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

[TheHairyHop]

you don’t open the ferm or the keg. you shoot them into the vessel. Just get a carbonator cap and small (6-8oz) soda bottle, two liquid QDs, piece of tubing to connect the qds.

I've been concocting a separate inline system for adding krausen at kegging, but this is much simpler. Great idea

 

[Clyde McCoy]

29 colonies later and the only thing I've found in this October 2019 can of Very Green is Fermentis T-58 or something very genetically similar.

While it is possible that somehow only this strain survived after nine months, I doubt it. I will be testing a fresh can of Very Green soon to confirm.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Worth noting that T-58 is pretty closely related to S-33/Windsor/ESB, and somewhat less closely related to BRY-97, so it's worth bearing those in mind. But certainly T-58 and BRY-97 are interesting from a biotransformation POV so they're obvious ones for them to play with.

Or you could be seeing the aftermath of an attack by killer strains....

 

[isomerization]

Worth noting that T-58 is pretty closely related to S-33/Windsor/ESB, and somewhat less closely related to BRY-97, so it's worth bearing those in mind. But certainly T-58 and BRY-97 are interesting from a biotransformation POV so they're obvious ones for them to play with.

Or you could be seeing the aftermath of an attack by killer strains....

I thought about that option, but shouldn’t we be seeing that strain as well.

 

[Clyde McCoy]

Worth noting that T-58 is pretty closely related to S-33/Windsor/ESB, and somewhat less closely related to BRY-97, so it's worth bearing those in mind. But certainly T-58 and BRY-97 are interesting from a biotransformation POV so they're obvious ones for them to play with.

Or you could be seeing the aftermath of an attack by killer strains....

Of those strains, I've only tested S-33. Definitely did not see see anything matching that profile in this can.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I thought about that option, but shouldn’t we be seeing that strain as well.

Could be something that's not happy living in beer for 9 months I guess?

 

[Clyde McCoy]

Tree House Julius

Canned: June 11, 2020
Analyzed: July 2020

Definitely something that resembles the electrophoretic banding profile of Fermentis S-04 in this can of Julius. I'll screen additional colonies for T-58 and WB-06 @isomerization.

What am I looking at? Yeast genomes contain transposable elements, DNA sequences that can move (transpose) to new sites in the genome. We can crudely identify yeast strains by amplifying the transposable elements in the yeast genome by PCR and then separating the amplicons by gel electrophoresis.*

*Note that DNA sequencing is necessary to unequivocally prove a genetic match, as closely related strains may contain similar patterns of transposable elements.

 

[isomerization]

That's right - decant, centrifuge, resuspend in PBS, serial dilute on YPD plates. Screening colonies from several plates.

I have so far only tested this 9-month-old can of Very Green.

Looking back at this comment, I wonder if you’re selecting for single floccs of yeast (can different strains flocc together)?

When I was playing dregs, I centrifuged the last 5-10 mL of beer, decanted and then used a flame sterilized loop (after cooling in the agar) to streak out in quadrants. Pick from where you get single colony separation. Maybe that will help with diversity sampling?

 

[Clyde McCoy]

Looking back at this comment, I wonder if you’re selecting for single floccs of yeast (can different strains flocc together)?

When I was playing dregs, I centrifuged the last 5-10 mL of beer, decanted and then used a flame sterilized loop (after cooling in the agar) to streak out in quadrants. Pick from where you get single colony separation. Maybe that will help with diversity sampling?

Just to clarify (methods matter!), here's how I'm harvesting yeast:

1. Centrifuge last 30-50 ml beer
2. Decant supernatant
3. Resuspend pellet in 5-10 ml PBS
4. Vortex thoroughly
5. Plate serial dilutions
6. Pick single, dispersed colonies.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Might be easier to see differences if you plated on WLN? (although I completely get that there comes a point where this no longer becomes a side project.... )

 

[Clyde McCoy]

So far everything I've screened (22 colonies) is S-04-like. If there is T-58 and WB-06 in Julius, it is likely a very small fraction of the total pitch.

I agree @Northern_Brewer, WLN agar will be very useful for this purpose so I ordered a sleeve of plates.

 

[TheHairyHop]

View attachment 690454
View attachment 690455

So far everything I've screened (22 colonies) is S-04-like. If there is T-58 and WB-06 in Julius, it is likely a very small fraction of the total pitch.

