WLP644 lag time effects

[Rootski]

I'll be honest, I was caught a little off guard by how quickly the beer I brewed yesterday took off. It's what I'm calling a "wild dubbel" so I used WLP644 as the only yeast. The grain bill is nothing ground breaking for a dubbel. OG is 1.061, 5.5 gallons. Less than 3 hours after pitching I could see the wort starting to bubble and turn. Within 5 hours of pitching there was an inch of krausen and full-on fermentation! Did I vastly overpitch? Will I lose what this yeast would normally give me? I wanted a slight tartness and some fruit notes. Due to WLP644's low cell count, I knew that I needed to do some starters. Here's what I did:

The vial was relatively fresh.
First starter: 1L, no stirplate, but swirled it when I passed by (smelled amazing)
Second starter: decanted the first, 2L on a stirplate
Third starter: decanted the second, 2L on a stirplate. This sat in the fridge for about 1 week.

I wanted a little extra yeast because I planned to save some for another brew.

Yesterday I decanted almost all of the liquid and ended up with a little over 1/2 pint of yeast slurry. I filled the original vial back up for storage and pitched the rest into my wort.

 

[Rootski]

Major fermentation slowed and the krausen fell after only about 24 hours. I decided to take a hyrdo reading yesterday (only 3 days after pitching). 1.022. The sample tasted fine, but I didn't get much if any of the fruity character this yeast is known for. I'm thinking I overpitched and am bummed. Maybe it'll develop a little more character with a couple more weeks in the carboy.

 

[breckenridge]

Subbed because I'm planning a 644 for my next beer. I have built up a 1L starter x 3 days, cold crashed, decanted, then 2L x 8 days today. Planning to cold crash and build up another 2L starter. All this is on stir plate, ambient temps (low 60s to mid-70s late spring Philadelphia).

Mine will be going into a 10 gallon wheat beer batch, though.

The 8-day starter plan came from dimly recalled advice from a Mad Fermentationist article... I think.

Flavor may develop after several days/weeks. I look forward to your updates.

 

[Rootski]

I think there has been a lot of advice on this yeast based on the confusion between brett and sacc through the years. My starters were finished after about 24 hours, the first one maybe took a little longer. And, I got way too much yeast so you might not need to do 8 days, but it shouldn't hurt if you had good sanitation.

I kept a vial of what I pitched in the fridge and I think a couple of brews from now I'll give it another chance and this time pitch less so the yeast can throw off some flavors from reproduction.

 

[JordanKnudson]

It is useful to note that White Labs has officially confirmed that 644 is in fact a Saccharomyces strain, not Brett as originally believed (and named). So if you are seeing behavior that doesn't seem Brett-like to you, that's because it isn't. That said, I hope you end up with the character that you were hoping for in your beer!

 

[tgmartin000]

Subbed because I'm planning a 644 for my next beer. I have built up a 1L starter x 3 days, cold crashed, decanted, then 2L x 8 days today. Planning to cold crash and build up another 2L starter. All this is on stir plate, ambient temps (low 60s to mid-70s late spring Philadelphia).

Mine will be going into a 10 gallon wheat beer batch, though.

The 8-day starter plan came from dimly recalled advice from a Mad Fermentationist article... I think.

Flavor may develop after several days/weeks. I look forward to your updates.

I'm also planning a wheat beer with this yeast. I'd like to hear how yours turns out.

 

[Rootski]

Update - took a gravity reading today - 1.019. It's still slowly bubbling. I mashed high on this beer, so a high FG was expected, but I was hoping for a little lower. I'm still disappointed with the flavor. I was hoping for much more from the yeast. Overpitching seems to be the culprit. Luckily the beer tastes pretty good, just not what I was going for.

I'll give it a couple more weeks before checking again.

 

[AK7007]

It is useful to note that White Labs has officially confirmed that 644 is in fact a Saccharomyces strain, not Brett as originally believed (and named). So if you are seeing behavior that doesn't seem Brett-like to you, that's because it isn't. That said, I hope you end up with the character that you were hoping for in your beer!

That said, it's not exactly your typical cerevisiae either. It has turned on pellicle formation genes for me before, has munched on junk from a turbid mash, etc. Just because it's some sort of Saccharomyces doesn't mean it's your bog standard ale or lager yeast.

To the OP, that's too bad that you didn't get much in the way of tropical flavors from this. I usually make a 1L starter (5gal batch) when I'm doing a stand alone fermentation with 644, and have no issues getting those tropical aromas. Nothing tart though. What is your fermentation temperature? I ferment warm normally.

 

[brewmeister13]

My 644 beers have showed signs very early. So it may not be an over pitching problem. One thing I noticed its that decanting the starter can majorly effect the FG. I've had a beer that was very similar in grist and mash temp finish at 1.007 when I pitched the entire starter and 1.012 when I decanted. Nothing controlled yet, but it could be a factor.

