White Labs Yeast Vault

[ba-brewer]

Received emails from chris white at stamps.com that my yeast orders have shipped. Includes where the two vials that were delivered two days ago, all have a ship date of 7/29/19. The other three yeast had labels created on the same day but did not ship.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Guess who got Christmas in July? Chris White personally emailed me last night to say these had shipped, and what was waiting in my mail box when I got home? The ice packs had thawed but

Weird though that they sent me 2x WLP011 (I probably had one on order from 2 years ago, and added one for the vault purge). And still outstanding is WLP85 (which I already have but want a backup). I got the Kveik about a week ago, so....I have a backlog.

Curious on the vault purge logic for July. Seems to make a lot more sense in say January, when the weather is cold, Xmas rush is over, and those who use ambient temperature can get right at it. Not complaining, just a little mystified.

Anyhoo, I digress, I'll kick off the WLP011 cyser tonight and maybe the 1933 Kidd AK with the Opshaug to test out brewing in an 85F ambient garage.

 

[Mutant]

I needed a way to manage my WLP yeasts and easily compare them. Thought others might like this spreadsheet as it takes most of the details from each WLP yeast on their website (no comments or descriptions included).

 

[ba-brewer]

I am down to 2 left to be delivered , wlp033 klassic ale and wlp038 Manchester ale. I had received an email with tracking notices for both that was saying label printed waiting on package but now they are both un-trackable. Anyone else still waiting on either of these?

 

[cyberbackpacker]

@ba-brewer I am in the same boat; waiting on 33, 38, and 76. Received shipping notification over a week ago as labels being created, but no reception by USPS!

 

[ba-brewer]

@ba-brewer I am in the same boat; waiting on 33, 38, and 76. Received shipping notification over a week ago as labels being created, but no reception by USPS!

Thanks @cyberbackpacker, kind of glad to get a break but I am getting tired of stalking the mailman.

I have a beer fermenting with wlp059 that is acting like the beers I have made with wlp076. It took off fast and got down to 50% attenuation in 36 hours then started to crawl. 5 days post pitch and it is only attenuated to 63%, when most yeast would be close to final gravity. The beers I brewed with wlp076 all took almost 14days to get to final gravity.

I have 022, 026 and 039 yet to brew with. I was going to do WLP026 next but I found some old post here on HBT that it seems to need some aging time to clean up. Now I leaning towards wlp039.

 

[kmarkstevens]

I split a batch of AK between brand spanking new wlp017 and wlp026 strains pitched this morning that are happily fermenting away.

On the other hand, forgot to aerate the Kolsch WLP011, so just took care of that and hopefully that one will be going full steam ahead by morning. I'll also try the 011 on a cyser and fingers crossed it will attenuate out around 1005 be we will see about that.

Still on order is 85. I totally brain farted and somehow ordered two 011 instead of changing one to 013. Oh well, if the 85 doesn't show up, I'll see if I can swap those two out as I still have an 85 culture going strong.

 

[ba-brewer]

building a starter with my vial of wlp039 east midlands yeast, looked to about a little less than half as much slurry as most other yeast. Hope it is a finer yeast and not a half filled vial. If is the later the starter should fix things.

 

[ba-brewer]

The broken tracking number for my last two strains started working again last night, then this morning I received emails and two new number from chris white. Emails says shipping today, but the tracking link says the label was created three days ago and is waiting for package.

 

[BrewingAroundtheRrealm]

The broken tracking number for my last two strains started working again last night, then this morning I received emails and two new number from chris white. Emails says shipping today, but the tracking link says the label was created three days ago and is waiting for package.

I have two tracking numbers and only 1 order still outstanding. I'm not sure if that means I'm getting two duplicate orders or one of the numbers is wrong.

 

[ba-brewer]

I would go with one number is bad.

I have a feeling the vault thing was/is not very integrated into their production process. Probably as painful for the folks that have to fulfill the orders as us folks that have placed the orders.

 

[kmarkstevens]

What a coincidence, Chris White reached out to me as well.

I've gotten a bunch of vault strains. The tracking number is useless for actually tracking the shipment but experience tells me it was shipped out the day you got the tracking number

 

[ba-brewer]

What a coincidence, Chris White reached out to me as well.

