wyeast curdling question

[williec30]

brewing a nut brown ale tonight... much to my surprise when i opened the wyeast 1768 English Bitter (MFG 17NOV08) it looked similar to cottage cheese. is this normal?

i was able to get most of it out of the package without any issues, wondering if i need more/less/no more yeast to be added?

 

[Kungpaodog]

I've always used White Labs yeast, and washed my own yeast, and I haven't seen any cottage cheese yeast yet. A good idea is to make a starter a day or two ahead of time. It takes very little effort, and proves the viability of the yeast if there is any question, and does all sorts of good things for your beer.

 

[flyangler18]

The Wyeast 1968 London ESB strain is highly flocculant, so what you describes sounds normal to me.

 

[ArcaneXor]

The Wyeast 1968 London ESB strain is highly flocculant, so what you describes sounds normal to me.

+1. Normal for several of the English yeast strains.

 

[BarleyWater]

You will notice that a lot of the English strains will look lumpy, and that's because a lot of the English strains are very highly flocculant. No problem at all, just the yeast acting like yeast.

 

[Brewsmith]

Normal. English Yeasts are very clumpy, or flocculant. White Labs 002 and a few of the other strains do the same things.

 

[EvilTOJ]

As long as it doesn't SMELL like cottage cheese, it's fine.

 

[williec30]

much appreciated... thanks for the info.

 

[chase]

I brewed and ESB yesterday with a friend who had never brewed before (and also happens to be a yeast scientist). I had WL 002 and he was grossed out by how chunky it was. He kept trying to shake up the tube to dissolve the yeast, but he couldn't. Chunky bassterds!

 

[jharres]

Normal. English Yeasts are very clumpy, or flocculant. White Labs 002 and a few of the other strains do the same things.

I just brewed an Oatmeal Milk Stout and used WLP002 and noticed the same thing. The yeast was chunky. It seemed odd, but I pitched it anyhow and it's fermenting like a champ.

Prior to this batch, I've been using WLP028 (Edinburgh Ale Yeast) and it's smooth and creamy, so it did seem kinda odd that 002 was so chunky. However, it smelled ok and after a good shaking, it was mixed enough to get it all out of the tube.