One thing you could do too is add some, I usually add 1mL per gallon, lactic acid. This yeast is supposed to metabolize lactic acid into ethyl lactate, which is the tropical fruit compound it is known for. I've let my IPA sit for anywhere between a month when rushed and 2 months when I have the time to allow this to develop.

 

[Rootski]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I may let it go another week or two then add some lactic acid and see how that goes. I knew this yeast was highly attenuative so I mashed high (158) and also caramelized about 3 quarts of the first runnings. The ambient temperature during fermentation was between 67-69 and temp on the carboy during fermentation climbed to 73 or 74. I just let it ride and didn't try to mess with temperature at all.

 

[Rootski]

Measured and sampled again yesterday. Surprisingly the yeast ate it down to 1.013. Still no tropical fruit flavors or aroma.

 

[Rootski]

It has been a long time since I brewed this beer and I decided to put it out of my mind since I was a little disappointed with the lack of yeast flavor that I attributed to over pitching.

I measured and sampled yesterday and FG is all the way down to 1.005. The sample now has slight fruit notes ranging from tropical to plum, along with the malty presence that would be expected from this recipe. I think bulk aging this beer has helped the tropical flavors along. While I'm still disappointed with it, I think giving it time has helped and I'll be bottling it soon.

 

[brewmeister13]

Did you ever end up adding in some Lactic? A guy at the LHBS here brewed a batch and didn't add any. He was disappointed just like you and noted the same lack of tropical fruit. Not sure his pitching rate though.

I just finished my 3rd batch of the same recipe with this yeast and ended up pitching 1.5 mil cells/mL/ºP. Great mango and pineapple aroma and flavor. I really don't think pitching rate affects it much though. A local microbrewer here brewed up a 644 pale ale and severely under pitched on purpose, I'm not sure the actual number, but they told me they pitched a very small quantity to stress the yeast. Their beer had a very similar yeast character to mine, but took months for it ferment out.

 

[Rootski]

No I never added anything. It seems to me that if you and others are getting tropical flavors without adding anything, so should I unless I did something dramatically different. The only other thing that I can think of is that my malty recipe (a Belgian Dubbel) is overpowering any flavor from the 644, and only now that I've bulk aged it is it being allowed to shine through slightly.

 

[Conman13]

My experience with WLP644 is that it does start fermenting quite quickly, but takes a long time to reach final attenuation. I've let it go for a month in primary and noticed a difference in gravity between weeks 3 and 4. It really dries out the beer if you let it go. I've never pitched nearly as many yeast cells as you. I do a 1 step, 1.5L stir plate starter with a generally high OG wort (1.070ish), and get tons of pineapple aroma from this yeast. How long have you been in primary? It might just need a little more time. Also, what temperature did you ferment at? This yeast likes higher temperatures.

 

[Rootski]

My experience with WLP644 is that it does start fermenting quite quickly, but takes a long time to reach final attenuation. I've let it go for a month in primary and noticed a difference in gravity between weeks 3 and 4. It really dries out the beer if you let it go. I've never pitched nearly as many yeast cells as you. I do a 1 step, 1.5L stir plate starter with a generally high OG wort (1.070ish), and get tons of pineapple aroma from this yeast. How long have you been in primary? It might just need a little more time. Also, what temperature did you ferment at? This yeast likes higher temperatures.

6 months so far - It's been at 68 for most of that time although I did hold it a few degrees higher for the first couple of weeks.

 

[brewmeister13]

Rather than going back and forth asking questions, here is a link to my recipe with very detailed direction of how I did it. Recipe is at the very bottom of the page. Hopefully this helps and you can look at where our two techniques differ. https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/3279-a-homebrewing-community-last-call

 

[RedBearBrew]

Hey all,

I just brewed with this yeast and so far I've had a very similar experience.

I checked on the Yeastman QC and the batch my yeast came from had a 2.23 billion cells per ml. I used a couple of packs and so 40ml x 2 = 80ml, x 2.23 billion gives me about 178 billion at packaging, and at about 75% viability I'm left with around 133 billion.

I put both into a 1.5l starter, un-stirred but with occasional swirling, for 24 hours in the lead up (I take Chris White and Wyeasts advice that the growth phase is over by around 18 to 24 hours). I kept the starter around 25ish degrees Celsius.

I overshot my wort OG substantially - was aiming for 1.052 and got 1.061.

Pitched around 27c. It started bubbling within a few hours and had stopped bubbling by 36 hours. I took a gravity reading at 72h (last night) and it was down at 1.019.

Based on what I've read, I've either under-pitched or just need to wait a while. I do have a spare yeast pack just in case.

In terms of dry hopping, I imagine that with this kind of fermentation profile that I don't want to be trying to charge it during fermention to get 'biotransformation' flavours. I'm thinking I should just monitor my gravity for a week, and then either add more yeast if it stalls, or if it hits FG, then dry hop.

I'm also concerned that as this is a low floc yeast, should I crash chill, rack to secondary then dry hop? Or do i want to keep some yeast in suspension for those fruity esters, then just match that with a huge enough dry hop to compliment it?

Cheers!