About a month ago I did the single most informative experiment in my 20 year brewing career.
Pretty simple really - mixed up ldme with a litre of boiling water to an sg of 1048. Spread across 6 glasses, let cool and put a quater teaspoon of a different dried yeast in each then cap with aluminium foil. A week later chuck in fridge for two hours then taste straight from the glass.
The result was incredible, I could really taste the inherent yeast flavours. I had a supermarket ale yeast, American ale yeast, Belgian ale yeast, lager yeast, bread yeast and wine yeast.
The lager yeast tasted absolutely true to type despite fermenting on the kitchen bench at 18 degrees celcius with the rest of the bunch. Best of all were the identifiable wine flavours coming through for the wine yeast despite the absence of grapes. No it did not taste like wine but did carry some of the flavours.
Anyway, it was such a simple and effective experiment that I thought I should share it. I am now far more confident about which flavours in my beer are coming from yeast and which are probably caused by other factors. I was also able to easily identify my favourite, which is where I will focus my energy for the next few beers. I also threw one out on the spot no need to waste time on a yeast I dislike at a fundamental level
Pretty simple really - mixed up ldme with a litre of boiling water to an sg of 1048. Spread across 6 glasses, let cool and put a quater teaspoon of a different dried yeast in each then cap with aluminium foil. A week later chuck in fridge for two hours then taste straight from the glass.
The result was incredible, I could really taste the inherent yeast flavours. I had a supermarket ale yeast, American ale yeast, Belgian ale yeast, lager yeast, bread yeast and wine yeast.
The lager yeast tasted absolutely true to type despite fermenting on the kitchen bench at 18 degrees celcius with the rest of the bunch. Best of all were the identifiable wine flavours coming through for the wine yeast despite the absence of grapes. No it did not taste like wine but did carry some of the flavours.
Anyway, it was such a simple and effective experiment that I thought I should share it. I am now far more confident about which flavours in my beer are coming from yeast and which are probably caused by other factors. I was also able to easily identify my favourite, which is where I will focus my energy for the next few beers. I also threw one out on the spot no need to waste time on a yeast I dislike at a fundamental level
