S-04 my new go to Pale Ale yeast

[dmtaylor]

This might sound snarky but I don't intend it that way:

It's gonna be difficult to discern "cleanliness" in any beer containing Citra or Mosaic.

I've recently brewed an Aussie Sparking Ale and an Adambier (sort of a German barleywine) with S-04. Both ended up tasting close to lagers, with very very low esters, at least to my palate. No real hops to speak of in the styles I've done, which I think is easier to discern than a hop-loaded beer.

I mean no disrespect; just pointing out some facts.

 

[wepeeler]

This might sound snarky but I don't intend it that way:

It's gonna be difficult to discern "cleanliness" in any beer containing Citra or Mosaic.

I've recently brewed an Aussie Sparking Ale and an Adambier (sort of a German barleywine) with S-04. Both ended up tasting close to lagers, with very very low esters, at least to my palate. No real hops to speak of in the styles I've done, which I think is easier to discern than a hop-loaded beer.

I mean no disrespect; just pointing out some facts.

No disrespect at all! Good discussions only

I do make hop heavy beers with Citra and Mosaic, but this isn't one of them. A 5 gallon batch is only 5oz total, with most of the hops added later in the boil. Might be hop heavy to someone who drinks lighter beers, but this is not an over the top West Coast-ish bitter beer by any means.

That being said, the only thing different in these 2 beers was US-05 and SO4. The fruitiness I get from the SO4 isn't citrus from the hops. It's definitely flavor from the yeast. Maybe 68 is too high for SO4? US05 allows the hops to shine while still giving a nice crisp malt backbone in this particular beer. It'd be awesome to share these with you side by side to see your impression. They're definitely different beers.

I'm not knocking SO4 at all, I'm only giving my personal and honest impression.

 

[mashpaddled]

That's why I wanted to do this split batch. I've been reading on here that people seem to think SO4 is cleaner than US05, but that hasn't been the case for me. SO4 is still very good, but I prefer the US05 in this recipe. Can't believe how easy this beer is to make.

I find S04 to be fruitier than 05 as well. At warmer temperatures (near 70 and above 70) I get banana but around the mid-60s where I usually would ferment with it I get a nice round fruit flavor that is more of a mellow fruit salad than the aggressive fruit portfolio of many Belgian strains.

 

[MikeCo]

I also really like S-04 in pale ales. Inexpensive and easy to use. Ferments fast and clears quickly.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

What is the groups favorite temp for S-04? I am not sure I am ready to jump to @DJL531's 75-80F range, (but it might be worth giving a try). I typically start off an English Ale yeast in the 64F to 66F range. Have others had good luck fermenting S-04 at room temps?

I often brew small batches to try out a new hop and my fermentation chamber is often tied up with something else. I had okay luck using Lutra in a few batches fermented in a warm bathroom.

 

[day_trippr]

65-67°F here...

Cheers!

 

[wepeeler]

I'd go lower than 68 again for SO4 to try. It's finally cleared out like US05. But it's still a touch fruitier.

 

[wepeeler]

And here we are again. I went to brew a Kolsch yesterday, but my yeast smelled funky. Pivoted and brewed up a Pale ale. With SO4!

I got some Segal Ranch Cascade that I was dying to brew with. Smelled like grapefruit candy. She's down from 1.056 to 1.023 in 36 hours. Dry pitch onto 65F wort.

 

[dmtaylor]

And here we are again. I went to brew a Kolsch yesterday, but my yeast smelled funky. Pivoted and brewed up a Pale ale. With SO4!

I'm sure your pale ale will turn out very good. But I'd be curious to hear results from a Kolsch brewed with S-04. I think S-04 might work very well indeed in a Kolsch.

 

[Snuffy]

I'm all about dry yeast and have used Notty for anything remotely English for years. As you guys know, Notty is great. Fast, strong, flocs like putty - but pretty neutral flavor-wise. Windsor was my usual change-up yeast but it stays pretty dusty. The last few kits I've brewed have called for S-04 as a dry option, so I went there. Overall, I like it. Definitely brings more flavor to the party and acceptable flocculation. However, I've noticed it seems to take it's time finishing once it approaches expected FG. I have a porter that is in the fermenter 21 days at +/- 70F now. It reached expected FG of 1.016 for 3 days running a week ago and I was about to keg it and then it dropped another point. So I put it off a week and was ready to package yesterday after it hung at 1.015 all week and I'll be dang if it didn't drop to 1.014. I like S-04. It contributes flavors I like in English styles but I am going to just plan on 4 weeks fermentation when I use it from now on. Notty would have banged it out in 2 weeks and finished at 1.010 probably.

 

[ncbrewer]

However, I've noticed it seems to take it's time finishing once it approaches expected FG.

Since I bottle condition, this spooks me. I definitely don't want fermentation starting back up after the beer is bottled.

 

[Snuffy]

Since I bottle condition, this spooks me. I definitely don't want fermentation starting back up after the beer is bottled.

I have brewed an English IPA and a Porter with S-04 back to back now and it took a while to finish on both. Based on my experience, I would go at least 3 weeks and possibly 4 before bottling. That's not that bad really. The results seem to be worth the extra couple of weeks.

