Mixing different beer Yeasts together in the primary

[virginiawolf]

Does mixing different beer yeasts like Lager strain and an Ale strain together in the primary work or does one yeast just kill the other one etc. I was wondering if you mixed an Ale and a Lager yeast if they would both finish off the beer in different ways perhaps giving a resulting beer with Ale and Lager characteristics etc. I'd really appreciate hearing of such experiments or recipes. If this was posted on here already sorry for asking it again. Hope everyone is enjoying their brew season. VW

 

[beergolf]

The big issue about mixing an ale and a lager yeast together isthe recommended temps are so different.

Mixing yeast does work as long as they have similar temp ranges.

I just did a Tripel using 1214 and 3787. I can taste both yeasts and the beer is very good.

So have fun mixing yeats, but just look at the temps so they will work.

 

[theredben]

+1, totally normal. Have fun experimenting!

 

[Corner_House]

that sounds like a fun experiment

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

Only wine yeast should be avoided with any other kind of yeast. They release an enzyme that kills other yeast strains.

Otherwise you should be fine mixing strains of beer yeast but as others have said, the temperature ranges for the different strains should be considered. A lager yeast will produce too much undesired stuff at ale temperature ranges and the ale yeast probably won't work at lager temperatures and if it does it will probably be very clean, reducing a major benefit of ale yeast.

 

[bottlebomber]

You can do it... I just did a 12% ABV Belgian Strong Ale that I femented with WLP500 for a day before dumping a Wyeast 3787 slug in along with a pound of candi, and it worked great, beer came down to 1.012.

On the other hand I have a friend who is a brew ignoramous that is convinced he's found the holy grail of brewing by dumping 3 or 4 yeast strains in. His beers taste like hell. Just make sure that the yeast strains have some kind of compatibility.

 

[mhenry41h]

Only wine yeast should be avoided with any other kind of yeast. They release an enzyme that kills other yeast strains.

Otherwise you should be fine mixing strains of beer yeast but as others have said, the temperature ranges for the different strains should be considered. A lager yeast will produce too much undesired stuff at ale temperature ranges and the ale yeast probably won't work at lager temperatures and if it does it will probably be very clean, reducing a major benefit of ale yeast.

I asked Wyeast about mixing wine yeast with beer yeast and they didn't seem to think it was a big deal. I've listened to several podcasts talking about mixing the two being bad for the beer strain. I was very recently listening to a Jamil Show podcast in which he said not to even worry about mixing the two. I'm a bit perplexed on the topic as I'm about to take a Flanders Red grist bill and ferment it with an uber fruity red wine strain. I know it won't finish so I plan on a lacto pitch when it dies out and let the lacto work a few weeks. Lastly, I plan to finish with Brett C or Brett L...

 

[pohldogg]

I made a tripel with a combo of wlp500 and 71b wine yeast. I really like the fruit from the 71b with the belgian notes. The thing to watch with wine yeasts is that they don't really ferment maltose, or more complex sugars so you'll want to pitch a beer yeast also. This can come in handy by letting the wine yeast do its thing and then adding a beer yeast to finish up. I found this chart that has a ton of wine yeasts and their characteristics. As long as you pick something that is either sensitive or neutral you should be fine mixing with sacch.

http://www.lallemandwine.us/products/yeast_chart.php

And a big +1 to mixing strains, you can get some pretty cool results.

 

[virginiawolf]

With alot of the emphasis I read on quick fermentation I was under the impression that the most dominant yeast would kill anything but itself. I'm glad to know that with a sense of the temperature the beer yeast will thrive in that blending it works. I'm usually happy keeping things relatively simple but perhaps I'll do some yeast blending on my next batch and see how I make out. Thank You all for sharing on the subject.
If anyone else has info I'd love to hear more about blending yeasts. VW

 

[JDFlow]

If you blend yeasts for a batch, then wash the yeast from that batch you literally have your own strain to play with. I never thought of that. Let the fun begin!

 

[ChessRockwell]

If you blend yeasts for a batch, then wash the yeast from that batch you literally have your own strain to play with. I never thought of that. Let the fun begin!

Kind of... I mean you have two or more strains, mixed, in unknown proportions, not really your own strain.

Unless the yeasts mess around and create new strains... they don't do that, do they? Now you got me wondering.

 

[corax]

While nothing bad is likely to happen, and the product might be interesting, the results are not likely to be reproducible. Because of exponential growth, even very small differences between the strains in initial population sizes and/or growth rates will result in large final population differences. It's virtually impossible to exactly reproduce those initial conditions from batch to batch.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

While nothing bad is likely to happen, and the product might be interesting, the results are not likely to be reproducible. Because of exponential growth, even very small differences between the strains in initial population sizes and/or growth rates will result in large final population differences. It's virtually impossible to exactly reproduce those initial conditions from batch to batch.

I would think the result could be made reproducible if you harvest and store the strains separately and combine them in the same proportion for each batch, IE not wash and reuse the combined yeast to multiple generations.

 

[FredTheNuke]

I have found that the best way to combine yeast characteristics is to split ferment the batch. For example take a 5 gallon batch of brew and put half in one 3 gallon carboy and half in the other 3 gallon carboy. Add the ale yeast to one, the lager to the other and control their temperatures independently to the range each yeast prefers. Then mix the final product when you are ready to. I typically make 15 gallon batches and ferment / lager them in 5 gallon equipment with a different lager strain in each fermenter. Then I can blend the results to tone up or down certain characteristics of each yeast strain (such as White Labs Zurich Lager yeast throwing a wheat like aftertaste (Ester I believe) frequently when used to ferment a very pale lager vice a dark lager).

 

[corax]

I would think the result could be made reproducible if you harvest and store the strains separately and combine them in the same proportion for each batch, IE not wash and reuse the combined yeast to multiple generations.

You still can't control the relative viability or degree of dormancy between the strains. What if one sample had half the number of viable cells as the other, or took twice as long to get out of lag phase? If you were fermenting them separately you'd hardly notice the difference -- one might just take a few hours more to get going. But if you mixed them the more viable/less dormant strain would quickly become predominant -- and the stronger strain could be different from batch to batch.

If reproducibility is important, fermenting separately and blending is the best way to go.

 

[virginiawolf]

Wow, I took a break from brewing for a little while and I stumbled back on this post. I appreciate everyone taking the time to write about yeasts and elaborating. I finally brewed again for a party coming up. I decided to make 10 gallons of delicious pale ale. Then I decided to finally make some mead again with part of last years honey crop. I had extra honey and water and extra wort so I mixed them and pitched in some of the British ale yeast that I had made 2 generous starters of. That and the ales took off just fine but the main batch of mead doesn't look very active. I used sweet mead yeast in that. This kind.

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I didn't make a starter though because I decided to make the mead at the last minute. I did pitch two bottles of yeast instead of one but I am not seeing much activity yet although I am not too worried. I took the air lock off and shook some more oxygen into it thinking it may help. The original gravity of the straight mead is 1.07 Next to my ales and braggot though it seems stuck it is probably just still beginning I know patience is a virtue.

Anyway,... I was looking over info on yeast. Mixing some different beers that were brewed in separate carboys is an interesting idea that hadn't crossed my mind aside from pouring different ones from the tap into the same glass. This has me thinking of making a dark and light beer and then blending them into one carboy and then kegging it. You are all inspiring me.

Here is a pic of my latest batch. The mead is on the right the braggot is on the left the pale ales are in the middle. This is after 20 hours.

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[virginiawolf]

It's fermenting just fine now. I wonder if it just needed another day or if the yeast nutrient and yeast energizer I added on day 3 helped it take off.
Mead

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