I agree @Northern_Brewer, WLN agar will be very useful for this purpose so I ordered a sleeve of plates.

I feel like this thread, and the effort of the people in it, has never failed to disappoint. What a fascinating topic. Thanks for all the hard work @Clyde McCoy

 

[troxerX]

Awesome postings!. Have to admit I haven’t been able to read the entire thread (only 25 panels of 90) - my apologies if someone already discussed the below. For everything I read so far, @TheHairyHop has been spot on. Did we try or thought of any other ways to come up with a sustainable clone?, I’m having trouble following the present line of thinking; we have a brewer who likes perfection, meticulous, who doesn’t like variables, obsessed with consistency and reproducibility, commanding 300 barrels/year and now a multi-million dollar 250+ barrel/day facility - who will let timely complicated yeast additions and multiple temp/time variable parameters control his final quality?, it gives me a headache just to think about it.. just because we find 3 or 4 different yeast in their cans doesn’t mean they all co-existed in one single wort right?, I think @isomerization real contribution is that by figuring out the yeasts we can now start thinking of beer styles instead.. the more I read this thread I’m more convinced we have everything we need to come up with the next level clone, not even for Julius but some of their other brews.

Wouldn’t the brewer be more in control if this is all done via separate batches - a Blonde Ale, German Weiss and heavily hopped Pale Ale - brewed to style perfection, to provide their particular characteristics with the yeasts we already know (S04, T-58 and CBC-1/F2 respectively) and then blended/conditioned to exact proportions before packaging? just like real stout and barrel blends are done?. What if the names of their beers mean something?, TH had a simple, moderately hopped blonde ale called Dirty Water, then it’s name was changed to Eureka (in Greek = I Have Found It) suggesting some accident with good results at the brew house, and it happens to be the brewer’s favorite one?, what if all TH brews are style based blended variations w/ an S04 fermented Eureka, the beautiful bready, buscuity clean blonde ale as their base???. I’m clearly speculating but worth the thoughts.

One of the earlier postings from @melville had an interview where the brewer said that their hopped offerings take a huge relative amount of work to brew, he didn’t use the words intricate, complicated or complex that I recall, from my point of view, what would be more work than having to brew three separate worts and blend them for each one beer?. At their large scale it makes even more sense, you can control the volumes so that batch of a blonde ale and batch of a weiss can supply multiple end products while the pale ale batches (each uniquely hopped) could be specifically brewed for krausening the blends. The videos we’ve seen shows us that too, a large FV fermenting with a blow-off with no signs of hops, while the brewers are seeing dumping tons of hops on a separate tiny kettle on the back... I’ve seen a few folks that have had good results with one wort/multiple yeasts but to my impression it looks to be more hit or miss from ester retention and hop saturation, maybe blending is the route to go?. Just my thoughts.

 

[StinkyBeer]

Awesome postings!. Have to admit I haven’t been able to read the entire thread (only 25 panels of 90) - my apologies if someone already discussed the below. For everything I read so far, @TheHairyHop has been spot on. Did we try or thought of any other ways to come up with a sustainable clone?, I’m having trouble following the present line of thinking; we have a brewer who likes perfection, meticulous, who doesn’t like variables, obsessed with consistency and reproducibility, commanding 300 barrels/year and now a multi-million dollar 250+ barrel/day facility - who will let timely complicated yeast additions and multiple temp/time variable parameters control his final quality?, it gives me a headache just to think about it.. just because we find 3 or 4 different yeast in their cans doesn’t mean they all co-existed in one single wort right?, I think @isomerization real contribution is that by figuring out the yeasts we can now start thinking of beer styles instead.. the more I read this thread I’m more convinced we have everything we need to come up with the next level clone, not even for Julius but some of their other brews.

Wouldn’t the brewer be more in control if this is all done via separate batches - a Blonde Ale, German Weiss and heavily hopped Pale Ale - brewed to style perfection, to provide their particular characteristics with the yeasts we already know (S04, T-58 and CBC-1/F2 respectively) and then blended/conditioned to exact proportions before packaging? just like real stout and barrel blends are done?. What if the names of their beers mean something?, TH had a simple, moderately hopped blonde ale called Dirty Water, then it’s name was changed to Eureka (in Greek = I Have Found It) suggesting some accident with good results at the brew house, and it happens to be the brewer’s favorite one?, what if all TH brews are style based blended variations w/ an S04 fermented Eureka, the beautiful bready, buscuity clean blonde ale as their base???. I’m clearly speculating but worth the thoughts.

