kolsch yeast observation.

[divrack]

brewed a kolschish smashish ale a week ago today, about 5 percent, airated slightly by putting it a couple times and pitched a two or three month old single pack of wlp (that's been in the post in a heatwave) into one 5gal batch and one Edinburgh ale into the other, both been fermenting at 19c for six days now and the kolsch is already almost completely clear and the Ed is still a bit cloudy but basically done.
kolsch tastes delicious, slight sulfur, clean, touch green. Ed tasted great too, honeycomb with a bit of yeast.

so I'm only posting just to counter the narrative that kolsch ale won't drop and you always need to make a starter.
honestly I could keg this today and have it on tap tomorrow 7.5 days after starting mash..
I won't though, I'll leave it a couple days more at 21c then sit it at zero for a couple weeks, because I have a good pipeline, and I can.

 

[dmtaylor]

WLP029 and 2565 are not equivalent yeast strains. Not even closely related. You used WLP029. It is the 2565 that is fussy. No correlation at all except that they are both named "Kolsch".

 

[divrack]

WLP029 and 2565 are not equivalent yeast strains. Not even closely related. You used WLP029. It is the 2565 that is fussy. No correlation at all except that they are both named "Kolsch".

oh. well I've read a lot of people on forums saying the wlp029 won't drop and needs weeks of cold crash/lagering. I'm sure you're right though, based on my experience. just thought it was worth mentioning based on things I've read. not used 2565 so can't speak to it yet. anyway if anyone is worried about 029 being slow or difficult, here is a data point to say otherwise, is basically all my post was about.

 

[ba-brewer]

@divrack would be curious to hear what kind of attenuation you get from the Edinburgh ale.
I just used Edinburgh ale for the first time on a Scottish light ale, it was a bit slow to start and only attenuated to 65%. It is still carbonating but the hydro sample tasted good.​

WLP029 has always fermented fast and dropped pretty clear without much help for me. It is very clean too, so I am giving WY2165 another go to see if I can bit of esters.

 

[divrack]

@divrack would be curious to hear what kind of attenuation you get from the Edinburgh ale.
I just used Edinburgh ale for the first time on a Scottish light ale, it was a bit slow to start and only attenuated to 65%. It is still carbonating but the hydro sample tasted good.​

WLP029 has always fermented fast and dropped pretty clear without much help for me. It is very clean too, so I am giving WY2165 another go to see if I can bit of esters.

Edinburgh has generally been as advertised for me but I have had a couple low attenuation batches with it that were a bit crap. in fact I didn't actually buy the yeast, it was a mistake delivery, but when it works as it did this time I really like it. attenuation looks about the same as the kolsch so far although it might be a bit more once it's done fully. I had a low abv Scottish ale finish at like. 025 with a good load of harvested fresh yeast in the past. 45lts too which was very annoying. but this time seems to have gone like a charm.