics. On my system, hitting that mid-70s OG with a single infusion mash means about 16 lb of grain, which even at a relatively thick 1.25 qt/lb is tough to manage for my process. I opted to decoction mash the large batch to gain efficiency and knock off a couple of pounds of grain and still get there. But that meant mashing in at low temp, which supposedly makes more ferulic acid, the precursor of the clove phenol, 4-VG. The boiling of grain can apparently also release more ferulic acid from the husks. So to stack the odds and give the WB-06 as little ferulic acid as possible, I decided to brew the small batch separately to give me more control over the wort composition.

There is definitely zero clove in the beer. I am tasting for it like it's my job and I don't get any at all, even being decently sensitive to it. Even though a 100% WB-06 batch accounts for about 15% of the blend. Of course, I can't be sure that jumping through the hoops of brewing the small batch separately was necessary. I may try splitting off a single wort in the future possibly, but this worked well enough.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Fermentis just confirmed that WB-06 is a Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. diastaticus. They also said that both WB-06 and T-58 are POF+. This info was just pubilshed on Milk the Funk. Did anyone think about the possibility of a diastaticus contamination problem in their house yeast culture? (Would that explain the presence of WB-06 in such small quantities?)

It's always possible, but experiments in this thread suggest that WB-06 or something like it is important to the taste. It's worth noting that although people treat diastaticus as a separate species, it's more just a marker for one (very obvious) gene. In human terms diastaticus is more like "redhead" or "blue-eyed" rather than "gorilla" or "chimp".

As an aside, going back to the original PCRs, I'm not sure that TH are using WB-06. It's not a great picture, but although the gold star yeast is very similar to WB-06, there looks like a 230bp band has moved to 180bp. So maybe it's one of the other Fermentis yeasts, maybe Be-256? That MTF email omits Be-256 from the list of POF+ yeasts, which would help control the clove.

 

[couchsending]

@isomerization did you ever test the isolates against the dry yeast in a fermentation to see if the flavor profiles were the same?

I never ended up using the isolates you sent me... wonder if there is any viabile cells left...

 

[Turfgrass]

Has a possible grain bill been narrowed down any?

 

[HopVision]

@Northern_Brewer - One of the things that I read in an interview with Nate has always stuck out with me, "Nate Lanier: My a-ha beer was Rochefort 8. It blew my mind at the time, and I still love it today." Isn't that an abbey ale? You might be on to something. I mean he had to have either had a mentor or used the beers he loved as inspiration in creating his own. Tree House has never been the juiciest IPA IMHO, but it does have a very unique taste. If you look at the first reviews the beers like Julius and Alter Ego got on Ratebeer, people are talking about a onion/garlic note. It comes up several times. I don't know if I would classify it as such, but it does have musty/barnyard thing going on (obviously very slightly.)

 

[Northern_Brewer]

@Northern_Brewer - One of the things that I read in an interview with Nate has always stuck out with me, "Nate Lanier: My a-ha beer was Rochefort 8. It blew my mind at the time, and I still love it today." Isn't that an abbey ale? You might be on to something. I mean he had to have either had a mentor or used the beers he loved as inspiration in creating his own. Tree House has never been the juiciest IPA IMHO, but it does have a very unique taste. If you look at the first reviews the beers like Julius and Alter Ego got on Ratebeer, people are talking about a onion/garlic note. It comes up several times. I don't know if I would classify it as such, but it does have musty/barnyard thing going on (obviously very slightly.)

Rochefort's interesting as their yeast - or at least WLP540, which is meant to be their yeast - is completely unrelated to other Belgian yeasts. It's actually a POF- English yeast, most closely related to Ringwood/Hull but which has adapted to eg be more alcohol tolerant. But I doubt that means they're using WLP540 as such.

The oniony thing is nothing to do with yeast, it was a classic with Citra from 5-6 years ago, it seemed they took a while to work out when to harvest it. It's actually come back in the last couple of weeks, there's obviously some bad batches of Citra in the supply chain somewhere.