One of the earlier postings from @melville had an interview where the brewer said that their hopped offerings take a huge relative amount of work to brew, he didn’t use the words intricate, complicated or complex that I recall, from my point of view, what would be more work than having to brew three separate worts and blend them for each one beer?. At their large scale it makes even more sense, you can control the volumes so that batch of a blonde ale and batch of a weiss can supply multiple end products while the pale ale batches (each uniquely hopped) could be specifically brewed for krausening the blends. The videos we’ve seen shows us that too, a large FV fermenting with a blow-off with no signs of hops, while the brewers are seeing dumping tons of hops on a separate tiny kettle on the back... I’ve seen a few folks that have had good results with one wort/multiple yeasts but to my impression it looks to be more hit or miss from ester retention and hop saturation, maybe blending is the route to go?. Just my thoughts.

I really like your train of thought and I reckon it’s got legs. It makes a lot of sense. I don’t know their vessel sizes but I would have thought it to be prudent having oversized BBT’s to accommodate such blending: largest fv size could be for S04 base ales, then smaller fv’s for the Weiss and Belgian notes, then transfer the full amount of base beer + 2 x small fv’s into an oversized BBT with some priming sugar/killer strain cap and carb then pack.

 

[StinkyBeer]

Far more accurate results through blending post ferment than pissing in the wind pre ferment.

 

[troxerX]

Far more accurate results through blending post ferment than pissing in the wind pre ferment.

Right?, I wouldn’t even use sugar for conditioning — a bready, lightly hopped blonde ale fermented to the bones w/ S04 and single dry hopped?, then blended with a double dry hopped German weiss fermented with T-58 and WB-06 (for those that are still in the ‘non-diastaticus’ bandwagon LOL) let to condition for a couple days after blending, and then blasted with a high temperature mashed (more unfermentable than fermentable)-heavy hop handed, CBC-1/F2 Pale Ale at high krausen before sealing off the vessel and let condition under pressure - which is CBC-1’s preferred environment anyways... see how all the pieces fit together now? just like @TheHairyHop suggested earlier at the beginning of this thread, it even meets the German purity Reinheitsgebot laws for my purists-non flexible friends here in this blog . Another point to consider - my theory also explains all the malts everyone’s seeing at the brewery that didn’t fit anywhere in the recipes...

 

[troxerX]

Right?, I wouldn’t even use sugar for conditioning — a bready, lightly hopped blonde ale fermented to the bones w/ S04 and single dry hopped?, then blended with a double dry hopped German weiss fermented with T-58 and WB-06 (for those that are still in the ‘non-diastaticus’ bandwagon LOL) let to condition for a couple days after blending, and then blasted with a high temperature mashed (more unfermentable than fermentable)-heavy hop handed, CBC-1/F2 Pale Ale at high krausen before sealing off the vessel and let condition under pressure - which is CBC-1’s preferred environment anyways... see how all the pieces fit together now? just like @TheHairyHop suggested earlier at the beginning of this thread, it even meets the German purity Reinheitsgebot laws for my purists-non flexible friends here in this blog . Another point to consider - my theory also explains all the malts everyone’s seeing at the brewery that didn’t fit anywhere in the recipes...

Questions to keep in mind for concept validation - 1) could this be done in 18-21 days? like the brewery does?, and 2) how we will go about calculating gravities and ABV%? as blending seems to make these calculations a nightmare... I’m sure someone in this blog has lots of experience and equations for ABV and blending gravity calculations, my point is that if we know Julius gravity? and it’s 6.8%ABV we can probably figure out the blending amounts needed and their respective estimated final gravities prior to the blend.

 

[TBryerton]

Questions to keep in mind for concept validation - 1) could this be done in 18-21 days? like the brewery does?, and 2) how we will go about calculating gravities and ABV%? as blending seems to make these calculations a nightmare... I’m sure someone in this blog has lots of experience and equations for ABV and blending gravity calculations, my point is that if we know Julius gravity? and it’s 6.8%ABV we can probably figure out the blending amounts needed and their respective estimated final gravities prior to the blend.