I've gotten a bunch of vault strains. The tracking number is useless for actually tracking the shipment but experience tells me it was shipped out the day you got the tracking number

it has a been a mixed bag for me, but your guess was a winner today as I got a second notice that the packages reached the post office in San Diego.

 

[ba-brewer]

All my strains have arrived, got last 2 yesterday with only one having ice pack, both vials were the same balmy 77F. Guess I will brewing something wlp033 next.

 

[Franktalk]

All my strains have arrived, got last 2 yesterday with only one having ice pack, both vials were the same balmy 77F. Guess I will brewing something wlp033 next.

Same exact thing here. Going to brew Young's Special Bitter from Graham Wheeler's book with the 033.

 

[ba-brewer]

Same exact thing here. Going to brew Young's Special Bitter from Graham Wheeler's book with the 033.

So your wlp033 was delivered without a icepack too, or are you just going to brew with yeast next?

 

[Franktalk]

Same exact condition as yours, but 77F is not a killer temp. As far as brewing, it just seems I've been waiting so long for it, so I want to use it right away.

 

[kmarkstevens]

I got my final order of WLP085 today with a melted ice pack.

Will check if they can still do WLP013 since I brainfarted and ordered 2 WLP011 instead of 1 WLP011 and 1 WLP013

Also
1) harvested about 2 pounds worth of East Seattle Goldings hops
2) made a House British Ale suicide blend starter using notty, pub, windsor, adnan's, burton, irish, w yorkie, whitbread, WLP026, WLP085 & S-04
3) fired up a Harvest Ale today (8.5# golden promise, 1# flaked barley, 1# invert #3)
4) will pitch in the morning

 

[couchsending]

White Labs might be the worst company I’ve ever ordered something from. It’s mind boggling how screwed up they’re whole system is.

Get an email saying to expect my order of German Lager X to ship soon... crickets

Call two weeks later. Took them forever to find the order in their “system” even though I gave them an order number. Was told yeast was being produced and would ship out the following Monday... crickets

Week and a half goes by, call again. Again give them the same order number and I’m put on hold for 5 minutes while they figure out what’s going on. Said it “shipped” and I should have seen it by now but they had no tracking. Then was told they’d ship more out on Monday, overnight for free... WTF

Almost every order I’ve placed with them within the last year has had equally as mind boggling yet different issues.

I almost feel sorry for the people who have to do customer service there. It sounds like one big gigantic cluster F*ck.

 

[bierhaus15]

Going to brew Young's Special Bitter from Graham Wheeler's book with the 033.

Random, but I've tried brewing Young's Special Bitter with both WLP033 and WY1768 (multiple times), both of which are supposedly the Young's strain, and have not been crazy happy with any of them. Much too clean, no real top cropping ability, and lacks the characteristic ethyl heptanoate note of the real stuff. Fast forward, kegged a bitter made with WLP030 this week and first taste was "holy **** this tastes like Young's!"

The mouthfeel of WLP030 is also terrific, will be interesting to see how it ages, but I definitely plan to use it to brew some Youngs clones.

 

[ba-brewer]

Random, but I've tried brewing Young's Special Bitter with both WLP033 and WY1768 (multiple times), both of which are supposedly the Young's strain, and have not been crazy happy with any of them. Much too clean, no real top cropping ability, and lacks the characteristic ethyl heptanoate note of the real stuff. Fast forward, kegged a bitter made with WLP030 this week and first taste was "holy **** this tastes like Young's!"

The mouthfeel of WLP030 is also terrific, will be interesting to see how it ages, but I definitely plan to use it to brew some Youngs clones.

WLP030 has come across very clean for me and cant seem to get consistent attenuations. Attenuation also in the low to mid 60s not the mid 70s like the webpage suggests, but I did get a 69% attenuation once. What kind of attenuation did you get?

