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Nottingham for a stout? Sure thing.

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Beer No GIF by de chinezen

😁
 
I often use Verdant IPA in dark beers now. Stout, porter, brown ale. By often I mean two or three times a year. It's called IPA yeast but it's an English yeast, 1318 that's been used in a brewery with US hops for a while, and I find it makes dark beers I really like. I don't make IPAs. I make mostly English styles, and I'm not using this yeast for pale English beers as it brings an out of style, stone fruit flavour, to my taste buds. In dark beers that seems to get lost, and it brings a lovely smooth texture and possibly a hint of vanilla. I've made enough good dark beers with Verdant to recommend giving it a go.
 
I often use Verdant IPA in dark beers now. Stout, porter, brown ale. By often I mean two or three times a year. It's called IPA yeast but it's an English yeast, 1318 that's been used in a brewery with US hops for a while, and I find it makes dark beers I really like. I don't make IPAs. I make mostly English styles, and I'm not using this yeast for pale English beers as it brings an out of style, stone fruit flavour, to my taste buds. In dark beers that seems to get lost, and it brings a lovely smooth texture and possibly a hint of vanilla. I've made enough good dark beers with Verdant to recommend giving it a go.
Even with say an Irish dry stout grain bill?
 
Even with say an Irish dry stout grain bill?
I've not used it with a Guinness dry stout recipe but I do similar grain bills with some crystal malt and maybe some chocolate malt, and it's worked well. I don't think I'd do the Guinness recipe without nitro tbh. You're better off with some more grain complexity from my experience.
 
I often use Verdant IPA in dark beers now. Stout, porter, brown ale. By often I mean two or three times a year. It's called IPA yeast but it's an English yeast, 1318 that's been used in a brewery with US hops for a while, and I find it makes dark beers I really like. I don't make IPAs. I make mostly English styles, and I'm not using this yeast for pale English beers as it brings an out of style, stone fruit flavour, to my taste buds. In dark beers that seems to get lost, and it brings a lovely smooth texture and possibly a hint of vanilla. I've made enough good dark beers with Verdant to recommend giving it a go.
I have an amber ale ( thats more like a mild in colour ) bottled now that i used Verdant in. I really like Verdant but this is the first dark beer i've used it in. Really good, will definitely use it again for dark beers.
 
I have an amber ale ( thats more like a mild in colour ) bottled now that i used Verdant in. I really like Verdant but this is the first dark beer i've used it in. Really good, will definitely use it again for dark beers.
I have a Copper Ale, just in the keg, that is fermented with Verdant. I can't drink at the moment, and the wife tasted it: "I'm not sure this brewing and not drinking thing is going to work out...". She did say however that it has a good mouthfeel.

I'm hoping post clarification and carbonation she will change her tune.
 
In general, it seems like this technique enhances the given character of the yeast. Us05 for example gets even cleaner and a British strain can get more estery. It's a nice thing to do if one has the time. Also, one pack should last at least for three batches, so the dry yeast becomes even cheaper this way.

Some strains also seem to flocculate better when treated this way. I've done this a lot with diamond lager and this yeast just sticks to the bottom of the bottle now. Clear beer in two weeks.
I’ve often wondered about this too. Especially when I hear people talk about how much more they like S-04 on subsequent re-pitches compared to the first dry pitch. I’ve been curious if essentially turning it into a liquid version of itself and waking it up in a starter first could produce a similar improvement.

I’m also a big fan of Lalbrew New England, but since it’s a bit more sensitive to drying the cell counts are about 1/3 of a normal dry packet. Maybe it could warrant some experiments with starters as well.
 
I'm intrigued by this, but am wondering the mechanics behind measuring out 1/3 of a dry yeast pack. Do you eyeball it? Do you weigh it? Do you worry about infections?
I weigh out dry yeast. I put a piece of aluminium foil on the scale and pour the yeast onto that. A tip I picked up from one of the brewing forums a long time back.
 
mini cupcake liners work well for holding small amounts.

Physical craft stores would discount the seasonal liner styles 75% (or more) - which makes it easy to have a multi-year supply of the liners on hand.

When empty the liners have a uniform weight - if the scale doesn't weigh the liner correctly when empty, there's something wrong with the scale.
 
I used to use Notty for everything but Saisons. Inexpensive, ferments strong and fast, flocs like putty, tolerates high ABV, likes room temps. It's the dry nobody is ever out of. It's a great yeast for stout. It's not going to contribute anything flavorwise but you don't need it to. Notty would be my desert island choice for yeast if I could only have one. Probably make a decent coconut mango ale.

As far as splitting up packs of yeast goes. I might do that if I was trying to combine a couple to get some mixed results or something, but I'd wash and re-use the cake before I'd build starters from partial packs. That seems like more work and kind of unnecessary to me. But then I'm kind of a brew slacker.

I like the Cellar Science dry yeasts. Kind of generically labelled but cheap and you get more for less in each pack. I've tried Saison and Monk with good results. Gotta try English soon.
 

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