Nate’s been on record saying they haven’t been doing any mixed fermentation beers but would like to get back to experimenting with that at some point.

 

[NJGeorge]

Nate’s been on record saying they haven’t been doing any mixed fermentation beers but would like to get back to experimenting with that at some point.

He probably meant mixed fermentation beers as the beer describe in the below article.
https://beerandbrewing.com/amp/brewers-perspectives-mad-for-mixed-fermentation/I also believe that they may be doing some sort of blending (Not mixed fermentation) with some of their hoppy beers. Using “blending” as a means to maybe naturally carbonate the beer like krausening. That process could contribute to their “house yeast” flavor.

 

[mcoman]

Although the blending method would be more consistent than a yeast blend in one batch it would be far from "simple". Assuming the heavily hopped Pale Ale is the largest % in the blend it would require having 3+ batches (blond, German Weiss, and multiple heavily hopped Pale Ales) of beer finish fermentation and be ready for packing at the same time with little room for error. For anyone who went to their original Brimfield location I just don't see how the blending would have been possible back then. Although its been commented that their beers have changed since the Brimfield days those beers still had the same Tree House character.

I'm not convinced that Tree House is using a yeast blend at the start of fermentation especially with the recent results from @Clyde McCoy. I think a single yeast strain throughout the process is more likely. If we are assuming that 3 different yeasts end up in a can of Julius I think Primary fermentation with S04, kräusen with T-58, and can with CBC-1 makes more sense. Although I think Nate is intentionally/overly vague when answering questions I don't think he is being misleading. I don't believe Tree House is doing anything new or overly complicated I just think they are paying very close attention to all parts of brewing, and the combination of all the factors they manipulate is what crests their style. I think the big areas of focus are, low DO hot and cold side, water chemistry, and fermentation.

 

[troxerX]

He probably meant mixed fermentation beers as the beer describe in the below article.
https://beerandbrewing.com/amp/brewers-perspectives-mad-for-mixed-fermentation/I also believe that they may be doing some sort of blending (Not mixed fermentation) with some of their hoppy beers. Using “blending” as a means to maybe naturally carbonate the beer like krausening. That process could contribute to their “house yeast” flavor.

Affirmative, this has nothing to do with mixed fermentation, it’s actually more ‘separate’ fermentation!, my proposal is brewing 2 initial separate worts (blonde ale and German weiss) that are fermented to style with the yeasts we know are present in their cans (S04 and T-58 respectively), and once “fermented” they are crashed and then blended to certain proportions and let condition together (we need to figure out proportions). Then we brew a heavy high temp mashed hop handed CBC-1/F2 Pale Ale and use it at peak fermentation for krausening of the initial blend. To make this happen we need to start working on figuring out proportions and gravities. @melville is good with coming up with proportions but haven’t seen him online for a while.

 

[brewpharm Hill]

This is big. Confirmed a blend of yeast. So not likely blending fermentations, but blending yeast. Never thought we'd see the day where they'd actually mention it as a blend. Or maybe it is and we're just being lead more astray... .



https://treehousebrew.com/curiosity-ninety-nine

Curisoty Ninety Nine


"In anticipation of a huge milestone for the Curiosity Series, Ninety Nine finds us veering into very unfamiliar territory, moving away from the process-focused endeavors of the nineties and back into the uncharted waters of new base malts and hop varieties. For our first time, we utilized a German pilsner malt as a base. This is surprising, we know, but we wanted to see how it would work with our House yeast blend and Double IPA process. In addition to the German pilsner malt base, we utilized literal buckets of Mandarina Bavaria hops in a blend with several American hops aiming to accentuate the tangerine-like characteristics of these hops. The resulting beer is surprisingly soft, with a creamy body and delicious hop saturation. We taste and smell ripe tangerines, peach flesh, cantaloupe, and honeydew melon. We aspire to make beer that is a pleasure to drink and can be enjoyed by every palate, time, and time again. To that end, we find Ninety Nine to be a triumph that has us energized and excited for the future of the series. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do. "

 

[NJGeorge]

This is big. Confirmed a blend of yeast. So not likely blending fermentations, but blending yeast. Never thought we'd see the day where they'd actually mention it as a blend. Or maybe it is and we're just being lead more astray... .