Had to look up ethyl heptanoate, I occasionally get a subtle grape like flavor from my pale lagers and figured it was esters until I seen some people saying it can comes from acid malt. I only use acid malt in my pale lagers so the last one I used lactic acid in the mash instead to see if that was the cause of the grape flavor.
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[ba-brewer]

Made a small 1L starter for a vial of WLP026 premium bitters. It has been almost 2 hour and it still looks like pebbles tumbling around the beaker, and the wort is still very clear. This has to be the most compacted yeast I have used.

 

[kmarkstevens]

WLP026 - no kidding. FYI, that stuff stuck like glue to the Erlenmeyer flask when I tried to decant. Avoid if you can gently pouring out to leave the magnetic stirrer behind. Just dump it all in and remember to get the magnet out later.

 

[Franktalk]

Random, but I've tried brewing Young's Special Bitter with both WLP033 and WY1768 (multiple times), both of which are supposedly the Young's strain, and have not been crazy happy with any of them. Much too clean, no real top cropping ability, and lacks the characteristic ethyl heptanoate note of the real stuff. Fast forward, kegged a bitter made with WLP030 this week and first taste was "holy **** this tastes like Young's!"

The mouthfeel of WLP030 is also terrific, will be interesting to see how it ages, but I definitely plan to use it to brew some Youngs clones.

I have to agree with you about the mouthfeel of 030. I brewed a Courage Director's Bitter clone with it, and it's the most "British" tasting beer I have ever made. Love it!

 

[ba-brewer]

WLP026 - no kidding. FYI, that stuff stuck like glue to the Erlenmeyer flask when I tried to decant. Avoid if you can gently pouring out to leave the magnetic stirrer behind. Just dump it all in and remember to get the magnet out later.

Did your starter stay as little clumps?

It has been like 14hrs now and still little jelly doughnut things bouncing around the bottom. There has been a small amount of foam on top for a while and it does look like there are more than when I started so I think there is growth just weird that the wort never turned milky looking.

 

[bierhaus15]

Other pictures of WLP026 on stir plates look the same, very chunky. A few other UK yeasts are like that out of the tube, although I find it curious that they do not behave the same way after repitching. It could be that White Labs is adding a lot of zinc to the propagation wort and hence the yeast is very thick and chunky at first.

 

[ba-brewer]

Other pictures of WLP026 on stir plates look the same, very chunky. A few other UK yeasts are like that out of the tube, although I find it curious that they do not behave the same way after repitching. It could be that White Labs is adding a lot of zinc to the propagation wort and hence the yeast is very thick and chunky at first.

I did some looking at previous posts a few weeks ago but missed the "ugly yeast thread". I guess I just focused on the comments that wlp026 may need extra time to condition.

The little doughnut thing seemed familiar, and it looks like I had similar round clumps in wlp037 but it also had yeast in suspension with more common egg drop soup stuff. I plan to do another batch with wlp037 when I get done with the latest vault purchases, will be curious to see if makes doughnuts again.

 

[couchsending]

Brewing my third batch with WLp030 today. They’re not “British” beers per se but I’ve been fairly happy with them so far. Only one has been trapped so far. Mouthfeel is nice and doesn’t seem to accentuate malt too much. Hopefully get 5 or 6 beers out of one vial before I have to prop the other one up.

Kolsch I made with wlp072 is tasting really promising. Really cool malt character came through with a touch of fruit.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Did your starter stay as little clumps?

It has been like 14hrs now and still little jelly doughnut things bouncing around the bottom. There has been a small amount of foam on top for a while and it does look like there are more than when I started so I think there is growth just weird that the wort never turned milky looking.

I've only done one batch and didn't take pictures. As I remember, no, it de-clumpified in the stir plate. When finished and pouring into tubes for refridgeration, the chunks were much smaller than your photo. More like medium sized cottage cheese curds (or about 1/4-1/2 as large as your photo). But they really clung to the Erlenmeyer flask like rats to a sinking ship. I tilted, shook, swirled, etc and left behind a lot more than I wanted to.

anyway, hope your chunks start budding and reproducing

 

[smata67]

You really need to take care of the clumping at the vial stage. The WLP075 (Hansen Ale) I got was also clumping like rock in the vial, would not even pour out. I added some boiled distilled water (at room temperature) and broke this up with a bamboo skewer prior to pitching into the starter.