WLP073 Artisanal Country Ale - Bière de Garde strain

[Northern_Brewer]

WLP073 is a current seasonal release from White Labs having been put in the Vault in 2017. I thought I'd start a thread to encourage a centralised discussion as there seems to be nothing about it on the web.

Sounds nice : "It produces slight esters and mild phenols, while preserving the sweet aromatics from the malt bill. This strain fully attenuates, leaving the beer with a crisp, dry finish."

It comes up as a positive in PCR tests for STA1 (the "diastaticus gene") but quoted attenuation is only 75-80%, so maybe not active? Medium to low flocculation, 8-12% ABV tolerance, optimum temperature 70-82F (21-28C).

Don't know why they have two saisony strains as seasonals in winter, but none in summer - someone's not really thought that one through.

 

[couchsending]

Has anyone used this strain at all?

I bought some last fall when they were releasing everything out of the Vault. It expired in November but I revived a vile with a two step starter and honestly the first step kicked off pretty quickly.

I was attempting a hoppy/dry/bitter saison/BDG type of beer. Lots of the noble style American hops, etc. pretty hard water profile.

Grist was 2 Row, 40% Malted Wheat. Did a four step mash 126/145/162/172. OG was 1.042.

Pitched at 68 and set temp to 72. After 2 days went to 74, then 76.

Day 5 and it hit 1.004 from 1.042. It’s pretty close to done I think. Still bubbling a bit. Final pH is 4.09.

Not really picking up any phenols or esters to speak of.

Seems like a relatively clean diastaticus yeast which is interesting.

Just wondering if anyone else has used it. Hard to find much info out there on it.

 

[coonmanx]

I have never tried a Saison. Maybe it's time to go there. Looks like this yeast can handle higher temps.

And I have a bunch of Strisselspalt hops in the freezer as well.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

I have small 1040 batch fermenting with 073. I see that couchsending got about 90% attenuation in his 1042 batch mentioned above, so we may have another case of attenuation being understated by the manufacturer? And s/he says it is pretty clean. Possibly a good shout for a taras boulba attempt.

Does anybody have any feedback on this yeast from using it?

 

[duncan_disorderly]

My beer has now been in bottles for 3 weeks. It was intended to be an approximation of Taras Boulba, using pilsner malt, and Saaz and Tettnang. I forgot to take the FG, it was a messy 3 bucket bottling day, but it had got from 1040 down to 1008 (80%) after 6 days and was still going so I'm sure it got below 1008. 90% ish seems likely. The beer is not very similar to TB. Whilst the yeast is surprisingly neutral and high attenuating it seems to lack the character that the TB yeast seems to have. 073 feels more like a European ale yeast along the lines of K-97. As couchsending says, lack of phenols and esters. The beer has a softness on the palate, but that and the high attenuation are its main characteristics, I think.