 

[Snuffy]

However, I've noticed it seems to take its time finishing once it approaches expected FG. I have a porter that is in the fermenter 21 days at +/- 70F now. It reached expected FG of 1.016 for 3 days running a week ago and I was about to keg it and then it dropped another point. So I put it off a week and was ready to package yesterday after it hung at 1.015 all week and I'll be dang if it didn't drop to 1.014.

Well. Got home this evening and checked the Tilt and she’s dropped another point to 1.013. This is day 22. I’m in full-on yeast creep at this point.

 

[Miraculix]

My experience is if you rouse this yeast a few times at the end of fermentation, you can omit this last point stalling thing that sometimes happens. It's the same thing with imperial pub. The yeasts that flocc out so well drop out of solution before they're completely done and then they have a hard time reaching all the sugar in solution.

Another possibility is to add a hand full of sugar at the end of fermentation to make the yeast go crazy and stir itself. I am doing this when I dry hop for oxygen protection anyway.

I'm a s04 fan boy now. I really like it.

 

[redrocker652002]

Great read and info. I might have to try this next time I do an ale and see what happens

 

[Snuffy]

Well. Got home this evening and checked the Tilt and she’s dropped another point to 1.013. This is day 22. I’m in full-on yeast creep at this point.

S-04 Porter Day 23. Dropped to 1.012. You can see how the SG stabilized for a while and then began to drop again. I'm over 6% ABV now. Me likey!

 

[Snuffy]

It's down to 1.010 now. So S-04 dropped from 1.059 to 1.016 in just a few days. Then it snoozed for 2 weeks and then dropped 5 more points. I'm not kegging til Sunday. We'll see what it gets down to. Definitely a heads-up for bottlers. I will use it again tho. Tasty stuff. I think I may make another attempt to get some Imperial Pub. Next two batches will be Uley's Old Spot and Ruddles County so S-04 and a month primary again for each of those.
Looks like I'm sipping porters and bitters this summer.

 

[worlddivides]

Huh. Then I wonder why I've never had bottle bombs with S-04... For the years that I bottled, I always bottled S-04 at 12-15 days after brew day, most commonly at exactly the 2-week mark. If anything, my S-04 beers were less carbed than most of my other beers (partially because I tended to use less priming sugar, yes, since English styles tend to have lower carbonation in general, but a single gravity point drop is about 0.5 CO2 volumes, which would be a massive increase in carbonation if it wasn't finished fermenting before bottling). Since I started kegging, all of my beers with S-04 have been kegged, but my last beer with S-04 had a final gravity of 1.014. I wonder if it could have gone lower somehow... But if this is the norm, again, why have I never had bottle bombs, even for beers that I kept at room temperature (mostly upper 60s) for months after bottling? (Since starting kegging, I've only bottled 2 batches, neither of which use S-04, but I was thinking of bottling my previous Irish stout that I ended up kegging instead, which was fermented with S-04)

 

[Indian_villager]

S-04 Porter Day 23. Dropped to 1.012. You can see how the SG stabilized for a while and then began to drop again. I'm over 6% ABV now. Me likey!
View attachment 877046

during that 1.012 to 1.010 transition did you degas and measure with a hydrometer? With all those floating hydrometers there is always some shift that happens after terminal gravity that is either caused by krausen dropping or the CO2 coming out of solution.

 

[Snuffy]

Huh. Then I wonder why I've never had bottle bombs with S-04... For the years that I bottled, I always bottled S-04 at 12-15 days after brew day, most commonly at exactly the 2-week mark. If anything, my S-04 beers were less carbed than most of my other beers (partially because I tended to use less priming sugar, yes, since English styles tend to have lower carbonation in general, but a single gravity point drop is about 0.5 CO2 volumes, which would be a massive increase in carbonation if it wasn't finished fermenting before bottling). Since I started kegging, all of my beers with S-04 have been kegged, but my last beer with S-04 had a final gravity of 1.014. I wonder if it could have gone lower somehow... But if this is the norm, again, why have I never had bottle bombs, even for beers that I kept at room temperature (mostly upper 60s) for months after bottling? (Since starting kegging, I've only bottled 2 batches, neither of which use S-04, but I was thinking of bottling my previous Irish stout that I ended up kegging instead, which was fermented with S-04)

I've only had it happen twice so it may be I'm doing something that causes it. I let it go at room temp which I guessed would be 73 when I built the recipe. It actually coasted along at 70 the whole time after initial rise. Definitely gone sleepy on me that way. Not sure if it would cause bottle issues or not but it seems less than done at 2 weeks. I will post my whole graph once it's done. See what you think.

 

[Snuffy]

during that 1.012 to 1.010 transition did you degas and measure with a hydrometer? With all those floating hydrometers there is always some shift that happens after terminal gravity that is either caused by krausen dropping or the CO2 coming out of solution.

No degas. Just taking the readings from the Tilt as they go. I guess there's a possibility the goop on top of the Tilt diminished or something.

 

[Indian_villager]

I'm fairly confident that beer finished fermenting somewhere around 16 May so long as you don't have an infection.

