Yeast Taste Test

[TheKaizenOne]

Hi! I'm new to home brewing and want to do some experiments to see how different things taste/react.
For my first experiment, I'm brewing a very basic SMaSH of 2 row with a single hop (most likely crystal).
I plan on dividing the wort; 16oz of wort in 32oz mason jars (with airlocks) and fermenting them individually with different yeasts. (using mostly dry yeast)
My question is how much yeast do I add for 16oz of wort? I used a few online tools and resulted in .4 gram of yeast. Is that enough? I have 12 different yeasts to try.
I plan on doing similar experiments with grains (making grain teas) and hops (making hop teas).
Has anyone ever done this?

 

[JSetzer]

I’m fairly new to brewing also (about a dozen batches) and I am interested to hear about your results. Good idea…

 

[CascadesBrewer]

My question is how much yeast do I add for 16oz of wort? I used a few online tools and resulted in .4 gram of yeast. Is that enough? I have 12 different yeasts to try.

Dry yeast? If so, 0.4 g seems fine. If you figure that 11 g in a 5 gallon batch is a decent pitch, then that would work out to 0.275 g in 16 oz of wort.

Do you plan on carbonating the beer?

My favorite way of playing with yeasts is to split a 5 gallon batch. That works well and I end up with a good amount of beer to enjoy, but it would not scale well to 12 yeasts! I have been thinking of doing some in the 1-gallon range size. That would make it easier to knock off 4-6 yeasts at a time, but requires a number of fermenters and a 4+ week turn around to ferment and bottle condition.

One day I poured off the "beer" from a starter into a glass and it was enjoyable enough that I wondered about doing something similar for trial beers. It is not quite as realistic or enjoyable as a carbonated bottle of beer, but just requires simple equipment, no bottling, and could be turned around in about a week.

 

[hotbeer]

The yeast manufacturers have spec sheets for their different types of yeast. Usually they have their recommended pitch amounts for a given amount of wort. You'll have to scale it to your amounts.

They also usually tell you what their recommendations are for whether to make a starter or just pitch it.

So those will be a good place to start IMO. And any other info that others might give from their experience. Me, I'm still a noob. So YMMV.

 

[TheKaizenOne]

Do you plan on carbonating the beer?

Yes, I plan on carbonating. Likely in bottle using a tab. Here's my mini fermenter. I only had 8 jars, so I will only be doing 8 different yeasts.
I think this is going to be fun.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I think this is going to be fun.

Good luck! I am looking forward to hearing your results.

I recently bottled two one gallon SMaSH batches, so I have some open fermenters (and my fermentation chamber is tied up with an IPA). I am thinking that maybe this evening I will brew up a 2 to 3 gallon batch of a simple Saison recipe and split it with WLP565 (which I have used a few times), Belle Saison (never used) and Voss (used a few times but always in hoppy beers).

 

[hamachi]

I plan on doing similar experiments with grains (making grain teas) and hops (making hop teas).
Has anyone ever done this?

Very cool experiment. I look forward to seeing the results, as well as results from your other planned experiments.

The most I have ever done along these lines is a 3-way split batch with 3 different yeasts. So I'm impressed with your ambition to do an 8-way split.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I plan on doing similar experiments with grains (making grain teas) and hops (making hop teas).
Has anyone ever done this?

I have played around with this.

For grains, I have tried the "hot steep method" and also played with making "grain teas" that I either spiking commercial beer with the tea or sampling the tea directly. While I found there is some value in this, it seems like very little extra info from just chewing on a few kernels of the grain while holding it in your mouth for 30 seconds to let the enzymes break down some of the starches. One benefit of the "chew" method is that you can likely grab a few grains out of the bins at the homebrew store.

I have brewed a few 1-gallon SMaSH beers to evaluate base grains. While it is something I will continue to do, it is a good amount of effort to make a mediocre beer. You could do this for specialty grains (say adding 5%-10% of a dark or crystal malt) but I don't have the motivation to put in that much effort. Steeping specialty grains in an extract beer would be much easier.

For hops, I feel like the smells of raw pellets are not close to what I get in a beer. I had good luck with making a hop tea and spiking a commercial beer. But then I started making 3/4-gallon extract based hop sampler batches, and settled on that process. It is pretty cheap, rather easy, and turns out an enjoyable Pale Ale style beer. My inspiration was the hop samplers that Basic Brewing Radio makes.

I have seen people recommend dropping a few pellets of hops into something like a Bud Light. That seems fine but only would give you the flavors you would get from a dry hop addition. I have found that the flavors from a hop can be rather different in the boil, in a hop stand or as a dry hop addition.