https://treehousebrew.com/curiosity-ninety-nine

Curisoty Ninety Nine


"In anticipation of a huge milestone for the Curiosity Series, Ninety Nine finds us veering into very unfamiliar territory, moving away from the process-focused endeavors of the nineties and back into the uncharted waters of new base malts and hop varieties. For our first time, we utilized a German pilsner malt as a base. This is surprising, we know, but we wanted to see how it would work with our House yeast blend and Double IPA process. In addition to the German pilsner malt base, we utilized literal buckets of Mandarina Bavaria hops in a blend with several American hops aiming to accentuate the tangerine-like characteristics of these hops. The resulting beer is surprisingly soft, with a creamy body and delicious hop saturation. We taste and smell ripe tangerines, peach flesh, cantaloupe, and honeydew melon. We aspire to make beer that is a pleasure to drink and can be enjoyed by every palate, time, and time again. To that end, we find Ninety Nine to be a triumph that has us energized and excited for the future of the series. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do. "

Yea yea it’s just Nate messing with us

 

[LumberZach]

I doubt they were blending separate beers back in Monson. For me personally, the beers that came out of the small Monson brewery, were better than they are now. Especially Green and Julius.

 

[Clyde McCoy]

Although the blending method would be more consistent than a yeast blend in one batch it would be far from "simple". Assuming the heavily hopped Pale Ale is the largest % in the blend it would require having 3+ batches (blond, German Weiss, and multiple heavily hopped Pale Ales) of beer finish fermentation and be ready for packing at the same time with little room for error. For anyone who went to their original Brimfield location I just don't see how the blending would have been possible back then. Although its been commented that their beers have changed since the Brimfield days those beers still had the same Tree House character.

I'm not convinced that Tree House is using a yeast blend at the start of fermentation especially with the recent results from @Clyde McCoy. I think a single yeast strain throughout the process is more likely. If we are assuming that 3 different yeasts end up in a can of Julius I think Primary fermentation with S04, kräusen with T-58, and can with CBC-1 makes more sense. Although I think Nate is intentionally/overly vague when answering questions I don't think he is being misleading. I don't believe Tree House is doing anything new or overly complicated I just think they are paying very close attention to all parts of brewing, and the combination of all the factors they manipulate is what crests their style. I think the big areas of focus are, low DO hot and cold side, water chemistry, and fermentation.

My results don't preclude the possibility that Tree House is using a blend of yeasts. With YPD (which is what I was using), there's no obvious way to detect whether multiple strains are present without testing everything. With WLN (which is what I've ordered and has been on backorder for months now), this should be very obvious.

They do suggest that one strain (S-04 for Julius and T-58 for Very Green) leads in proportion any potential blend. This could change with subsequent testing.

 

[TheHairyHop]

I doubt they were blending separate beers back in Monson. For me personally, the beers that came out of the small Monson brewery, were better than they are now. Especially Green and Julius.

I'm not saying anything that's coming from a particularly strong opinion, but Monson wasn't exactly a tiny brewery. Many much smaller breweries do more complicated things.

I also agree about the beer quality. However, the last time I had Treehouse, it seemed to have recovered. The first couple months of the new facility were f'ing rough. I'm guessing that they had a DO problem, and spent a lot of time and money hunting it down

 

[Norseninja]

Yea yea it’s just Nate messing with us

Not sure about the yeast blend but someone posted about a Toppling Goliath/Treehouse collab and that there was an underpitch of S-04. I had TG for the first time, pseudo Sue and I can definitely say it was S-04. Tart and almost yeasty. It was nice but not ground breaking, perhaps TH is just using S-04?

 

[NJGeorge]

Not sure about the yeast blend but someone posted about a Toppling Goliath/Treehouse collab and that there was an underpitch of S-04. I had TG for the first time, pseudo Sue and I can definitely say it was S-04. Tart and almost yeasty. It was nice but not ground breaking, perhaps TH is just using S-04?

TG that I have had is nothing like TH. Totally different ester profile.

 

[Norseninja]

TG that I have had is nothing like TH. Totally different ester profile.

Yeah I have never had TH but TG was not super impressive IMO.

 

[MrPowers]

Yeah I have never had TH but TG was not super impressive IMO.

TG was hit or miss out of the old brewery. Some bottles were significantly more oxidized than others. The Sue and other core beers came from Florida and the other IPA's came from Decorah. The new brewery is much more consistent, and if you can get any of their cores that are less than 2 months old and have been stored properly they are really excellent. Some of the beers, DDH King Sue for example, are truly fantastic.

