Man, Danstar Nottingham is FAST!!!

[starrfish]

I stumbled on this thread tonight in determining if I should go to the effort of a starter with Notty yeast. Then I discovered this quote and now I'm sorta curious.

I've been using WLP stuff mostly because the store where I shop has recipies that say to use it (or Wyeast which is equally expensive). Since I'm not really a yeast expert yet I just go with what it says to use (usually 001 or 013) but it's getting expensive, even after washing it. This post leads me to believe it's not really neccesary to spend what I do for the type of brews I do (American Ales and Wheats and occasionally London darks). I rarely brew European brews.

The reason I bring this up is I was given the Notty after I asked the store for the ingredients to make the cheapest Pale possible. Just to try it. Now I'm sort of led to believe that the premium yeast isn't worth it when you're just trying to make a basic American brew.

I guess my question is how good of a substitute are the dry yeasts when it comes to brewing on a budget as compared to a comparable liquid?

have you looked into washing your yeast? a big jar of pickels and some small mason jar and you have enough yeast for your next 4 batches from 1 pack or vial of liquid yeast:

http://billybrew.com/yeast-washing

good video based on:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Washing_yeast

just using starsan instead of boiling jars.

at 5 batches per liquid culture it should come out about the same as dry...

i use dry for session beers, simple pales or porters. but anything that relys on that special yeast profile i use liquid cultures, there is no subsitute... not saying good ales can't be made from dry....but they just are less complex

 

[arturo7]

3-1/2 years? Holy Necropost, Nott-man!!

 

[curlyfat]

Didn't notice that. Wow.

 

[brad26]

Will one pack of Nottingham work for higher gravity beers, say beers with OGs of 1.070, 80, 90+? Or should 2 packs be used?

 

[Rover]

You might want to scroll down and read some recent Notty threads. Many people are having trouble with long lag times (myself included with the last two attempts). Both batches have off flavors that I blame on the yeast. You might just want to do a starter. I'm using US-05 from now on.

 

[CrookedTail]

The only time I use liquid yeasts are for my weiss beers and belgian styles (although I'm trying Danstar's Munich dry yeast on a hefe I just brewed). Other than that I use Nottingham and S-05 exclusively.

For the price and quality of the finished product, Nottingham is a great strain.

 

[fatmoose]

Nottingham Rocks! My Haus Pale Ale usually is finished in a day. Good stuff!

I recently brewed a partial mash rendition of your Haus Pale and use Nottingham. I've recently started using a blow off tube but this was my first experience with dry yeast. I've never seen such furious gurgling in my blow off container. Consider my to be highly impressed with this yeast and I intend to use it for all my English/American style ales.

 

[nostalgia]

You might want to scroll down and read some recent Notty threads. Many people are having trouble with long lag times (myself included with the last two attempts). Both batches have off flavors that I blame on the yeast. You might just want to do a starter. I'm using US-05 from now on.

I use US-05 a lot and like how clean and consistent it is. I tried Notty recently when I made a 10-gallon batch of BM's Centennial Blonde (which is freakin' delicious - go brew some).

Anyway, I did an 11 gallon batch and split it between two fermenters. I pitched a packet of Notty in each.

One was down to 1.006 and in the keg in three days. The other hadn't even krausened yet. It took well over a week to ferment out. Both were delicious - got a nice little fruit note from the Notty - but the difference in ferment times was crazy.

So add me to the list of lag issues with Notty.

-Joe

 

[duskb]

have you looked into washing your yeast? a big jar of pickels and some small mason jar and you have enough yeast for your next 4 batches from 1 pack or vial of liquid yeast:

http://billybrew.com/yeast-washing

good video based on:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Washing_yeast

just using starsan instead of boiling jars.

at 5 batches per liquid culture it should come out about the same as dry...

i use dry for session beers, simple pales or porters. but anything that relys on that special yeast profile i use liquid cultures, there is no subsitute... not saying good ales can't be made from dry....but they just are less complex

I wash every yeast I have and have been doing for about two years now. The issue is that, as I understand it, you can only re-use and keep a yeast so long before it either goes bad, picks up an infection and/or wild yeast, or just flat out stops working. I had a fridge full of various washed yeasts but when I was having off flavors show up in a few batches a year ago the brew store told me to use the batch once or twice and toss it after that. They also told me that a yeast won't last for much longer than a couple of months and not to risk it if it's older than that.

Of course I'm open for the debate but I must confess I have not had a bad batch show up since I started doing what they told me to.

 

[duskb]

3-1/2 years? Holy Necropost, Nott-man!!