 

[HopVision]

Yeah, good call on the hops being the culprit. I remember people reporting the same with Mosaic which Alter Ego is heavy on. Also, Summit is known for the onion thing.

 

[TheHairyHop]

I get the dank onion from Green if it gets to above room temp. Absolutely nasty

 

[HopVision]

I also read somewhere that yeast aromas and flavors develop the most in the first 3 days. So maybe they pitch the slower strains first and on day three or at the end of day three pitch T-58 which is fast to ferment. That would give the T-58 less food to overtake the others.

 

[NJGeorge]

It's always possible, but experiments in this thread suggest that WB-06 or something like it is important to the taste. It's worth noting that although people treat diastaticus as a separate species, it's more just a marker for one (very obvious) gene. In human terms diastaticus is more like "redhead" or "blue-eyed" rather than "gorilla" or "chimp".

As an aside, going back to the original PCRs, I'm not sure that TH are using WB-06. It's not a great picture, but although the gold star yeast is very similar to WB-06, there looks like a 230bp band has moved to 180bp. So maybe it's one of the other Fermentis yeasts, maybe Be-256? That MTF email omits Be-256 from the list of POF+ yeasts, which would help control the clove.

After looking closer at those pics, you’re right. They do look different. Wonder if Nate’s seen this thread and is laughing lol Anyone know what other yeast are similar to wb-06?

 

[NJGeorge]

Alright, I've been drinking the blended batch for a couple of days now, here's my full report.

Overall I think it's decent, although it's not the 90%-there knockout i was hoping it would be. It's fairly sweet, which is a little surprising, although I have a theory on that. However, the big thing I'm happy with is that it has the subtle banana-bubblegum thing that TH seems to have. I don't have any TH for a side by side right now, but from what I remember of Doppelganger the character is close. Big tropical fruit character as well. There are no phenolics of any kind. No clove at all, which is great. But none of that almost-pepper spice that TH has, so maybe I need to bump up the T-58? At any rate, I plan on continuing to experiment with the blending since I'm happy with the ester character this turned out. The color is paler than Doppelganger, although I think that's not super apparent from the pics because of the lighting.

Here is the recipe/process:

Small batch:
~3.5 quarts into primary.
O.G. 1.092, "F"G 1.035 (underattenuated due to temp control failure)
Ca 78 ppm, SO4 97 ppm, Cl 196 ppm, K 144 ppm, HCO3 12 ppm (filtered tapwater cut with distilled, then additions of KCl, gypsum, CaCl2)
93% Weyermann Pils
2.9% C10
3.9% Acidulated malt
Single infusion mash at 147F
Mash pH 4.94 (what can I say, I don't do 1 gal batches enough to have it dialed in)
2 oz Citra at flameout, 10 min hop stand
0.35 g WB-06, sprinkled dry into intentionally under-aerated wort, pitched at 77F, fermented at 78F ambient until Murphy's law cooled it quickly to 60F ish, hence the underattenuation.
No dry hops
I think the WB-06 underattenuating is the reason for the sweetness, since it is the big attenuator of the three strains. My theory is that it never reactivated, even after packaging.

Large batch:
5.5 gal into primary
O.G. 1.075, F.G. 1.017
Ca 75 ppm, SO4 101 ppm, Cl 201 ppm, K 161 ppm, HCO3 12 ppm (filtered tapwater cut with distilled, then additions of KCl, gypsum, CaCl2)
72.4% Weyermann Pils
20.7% Carafoam
3.5% C10
3.5% Acidulated malt
Intensified double decoction, sacch. rest at 157F, mashout at 177F
Mash pH 5.37
Sparge water pH 5.21
1 oz Mosaic at 5 min
6 oz Citra, 2 oz Amarillo, 1 oz Mosaic at flameout for a 15 min hop stand.
14 g S-04, 2.5 g T-58, rehydrated, pitched at 59F, fermented at 61F and ramped to 67F at 72 hours.
DH1: 2 oz each Mosaic, Citra, Amarillo at ~36 hours, loose in fermenter
DH2: 4 oz Citra, 2 oz Mosaic at ~72 hours, loose in fermenter
Keg hop: 4 oz Citra, 2 oz Mosaic again, loose in keg with dip tube filter.

