Westmalle (Wyeast 3787/WLP530) Impressions

[philosofool]

As OP, I though I'd follow up.

This is a fantasitic yeast. I bottle conditioned a dubbel after 3-4 weeks in primary and 20 days lagering a 41 degrees. The beer won BOS at my county fair homebrew competition. I fermented around 69 degrees for the first week and then at ambient temps (while on vacation) for another three.

This is pretty anecdotal, since I've only brewed one beer with it recently, but I would say that the views about his yeast are confirmed by my experience: it needs time to mellow but once it does, it has a wonderful balance of fruity esters and peppery phenols. I hate overly phenolic beer, but this yeas puts just the right touch for complexity.

 

[pdxal]

As usual I should have consulted this forum before brewing instead of after.

Pretty much all the observations made about this yeast have held true for me.

I brewed a very tasty blonde in June using this yeast. However, I should have let it go longer before bottling. I only gave it 16 days in the primary and went straight to bottling, using 5 oz of priming sugar.

Great taste but far too fizzy, and the dimples on my caps have been pushed back. No bottles have exploded yet, but i'm handling them with extreme caution.

I will brew with this yeast again but I will:
- Give it plenty of time and pay closer attention to its gravity.
- cut back on the priming sugar.

Warm it up at the end too.

 

[BrewSavage]

I used this yeast again in December and gave it more time and paid attention to the SG and everything has gone as expected with this batch.

 

[drunkenmonk]

I finally made a good dubbel with this yeast. It has great, complex esters. I think the trick was pitching cool (~65F) and warming up (75F) at the end for a few days to let it finish to avoider gushers.

I'm encouraged now to attempt a quad again to see if I can avoid the really strong grapefruit flavors.

 

[catdaddy66]

Getting set to brew a Westvleteren 12 clone in a few weeks. Have a vial of wlp530 and am debating on whether or not to build a starter now or wait to just before brew day. Very excited about my first Belgian attempt!

 

[tgmartin000]

Is everyone using a standard pitching rate with this yeast? Lately I've been considering under pitching by 10-20% to stress the yeast a little.

I stopped by a new brewery yesterday here in Denver, and their triple was faaaaantastic. It uses a blend of Chimay and westmalle.

 

[catdaddy66]

Getting ready to build a two or three step starter to get this ready for my Westy 12 clone in 3-4 weeks. Since this is a dark beer I can use my CDA wort collected last weekend for the starter. I want to be ready for brewday and not have any surprises.