Yeah, well I figured I'd go dredge the archives before posting... Had no idea it was that old. : )

 

[Got Trub?]

Will one pack of Nottingham work for higher gravity beers, say beers with OGs of 1.070, 80, 90+? Or should 2 packs be used?

Mr Malty says:

1.2 11.5g packages of dry yeast for a 1.070
1.5 11.5g packages of dry yeast for a 1.090

This assumes you properly rehydrate a fresh package of yeast and for ales only, lagers take much more.

http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

GT

 

[Got Trub?]

I've used Notty a lot. While it's super fast and way flocculent, I feel like it is not a very "clean" yeast. It usually takes an extra couple of weeks after ferment to clean itself up. When I use WYeast 1056 (I usually use a big starter, then use slurry for batch after batch, after batch), I can have my blonde ale ready to go in a little over a week tasting clean and delicious.

You can't beat the convenience combined with quality and value that you get with Notty, though. I can't argue that.

You might try fermenting at the cooler range for nottingham (it will go down to 54F for pseudolagers) as that reduces the fruity esters it will produce at the higher range.

GT

 

[marcelo]

Well, I use nottingham to three years in all my beers, I've used s-04 too, but prefers to stay with notty, use it to light up barleywines ales, starter never did, and always worked well, fermented in 2 days But I always leave the secondary for two more weeks to clarify. Cheap, easy to use and store, and with good results.

 

[duskb]

I use US-05 a lot and like how clean and consistent it is. I tried Notty recently when I made a 10-gallon batch of BM's Centennial Blonde (which is freakin' delicious - go brew some).

Anyway, I did an 11 gallon batch and split it between two fermenters. I pitched a packet of Notty in each.

One was down to 1.006 and in the keg in three days. The other hadn't even krausened yet. It took well over a week to ferment out. Both were delicious - got a nice little fruit note from the Notty - but the difference in ferment times was crazy.

So add me to the list of lag issues with Notty.

-Joe

+1

I ended up pitching the Notty (after hydrating) and I have to agree that it had a long lag compared to what I typically get with a starter. It must've been two days before I saw any activity. Even an unstarted liquid moves quicker than that.

The end result is what matters though. We'll see how it cleans up in 3 weeks.

 

[nostalgia]

In good news, I did another 10 gallons of the same beer, pitching Notty again. Both took off at the same time, showing activity after about 12 hours and in full krausen by 24.

-Joe

 

[duskb]

In good news, I did another 10 gallons of the same beer, pitching Notty again. Both took off at the same time, showing activity after about 12 hours and in full krausen by 24.

-Joe

I'm assuming you mean by "activity" you're referring to airlock activity, right?

 

[nostalgia]

No - the first activity I saw was stuff forming on top of the previously clear wort. Then came the very vigorous activity in the blowoff and a large, fluffy krausen.

-Joe

 

[marcelo]

Recently, I bought some packets of notty, and the two that opened up until now, were very different than usual, at first thought it was only the appearance of grain, but during the transfer to the second fermenter, I realized that I still had many grains without dissolve in the bottom of the carboy, and the beer was very cloudy and strong taste of yeast.

Someone else noticed this change?

 

[Freddy57]

I used to just pitch my notty directly until a while back when I ended up with 10 packets of bad yeast from the bad batch that was out. I began starting my yeast just to make sure it was good before I pitched it. Now, I always keep some wort around and I just start it the night before and then pitch it the next day. It works great, I only use one packet for 10 - 12 gallons of wort, I usually have full kreusen layer by that evening. I love the flavors I get from notty and am a really die hard user. I had one beer that I almost dumped from the bad batch, but I kept it around for a year and it finally became quite enjoyable.

 

[marcelo]

I'm having problems with the latest packages, the flakes of yeast dont dissolved in the wort not even after 12 hours, and still no sign of fermentation.
someone had the same problem?

 

[Petho]

Interesting timing on this post. I used Danstar Nottingham for the first time this weekend and had airlock activity within 4 hours!
I have always used WLP liquid yeast thinking it was the bomb but this Danstar was more than half the price and way more active. My last batch with WLP took 30 hours to see airlock activity. I just poured the dry yeast on top of the wort and let her go! She is bubbling like a mutha as we speak.
Dry yeast for me, no looking back.

 

[marcelo]

it used to be that way, activity in few hours but the last order i did, the yeas take 48h to start. Im afraid it have too long time to contaminate, and its ferment with no krausen... Is that a bad thing?

 

[starrfish]

in a sealed bucket no probs. yeast was building up cell count that whole time to start an active fermentation, most likely reproducing faster than any "bugs"