Packaging: kegged with 2g CBC-1, keg hops and 12 oz gyle essentially canned on brew day from large batch. CO2 transferred both batches to keg. For the small batch, I used the method I described in post #1661. Conditioned at room temp for 12 days.

View attachment 557723View attachment 557724

Sounds great! Thanks for this. So after trying both approaches (pitching the yeast ratios all at once, and blending separate fermrntations), which do you prefer and which is closest to the TH product?

 

[ThePaleAleIndian]

Sounds great! Thanks for this. So after trying both approaches (pitching the yeast ratios all at once, and blending separate fermrntations), which do you prefer and which is closest to the TH product?

Thanks man!

Hmm. I think this blended one is a little closer, given that it does have the subtle banana-bubblegum character going. I think that character is more subtle than in, say, a Doppelganger though. Process wise I think the blending opens some doors as far as ferment temp extremes. I mean, as it stands I'm not convinced either way as far as what they're doing, blending or copitching. In my mind it's still possible that they are doing either. Especially if we're starting to question whether WB-06 is in the mix at all. But I will say the ester character is definitely altered toward the banana-bubblegum with my blended batch, which is no big surprise I guess. I don't know, I think there's room for experimentation with the separate ferment blending and I plan to continue to do it for a couple more attempts at least.

The big thing that it's missing is the TH subtle spice thing. I feel like that's such a big part of the flavor profile, and none of my attempts have had it. So here's what I'm thinking for that. I know @melville is a lot farther along than me on upping the T-58. But I kind of feel like if we're not getting the subtle TH spice character at 15%, then 20% is not going to be hugely different. But @melville had a theory that the character could come from hops or hop extract. I have sometimes felt that the hop character I get from TH is a lot like fresh wort, which makes me want to experiment with priming using rehopped canned gyle from brew day.

On another note, I think it's possible that they are adjusting the pH of their finished beer, to make for a more "round" profile and balance the tartness of the S-04. That's something else i want to experiment with.

 

[suregork]

It's always possible, but experiments in this thread suggest that WB-06 or something like it is important to the taste. It's worth noting that although people treat diastaticus as a separate species, it's more just a marker for one (very obvious) gene. In human terms diastaticus is more like "redhead" or "blue-eyed" rather than "gorilla" or "chimp".

As an aside, going back to the original PCRs, I'm not sure that TH are using WB-06. It's not a great picture, but although the gold star yeast is very similar to WB-06, there looks like a 230bp band has moved to 180bp. So maybe it's one of the other Fermentis yeasts, maybe Be-256? That MTF email omits Be-256 from the list of POF+ yeasts, which would help control the clove.

After looking closer at those pics, you’re right. They do look different. Wonder if Nate’s seen this thread and is laughing lol Anyone know what other yeast are similar to wb-06?

One group of strains that seem to be genetically quite close to the German wheat beer yeasts, meaning they would yield similar fingerprints, are the lager yeasts (see here). Looking closer at the fingerprints of S-23 and W-34/70 (lanes 14 and 16), it looks like they could be a match for the 'gold star' isolate which people have presumed are WB-06. However, the gel is quite poor quality so it is difficult to tell.

 

[NJGeorge]

Thanks man!

Hmm. I think this blended one is a little closer, given that it does have the subtle banana-bubblegum character going. I think that character is more subtle than in, say, a Doppelganger though. Process wise I think the blending opens some doors as far as ferment temp extremes. I mean, as it stands I'm not convinced either way as far as what they're doing, blending or copitching. In my mind it's still possible that they are doing either. Especially if we're starting to question whether WB-06 is in the mix at all. But I will say the ester character is definitely altered toward the banana-bubblegum with my blended batch, which is no big surprise I guess. I don't know, I think there's room for experimentation with the separate ferment blending and I plan to continue to do it for a couple more attempts at least.