Edit: but I agree their yeast character is nothing like TH. TH is definitely blending something else in there with S04.

 

[GRBC]

Affirmative, this has nothing to do with mixed fermentation, it’s actually more ‘separate’ fermentation!, my proposal is brewing 2 initial separate worts (blonde ale and German weiss) that are fermented to style with the yeasts we know are present in their cans (S04 and T-58 respectively), and once “fermented” they are crashed and then blended to certain proportions and let condition together (we need to figure out proportions). Then we brew a heavy high temp mashed hop handed CBC-1/F2 Pale Ale and use it at peak fermentation for krausening of the initial blend. To make this happen we need to start working on figuring out proportions and gravities. @melville is good with coming up with proportions but haven’t seen him online for a while.

Seems More likely to me that they would ferment a measured portion of the base wort with a different yeast (or two) and blend before dry-hopping and naturally carbonating. This is the approach that Scott Janish describes here: Cashmere DIPA with Conan and Hefeweizen Yeast - Scott Janish
Wouldn’t surprise me if Janish spoke to someone who knows the Treehouse process before he started experimenting with a “blend” of yeasts.

 

[TheHairyHop]

Seems More likely to me that they would ferment a measured portion of the base wort with a different yeast (or two) and blend before dry-hopping and naturally carbonating. This is the approach that Scott Janish describes here: Cashmere DIPA with Conan and Hefeweizen Yeast - Scott Janish
Wouldn’t surprise me if Janish spoke to someone who knows the Treehouse process before he started experimenting with a “blend” of yeasts.

Not saying that the approach isn't possible, but Scott and Michael have been playing with mixed yeast pitches for a while since the original results came out. It's possible that they heard about that particular approach, but it's just as likely that they've converged on it because it's easier to experiment using previously existing commercial batches

 

[The_Dirty_Spring]

Seems More likely to me that they would ferment a measured portion of the base wort with a different yeast (or two) and blend before dry-hopping and naturally carbonating. This is the approach that Scott Janish describes here: Cashmere DIPA with Conan and Hefeweizen Yeast - Scott Janish
Wouldn’t surprise me if Janish spoke to someone who knows the Treehouse process before he started experimenting with a “blend” of yeasts.

Very interesting... I spoke to him at Sapwood in fall 2019 about all the fun action on this thread. He was super intrigued, said he'd look into it and work some experiments...

 

[The_Dirty_Spring]

Some other relevant intel from Nate's Instagram barrage today:

Pictured: Curiosity 56 - "Amarillo, Citra, yeast stress, Classic thick hop saturation..."

Pictured: Curiosity 70 - "Another blended yeast experiment..."

Pictured: Mural of mission statement - "...simple is harder than complex..."

On blending batches rather than blending yeast, there were some experiments early in this thread that didn't seem to pan out (@melville ? @NJGeorge ? @couchsending ?). IMO their early facilities wouldn't have been able to accommodate that, especially the rate they were turning over FVs for Saturday morning sell-outs.

My latest attempt at the blend is still underwhelming. With even just a tiny (immeasurable) sprinkle of WB06 and T58 it's over-attenuated and slightly phenolic.

Is it possible that signature TH flavor is the stress of underpitch on S-04? Maybe with a bit of blended yeast with DH or kraeusening for added bio-T effect? Has anyone pushed the lower bound on pitch rate? Any stories to share?

 

[MrPowers]

Some other relevant intel from Nate's Instagram barrage today:

Pictured: Curiosity 56 - "Amarillo, Citra, yeast stress, Classic thick hop saturation..."

Pictured: Curiosity 70 - "Another blended yeast experiment..."

Pictured: Mural of mission statement - "...simple is harder than complex..."

On blending batches rather than blending yeast, there were some experiments early in this thread that didn't seem to pan out (@melville ? @NJGeorge ? @couchsending ?).Is it possible that signature TH flavor is the stress of underpitch on S-04? Maybe with a bit of blended yeast with DH or kraeusening for added bio-T effect? Has anyone pushed the lower bound on pitch rate? Any stories to share?

