Testing dry vs. liquid

[winvarin]

I have gotten caught up in the whole "dry vs. liquid" yeast thread again, and have decided to conduct a test on a "common" house ale to determine if I can cut some time, and a little of the cost, of making some of my everyday beers.

Here's my plan. Feel free to poke holes, offer helpful advice or cheer me on (as the mood suits you).

I need more than my own objective opinion, so I plan on brewing a fairly straightforward, lightly-hopped blonde ale. My wife loves it, as do a couple of my co-workers and the odd relative (pun intended). I also figure it will help bring out differences in the yeasts since any flavor or aroma added by the yeast will not be competing with that of the hops and malt in this beer.

The test seems fairly simple (which is why I am looking for someone to poke holes in my logic. Surely I am missing an important variable).

I use 1056 or WLP001 for my blonde ale, depending on which is freshest when I shop. This test will stack one of those against Safale-05.

I figure the easiest task would be to brew a single batch (I am only set up to do 5 gal at a time now.) I could split this batch between two, 5-gal glass carboys. I can fit two carboys in my fermenting fridge. I should have enough space because 3 gallons each in the 5 gallon vessels should allow me to skip my blow off rig and just put an airlock on each.

That gives me two samples, each with the same gravity and ingredients, that I can hold at an identical temperature throughout fermentation and bulk conditioning. Of course, one gets a package of dried Safale. And at 3 gallons with an SG in the mid 1.05X range, one vial or smack pack should be sufficient for the liquid beer (unless we think I need to make a small starter to try to match the pitching rate of the liquid yeast to that of the dried).

The plan is to ferment, age and bottle condition each in identical ambient conditions then compare the results.

By no means a scientifically sound test. But I am neither a scientist, nor am I sound.

Thoughts?

 

[marubozo]

It's a good way to compare two different types of yeast, but in the end taste is almost entirely subjective. You may come to a conclusion as to which one you like better, but other people might feel just the opposite. There just isn't a good way to objectively judge the end result unless there was such a huge difference that everyone unanimously said one beer was better than the other or if you were submitting them to a competition with expert judges basing it off of the style or something.

It's still a great exercise and something I'd do if you have the equipment and time, but ultimately I'm not sure it will provide any definitive results. Since each beer is different, just adding a few different malts or using a different hop or hop schedule it could mean the winner of this experiment sucks compared to the alternative.

In the end, if you know your yeast strains, now what you want to get out of them, and ferment at the right temps and pitching rates you'll get a good result regardless.

But keep us updated. It will be interesting to see what people think of each.

 

[Bheher]

Cool, looking forward to seeing what you get out if this.

 

[stevedasleeve]

It's a good way to compare two different types of yeast, but in the end taste is almost entirely subjective. You may come to a conclusion as to which one you like better, but other people might feel just the opposite. There just isn't a good way to objectively judge the end result unless there was such a huge difference that everyone unanimously said one beer was better than the other or if you were submitting them to a competition with expert judges basing it off of the style or something.

Two different yeasts + same process and ingredients... how else can you determin differences between one yeast and an other? Of course taste is subjective! The difference will be, um, the difference and this can be evaluated. As in "I like this beer better" or "they taste the same to me" or "OMG what a HORRIBLE beer, and the other was so good, I'll use this yeast from now on..." etc and so on.

I do this sort of test quite often with hops, grains (C60 vs british crystal 64 for example,) fermentation temperatures - 66 f vs 68 f, process changes etc etc etc. I see no better way to learn what it is you like.

YMMV and OMG witha bit of WTF,
Cheers,
Steve da sleeve

 

[passedpawn]

I do this a lot too. Here is an example of an identical test, but with lager yeasts. Please post your results here at HBT; I look forward to seeing them!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/lager-yeast-experiment-s-23-vs-wyeast-2124-a-183454/#post2123322

 

[JuanMoore]

When I first started brewing I did a whole bunch of yeast comparison experiments. I split each 5 gal batch into 5 one gal growlers and tried to pitch equal cell counts of different yeasts to the fermenters.

One of them compared S-05, WLP001, WLP051, Wyeast 1056, and Nottingham. FWIW, I had a tasting with myself and 5 friends (4 of whom are beer snobs), and nobody could tell the difference between the S-05, WLP001 and Wyeast 1056. An earlier test with most of the same yeasts where I didn't take pitching rates into account did not have the same results. My point is that using equal pitching rates might be critical to getting an accurate comparison.

I now brew 10 gal batches and split into two carboys to ferment. I almost always use a different yeast or dry hop differently, etc so that I can still keep comparing things and accurately determine what works best for me. The experimentation is one of my favorite aspects of homebrewing. Sounds like you have a good plan, so good luck!