Article on Hot Steep Method (my input is that a more informal process is nearly as good, but maybe not as repeatable on a commercial level if you care about that): The Hot Steep Method: Step-by-Step Instructions - Brewing With Briess

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Yes, I plan on carbonating. Likely in bottle using a tab.

You may want to practice moving liquid into a bottle before bottling day. With a mini-siphon, I find that I have a couple of ounces of beer left in the hoses (but maybe I'm doing something wrong).

When I was working with split batches in mason jars, I found that about 48 oz in a half gallon jar yielded 3 bottles (36 oz) every time. I was pretty relaxed with these batches - didn't use an air-lock, just put the lid on along and screwed the ring on loosely (enough to keep the lid from falling off, but pressure would release).

Are you aware of the Basic Brewing Radio podcast? A couple of years ago, they started a series called "Hop Sampler" where they brew a couple of single hop beers and compare notes. Recently they extended this to malt (eta: and water profiles)

Beyond that, @CascadesBrewer has good advice (and saved me a bunch of keystrokes this morning).

 

[CascadesBrewer]

A data point on a yeast trial where the beers were not bottled or carbonated: Evaluating 5 White Labs Yeast Strains for Hazy IPAs

 

[hamachi]

You may want to practice moving liquid into a bottle before bottling day. With a mini-siphon, I find that I have a couple of ounces of beer left in the hoses (but maybe I'm doing something wrong).

For bottling "baby batches" of less than a gallon, I have started using big (300 ml and 500 ml) plastic syringes rather than siphons. You can get them on Amazon, and they come with short silicone tubes which are useful for transferring the beer to the bottle without splashing. I'll sanitize everything, put the hose in a bottle, pull 300+ ml from the fermenter with the syringe, attach the hose to the syringe, and depress the plunger. Detach the hose from the syringe when done to make sure the beer in the hose ends up in the bottle. Repeat until all usable beer has been taken from the fermenter.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

going back to the original post for a minute ...

I used a few online tools and resulted in .4 gram of yeast. Is that enough? I have 12 different yeasts to try.

A couple of the Lallemand dry yeast strains have a noticeably different pitch rate (compare Nottingham to New England). There is a pitch rate calculator here: Pitching rate calculator | Lallemand Brewing

A couple of other yeast related links at Lallemand's site (for me, it's worth a review every six to twelve months for newer content):

• Brewer's corner - Lallemand Brewing
• Downloads – Lallemand Brewing

Fermentis also has sections of their site that are worth a look every six to twelve months:

• Beer fermentation tips and tricks | only for brewers
• Answers about yeast and fermentation

The product information / technical data sheets for each of the strains will often contain flavor profiles.

Mangrove Jacks has similar information here: Craft Series Beer, Wine, Cider, Mead Yeast strain information

 

[DannyBoy270]

Hi! I'm new to home brewing and want to do some experiments to see how different things taste/react.
For my first experiment, I'm brewing a very basic SMaSH of 2 row with a single hop (most likely crystal).
I plan on dividing the wort; 16oz of wort in 32oz mason jars (with airlocks) and fermenting them individually with different yeasts. (using mostly dry yeast)
My question is how much yeast do I add for 16oz of wort? I used a few online tools and resulted in .4 gram of yeast. Is that enough? I have 12 different yeasts to try.
I plan on doing similar experiments with grains (making grain teas) and hops (making hop teas).
Has anyone ever done this?

I love this idea, you'll have to let us know how it turns out!

Another just random thought though, at some point you may consider expanding your trials to some of the same yeasts at different fermentation temperatures. Especially if the strain is intended to impart some specific characteristics (i.e. banana, phenols, etc.) because you'll find what you get at warmer temps may be entirely different than what you get at cooler temps.

Cheers

 

[Drewch]

For bottling "baby batches" of less than a gallon, I have started using big (300 ml and 500 ml) plastic syringes rather than siphons. You can get them on Amazon, and they come with short silicone tubes which are useful for transferring the beer to the bottle without splashing. I'll sanitize everything, put the hose in a bottle, pull 300+ ml from the fermenter with the syringe, attach the hose to the syringe, and depress the plunger. Detach the hose from the syringe when done to make sure the beer in the hose ends up in the bottle. Repeat until all usable beer has been taken from the fermenter.

16 fl oz of wort minus trub/yeast cake is going to give you about a bottle per jar. This is almost certainly a better approach than trying to siphon. In fact, i may try this with my next 4L batch.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

This is almost certainly a better approach than trying to siphon.

Agreed.

Although, as mentioned in #9, I did find that a mini-siphon works well in a half-gallon jar if the desired yield is three bottles.