This is the line of thought that I am on. On a different TG clone thread, it was brought up that Nate convinced them to make the switch from 007 to underpitched S04 for most of their core beers after a collab brew. I’ve used S04 and SLIGHTLY underpitched before with excellent results. I’m from the Midwest, so I didn’t have any TH to compare to.

Underpitched S04 for primary. Then when primary fermentation is done; crash and dry hop with some measured amount of additional sugar + T58/WB06 to get a specific amount of yeast hop interaction. This way, the bulk of your ferment is done with S04 before the other yeasts are introduced and you can control how much fermentation happens because of the other two (ex. Only want 2 gravity points from WB06, only add two gravity points of extra sugar). The other yeasts would also help prevent/clean up some of the diacetyl S04 throws with hop creep. Then kill it off with a killer conditioning yeast (CBC1) for packaging.

 

[NJGeorge]

Some other relevant intel from Nate's Instagram barrage today:

Pictured: Curiosity 56 - "Amarillo, Citra, yeast stress, Classic thick hop saturation..."

Pictured: Curiosity 70 - "Another blended yeast experiment..."

Pictured: Mural of mission statement - "...simple is harder than complex..."

On blending batches rather than blending yeast, there were some experiments early in this thread that didn't seem to pan out (@melville ? @NJGeorge ? @couchsending ?). IMO their early facilities wouldn't have been able to accommodate that, especially the rate they were turning over FVs for Saturday morning sell-outs.

My latest attempt at the blend is still underwhelming. With even just a tiny (immeasurable) sprinkle of WB06 and T58 it's over-attenuated and slightly phenolic.

Is it possible that signature TH flavor is the stress of underpitch on S-04? Maybe with a bit of blended yeast with DH or kraeusening for added bio-T effect? Has anyone pushed the lower bound on pitch rate? Any stories to share?

I only once blended in one gallon or so of wort fermented with wb-06 into a small hoppy batch of pale ale fermented with s04 and a pinch of t-58. It wasn’t a bad beer, different, but not TH. I’ve had better luck pitching t-58 later on.

“Curiosity One Hundred is brewed with Huell Melon, Strata, Citra, and Galaxy hops and utilizes our irreplicable House yeast.” Damn, I guess we’ll never figure it out Hi Nate! Lol

 

[couchsending]

The thing with dry yeast is you honestly have no idea if you’re under pitching or not as you really have no idea the number of cells per gram. I believe Kai did measure some Fermentis yeasts a long time ago but who knows if that’s still accurate.

I believe he found 8b cells/gram in S04 but more than double that in T-58 and S-33. S04 was the lowest that he tested.

 

[beervoid]

When people pitch a "pinch" of t58 and or wb06 wouldnt that stress the yeast and make it more estery/phenolic?
Has anyone tried pitching higher proportions?

 

[TheHairyHop]

Some other relevant intel from Nate's Instagram barrage today:

Pictured: Curiosity 56 - "Amarillo, Citra, yeast stress, Classic thick hop saturation..."

Pictured: Curiosity 70 - "Another blended yeast experiment..."

Pictured: Mural of mission statement - "...simple is harder than complex..."

On blending batches rather than blending yeast, there were some experiments early in this thread that didn't seem to pan out (@melville ? @NJGeorge ? @couchsending ?). IMO their early facilities wouldn't have been able to accommodate that, especially the rate they were turning over FVs for Saturday morning sell-outs.

My latest attempt at the blend is still underwhelming. With even just a tiny (immeasurable) sprinkle of WB06 and T58 it's over-attenuated and slightly phenolic.

Is it possible that signature TH flavor is the stress of underpitch on S-04? Maybe with a bit of blended yeast with DH or kraeusening for added bio-T effect? Has anyone pushed the lower bound on pitch rate? Any stories to share?

The hard part about reading into Curiosity batches is that they're supposed to deviate from normal practices. I will say though, that the language used in Curiosity 100 does make it seem like they're blending yeasts. The thing is, if you take language from across all the posts, it's impossible to discern whether there's a blend or not in the non-Curiosity beers.

 

[NJGeorge]

When people pitch a "pinch" of t58 and or wb06 wouldnt that stress the yeast and make it more estery/phenolic?
Has anyone tried pitching higher proportions?

True. I think I’ll give it is shot. Not sure who it was on here, but earlier in this thread there was a guy at a brewery who used mostly T-58 if not 100% in a hoppy batch and got great results.