The big thing that it's missing is the TH subtle spice thing. I feel like that's such a big part of the flavor profile, and none of my attempts have had it. So here's what I'm thinking for that. I know @melville is a lot farther along than me on upping the T-58. But I kind of feel like if we're not getting the subtle TH spice character at 15%, then 20% is not going to be hugely different. But @melville had a theory that the character could come from hops or hop extract. I have sometimes felt that the hop character I get from TH is a lot like fresh wort, which makes me want to experiment with priming using rehopped canned gyle from brew day.

On another note, I think it's possible that they are adjusting the pH of their finished beer, to make for a more "round" profile and balance the tartness of the S-04. That's something else i want to experiment with.

This! I've felt the same way and is one of the reasons their beer has been very unique to me. Maybe its the hop shots, or hoppy gyle, IDK. Need to experiment with those. Have you guys tried Equilibrium beers? I've felt they have a close flavor profile to TH. It has that taste.. Could it be they are using similar yeast or what is mentioned above.. I feel like out of all the beers I've tried out there, TH, EQ and Trill all fall into a similar category (for me). Maybe they're using a similar process? Water adjustments? Hopping techniques? Who knows, back to the drawing board.

 

[TheHairyHop]

I just tapped my single hop Cashmere beer, and the mouthfeel is wonderfully silky and creamy. I do think it's possible that the body of TH beers is derived from hop usage

 

[couchsending]

I just tapped my single hop Cashmere beer, and the mouthfeel is wonderfully silky and creamy. I do think it's possible that the body of TH beers is derived from hop usage

In what way

 

[TheHairyHop]

I couldn't make any conclusive statements based off of this other than: I've made this same recipe ~10 times, each time with a different hop, and the mouthfeel on the Cashmere one stands apart from the rest. It's not a perfect experiment, but here I can make a preliminary conclusion that a particular hop strain has made an effect on the mouthfeel in a positive way

 

[melville]

I couldn't make any conclusive statements based off of this other than: I've made this same recipe ~10 times, each time with a different hop, and the mouthfeel on the Cashmere one stands apart from the rest. It's not a perfect experiment, but here I can make a preliminary conclusion that a particular hop strain has made an effect on the mouthfeel in a positive way

My current is mostly Galaxy and Cashmere (with lactose and vanilla). Would use again.

 

[Sbe2]

I couldn't make any conclusive statements based off of this other than: I've made this same recipe ~10 times, each time with a different hop, and the mouthfeel on the Cashmere one stands apart from the rest. It's not a perfect experiment, but here I can make a preliminary conclusion that a particular hop strain has made an effect on the mouthfeel in a positive way

What flavors/aroma are u getting from cashmere?

 

[TheHairyHop]

It's kind of like FF and Loral mixed together, but with the pine replaced by coconut. Generic fruit, some noble herb, that coconut, and an overall fruitiness that is very pleasant

 

[robopp]

I bought a ton of Tree House beer the last couple of days and as a result have been drinking a ton of Tree House beer the last couple of days. The thing that strikes me is how sweet all their beers are. They’re almost syrupy tasting. I get almost no clove or spice except on the very finish of a sip. To be honest, they all taste very similar too. This is comparing Julius, Alter, In Perpetuity and Sssapp. The only thing I’m confident a about is that my three yeast blend clone is no where near correct.

 

[melville]

I bought a ton of Tree House beer the last couple of days and as a result have been drinking a ton of Tree House beer the last couple of days. The thing that strikes me is how sweet all their beers are. They’re almost syrupy tasting. I get almost no clove or spice except on the very finish of a sip. To be honest, they all taste very similar too. This is comparing Julius, Alter, In Perpetuity and Sssapp. The only thing I’m confident a about is that my three yeast blend clone is no where near correct.

Same for me. Sweetness always higher than mine, the "magic" is at the very tail end of the finish.

 

[melville]

C20 sweetness, C40, both, or a sweet malt mixed with rahr 2-row, like rahr's pale malt. Never tried it myself because they don't carry at the places I order from. But its darker color and theoretical sweetness make sense in a beer like Julius, AE, etc.