 

[MaxStout]

Big fan of S-04. Never had a problem with zombie fermentations, as I leave it in for 3 weeks. I bottle condition--no problemo.

It might help to bump the temp up a few degrees when ferm starts to slow, and leave it there until it's done, similar to a D-rest.

 

[hilljack13]

You all got my head turning on this. I have had great results using S05 on pale ales. Now I want to try S04 on my SNPA clone. Thanks a lot!

 

[dmtaylor]

Huh. Then I wonder why I've never had bottle bombs with S-04... For the years that I bottled, I always bottled S-04 at 12-15 days after brew day, most commonly at exactly the 2-week mark. If anything, my S-04 beers were less carbed than most of my other beers (partially because I tended to use less priming sugar, yes, since English styles tend to have lower carbonation in general, but a single gravity point drop is about 0.5 CO2 volumes, which would be a massive increase in carbonation if it wasn't finished fermenting before bottling). Since I started kegging, all of my beers with S-04 have been kegged, but my last beer with S-04 had a final gravity of 1.014. I wonder if it could have gone lower somehow... But if this is the norm, again, why have I never had bottle bombs, even for beers that I kept at room temperature (mostly upper 60s) for months after bottling? (Since starting kegging, I've only bottled 2 batches, neither of which use S-04, but I was thinking of bottling my previous Irish stout that I ended up kegging instead, which was fermented with S-04)

I wonder if S-04 doesn't like pressure. So after bottling, it carbonates a bit and then quits. Looking back at my brewing records, I too have never had a gusher with S-04. Not yet at least. I've used it at least 7 times with no carbonation problems.

 

[worlddivides]

I wonder if S-04 doesn't like pressure. So after bottling, it carbonates a bit and then quits. Looking back at my brewing records, I too have never had a gusher with S-04. Not yet at least. I've used it at least 7 times with no carbonation problems.

But if that's the case, how do people ferment S-04 under pressure? Although it's not as popular as pressure-fermenting lager yeasts or Chico variants, for example, I know that some people do it with S-04. Snuffy's data is definitely perplexing.

I've only had it happen twice so it may be I'm doing something that causes it. I let it go at room temp which I guessed would be 73 when I built the recipe. It actually coasted along at 70 the whole time after initial rise. Definitely gone sleepy on me that way. Not sure if it would cause bottle issues or not but it seems less than done at 2 weeks. I will post my whole graph once it's done. See what you think.

It's especially weird because S-04 is one of the fastest fermenters I know (as are most English ale yeasts and most Belgian ale yeasts). I typically get airlock activity almost immediately after pitching (often within 4-6 hours of pitching, sometimes as soon as 3 hours) and the fermentation tends to level off in a short period of time, even at somewhat low temperatures. I've had fermentation mostly finished within 48 hours quite a few times, often 72 hours, and rarely longer than that. So in my case, for the 14 days before bottling, it's usually airlock activity for the first 3-4 days, then little to no airlock activity for the next 10 days.

One thing this also made me think about is that S-04 is derived from Whitbread's house yeast, and they put their beers in bottles and casks within a relatively short time frame (much like a lot of English breweries still do today). Some of the articles on Shut up about Barclay Perkins made it sound like they packaged their beers quite a bit faster than most homebrewers would (around 1.5 weeks after brewing them or so).

Since you've had it happen twice, it really has me wondering what's causing it and how common it is.

 

[MaxStout]

Hop creep?

 

[JohnDBrewer]

With the price of liquid yeast these days, I've gone back to quite a few of the old dry standbys - s04, s05, nottingham. After a few brews with these I wondered why I stopped using them. Also venturing more into other dry yeasts, mangrove jack seems to have a good lineup.

 

[Miraculix]

Hop creep?

I've had this sometimes with beer that wasn't dry hopped. I believe it's a flocculation thing. Maybe it has also something to do with calcium levels. I keep mine above 100ppm, which positively affects flocculation and is higher than the average. I know that a lot of usians tend not to go into English levels with their minerals. That would mean that s04 floccs not as extreme as with higher ca levels and might get the last sugars in solution much quicker.

 

[Snuffy]

I've only had it happen twice so it may be I'm doing something that causes it. I let it go at room temp which I guessed would be 73 when I built the recipe. It actually coasted along at 70 the whole time after initial rise. Definitely gone sleepy on me that way. Not sure if it would cause bottle issues or not but it seems less than done at 2 weeks. I will post my whole graph once it's done. See what you think.

Storms last Sat took out power and internet. Power came back this morning and internet is still out. Working with cell phone hotspot. Kegging this S-04 Porter tomorrow, now that lights are on and I can see it again. No infection. Dropped 1.059 to 1.016 in 4 days. After 2 weeks, dropped to 1.015 and then over the next 2 weeks dropped to 1.007. I have no idea why. Temp was a steady 70F except for the last 2 days when the power was out and it crept up to 73F. I did give it a swirl after it sat at 1.016 for a week. I have no beef with S-04. Experience just tells me to give her some time to get finished. I like 1.007 a lot better for FG.