 

[ThePaleAleIndian]

I bought a ton of Tree House beer the last couple of days and as a result have been drinking a ton of Tree House beer the last couple of days. The thing that strikes me is how sweet all their beers are. They’re almost syrupy tasting. I get almost no clove or spice except on the very finish of a sip. To be honest, they all taste very similar too. This is comparing Julius, Alter, In Perpetuity and Sssapp. The only thing I’m confident a about is that my three yeast blend clone is no where near correct.

Same for me. Sweetness always higher than mine, the "magic" is at the very tail end of the finish.

Fwiw my blended attempt came out quite sweet. It is still getting better as it matures, but the trick (pretty much by accident) was to make a high gravity small batch for the WB-06 and underpitch. My theory is that the added stress encouraged more of the banana-bubblegum thing but also made the WB-06 stall out early, and not start again during conditioning post blend. With the other three strains being less attenuative, they consumed less sugar during conditioning than WB-06 would have.

 

[TheHairyHop]

although not a direct indicator of sweetness, I don't recall TH beers being at an unusual FG, or pH, for that matter

 

[ThePaleAleIndian]

although not a direct indicator of sweetness, I don't recall TH beers being at an unusual FG, or pH, for that matter

Right, yeah. The Doppelganger I measured over the holidays came out to 1.017 and 4.54. Haven't measured the blended batch pH yet, but it finished at 1.018, so similar. I think the fact that the separate WB-06 ferment didn't quite finish just added some fermentables at packaging to naturally carb the keg. I adjusted the priming gyle amount and it worked out fairly well. I think the WB-06 just didn't do anything to ferment to a crazy level of dryness once during conditioning.

I don't think the stalling out of the WB-06 was necessary for the level of sweetness necessarily. Just underpitching that part of the blend and making it high gravity would be enough IMO to keep some of the sugars around that are perceived as sweet. Especially if force carbing.

 

[NJGeorge]

From a Winning-Homebrew article - "Another benefit of krausening is increased hop presence (when hopped wort is added.) As beer ferments, iso-alpha acids from hops tend to cling to the cell walls of yeast and as more and more yeast is produced, more and more hop presence is lost on the flocculating yeast.

The aromatic component of the hops are often scrubbed with the evolution of CO2 during fermentation. Thus, by the end of primary fermentation, you will have lost much of your bitterness and aromatics you so dearly crave in your lagers.

By adding a freshly fermenting (and hopped) wort to your final beer, and then either bottling or kegging it, these new hop flavors and aromatics are captured in your beer.

Lets look at each in a little more detail. If you plan ahead, you can make your recipe a little larger, say 5.5 gallons instead of 5. Collect the extra wort in a sanitized jar with a lid, and a bit of the yeast in, say the used and sanitized White Labs vial, then store them both in the fridge until needed. Just pull them both out the day before you plan to add them to your lager, aerate or oxygenate the wort and pitch the yeast when both are at fermentation temperature. Then when the small beer is at high krausen, pitch it into your green beer."

Would it be possible that one of the yeasts found in the TH beers is used strictly for the above? T-58? And the rest is a blend of S04 and maybe WB-06? CBC or F1 being thrown in to somewhat cut off the other yeasts? Thoughts?

 

[ThePaleAleIndian]

From a Winning-Homebrew article - "Another benefit of krausening is increased hop presence (when hopped wort is added.) As beer ferments, iso-alpha acids from hops tend to cling to the cell walls of yeast and as more and more yeast is produced, more and more hop presence is lost on the flocculating yeast.

The aromatic component of the hops are often scrubbed with the evolution of CO2 during fermentation. Thus, by the end of primary fermentation, you will have lost much of your bitterness and aromatics you so dearly crave in your lagers.

By adding a freshly fermenting (and hopped) wort to your final beer, and then either bottling or kegging it, these new hop flavors and aromatics are captured in your beer.

Lets look at each in a little more detail. If you plan ahead, you can make your recipe a little larger, say 5.5 gallons instead of 5. Collect the extra wort in a sanitized jar with a lid, and a bit of the yeast in, say the used and sanitized White Labs vial, then store them both in the fridge until needed. Just pull them both out the day before you plan to add them to your lager, aerate or oxygenate the wort and pitch the yeast when both are at fermentation temperature. Then when the small beer is at high krausen, pitch it into your green beer."

Would it be possible that one of the yeasts found in the TH beers is used strictly for the above? T-58? And the rest is a blend of S04 and maybe WB-06? CBC or F1 being thrown in to somewhat cut off the other yeasts? Thoughts?

Thanks for posting this! Using rehopped gyle is something I really want to do with my next attempt. I'm really eyeing that as the source of that unique TH spice and fresh-hoppy-wort hop character. Using gyle when I naturally carb is pretty much part of my standard process, but I've never tried rehopping it.

One word of caution though - I think it's important how the gyle is collected and stored. If you run off cooled wort into a jar and close it, it will likely oxidize. It may be possible to rig up something to purge the jar with CO2 first.

I've had good results with the way I do it - I dip sanitized 12 oz bottles into the boil in the last 5 minutes and let them fill to the brim. I then hold them in there for a few seconds to make sure the wort inside is boiling to drive off any air. When I pull them out, they are totally full, and I cap them right away with O2 absorbing caps, before the liquid has a chance to shrink and make headspace. Any headspace in the bottle appears after it's capped, so the wort is essentially vacuum canned. I store them in the fridge and the liquid shrinks enough to look like a standard-fill beer bottle. The wort does not darken by the time I use it at packaging.

 

[NJGeorge]

Thanks for posting this! Using rehopped gyle is something I really want to do with my next attempt. I'm really eyeing that as the source of that unique TH spice and fresh-hoppy-wort hop character. Using gyle when I naturally carb is pretty much part of my standard process, but I've never tried rehopping it.

One word of caution though - I think it's important how the gyle is collected and stored. If you run off cooled wort into a jar and close it, it will likely oxidize. It may be possible to rig up something to purge the jar with CO2 first.

I've had good results with the way I do it - I dip sanitized 12 oz bottles into the boil in the last 5 minutes and let them fill to the brim. I then hold them in there for a few seconds to make sure the wort inside is boiling to drive off any air. When I pull them out, they are totally full, and I cap them right away with O2 absorbing caps, before the liquid has a chance to shrink and make headspace. Any headspace in the bottle appears after it's capped, so the wort is essentially vacuum canned. I store them in the fridge and the liquid shrinks enough to look like a standard-fill beer bottle. The wort does not darken by the time I use it at packaging.

Nice! But even if the wort oxidizes, when you pitch fresh yeast so it develops a krausen, wont the yeast eat any oxygen and it wouldnt matter? Then you pitch that into your keg with finished beer. Heres a link to that article https://www.winning-homebrew.com/krausening.html

 

[ThePaleAleIndian]

Nice! But even if the wort oxidizes, when you pitch fresh yeast so it develops a krausen, wont the yeast eat any oxygen and it wouldnt matter? Then you pitch that into your keg with finished beer. Heres a link to that article https://www.winning-homebrew.com/krausening.html

I did a bunch of reading on this stuff a while back, I'll try to dig up the sources.

My understanding is that once that wort is oxidized the damage is done. What I mean is, the wort is collected and oxygen sneaks into the container somehow. Then you put that wort in storage. There is no yeast activity, so the oxygen just sticks around. Eventually it bonds to and reacts with compounds in the wort, creating off flavors. The yeast that it sees starting at packaging is not going to undo the reactions that have already taken place between wort compounds and oxygen, nor scrub away the oxidized compounds that those reactions have made. The active yeast will scavenge any additional oxygen introduced during packaging, but it won't help you when it comes to any oxygen introduced while collecting the gyle.

It's possible that some beer styles are more sensitive to this than others, but being that NEIPA has such extreme sensitivity to oxidation I just wouldn't want to take any chances.

That's my understanding at least.