Yeast vs Yeast vs Yeast

[sablesurfer]

S-33 vs Nottingham vs BRY-97 at 64F - (aka "how to accidentally manage to time the rotation of your blow off tube")

=S-33 is amazingly aggressive, needed a blow off tube in about 9 hours. Never had one take off that fast.

=Nottingham is doing its thing, about 21 hours and going to town. Since s-33 has slowed it gets airlock back and Notty gets blow off tube.

=BRY-97, it's just kinda sitting back watching the others. Gonna take its time like people told me.

(These are all in same batch of a session IPA. 1.046, mostly extract with a bit of special B and C120)

 

[estricklin]

Interested to hear tasting notes when you get that far along.

 

[14thstreet]

Good on you! I've been using Nottingham in my pales lately for no other reason to get something to fall clear after fermentation (its been so-so). It's done well in darker ales but I've also never carried it above 64F either to know how much fruit or other stuff it can pump out. I'm on the verge of dropping it out of use but I need a fair side-by-side like you are doing.

How are you maintaining temp and how much hops are you using?

 

[sablesurfer]

Interested to hear tasting notes when you get that far along.

Yep, that was the goal here. I appear to be the only person in the world that cannot get Safal-05 to finish clean regularly. About one in four/five tries is fresh and all others throw this garbagey/overripe veggie aroma and taste.

Actually I guess I missed that S-33 was a belgian, I added it to the mix on advice of my LHBS. But realized that as I was opening the package. Hopefully the middle/low range of S-33 will keep it clean.

Going to bottle each of the one gallon samples into six packs. Condition as normal and then taste test over a couple weeks.

It's done well in darker ales but I've also never carried it above 64F either to know how much fruit or other stuff it can pump out. I'm on the verge of dropping it out of use but I need a fair side-by-side like you are doing.

How are you maintaining temp and how much hops are you using?

I have used Notty in stouts because I like it there. Usually in the 72 range, and now I am wondering if that is what the last competition judges were calling too phenolic. Very solid yeast cake at bottom of bottle conditioning, so I like that.

This test deliberately on the lower end of my 'normal' fermentation range because I do want this to be more American IPA yeast results than English. Also, this is a test of my brand new fermentation chamber. Just finished all my wiring and testing on Sat, reorganized garage on Sun to fit the new cabinet and then brewed this test batch Sun evening.

Who the heck bothers with just one variable at a time?!?! Test em ALL I say. LOL....sigh. (In fact my heater control on fernentation chamber seems to have crapped out. Appears I may have opened it up too many times and worked a wire loose. Since I cannot solder circuit boards, I have rerouted wires of the chamber to effectively make my cooling control run both the heater and recirculation fan. Temps been within 2 at most, and about 1F fluctuation over last 24hrs.)

 

[sablesurfer]

Oh...and to add to more controversies here at HBT...I did rehydrate each of the yeasts this time, and I basically double piched. (~4gms of each into 1gal wort). Boiled water, put that in ice bath to cool. Poured into three sanitized "taster glasses" (from local festival) and pitched yeast to rehydrate while I shook oxygenated my wort.

 

[sablesurfer]

Sorry, missed the hops question, too early and not enough coffee.

Since this was a partial brew (4lbs extract, .5lb specialty) for 3 gallons, I didn't go with a hour boil. I used Chinook, Cascade, El Dorado at 30 and at 10. Not going to dry hop. IBU's a little high at 58 i think, have it written down at home, but then that will also tell me which yeast lets the hops stand out.

 

[boydster]

S-33 isn't actually a Belgian strain. I'm pretty sure it is the EDME strain. I've used it, and one thing to watch out for with that one is a stall, followed by a zombie resurrection several days later. It really helps if you raise the temp a few degrees as fermentation winds down.

Edit: I should mention, I purchased it originally because I saw the word "Belgian" on he package, and expected it to taste like a Belgian yeast. After tasting the resulting beer, I dug around and it is described by Fermentis as a "Belgian Wit" or wheat yeast, but everywhere else you look for information about it states it is, in fact, EDME, which is English in origin.

 

[sablesurfer]

Ah...very intriguing. Thanks!

 

[boydster]

Good luck with your experiment I really need to try BRY-97. It has been on my to-do list for too long and I keep passing it up and using Notty or 05 instead.

 

[kh54s10]

Nice experiment. Will watch for the results.

As to the blow off rotation - get more blowoff tubes. I start EVERY fermentation with a blowoff tube. You never know how fast one will start. I often do not change to an airlock at all. I sometimes have 3 beers fermenting at the same time.

 

[sablesurfer]

Yeah, you tell me now... Before this I was using a water bath and could only ever get one brew in temp control at a time. Just now realizing that since I could, technically, get two 5gal brews or up to six 1gal brews going at a time....might need more equipment.

LOL.

It's a sickess, ever new bit of equipment leads to more equipment.

 

[sablesurfer]

One week update. Every one of these required a blow off tube, and the BRY-97 was last to start up and last to need the blow off.
S-33 and Notty are back to cleaned up airlocks and doing the hundreds of little bubbles thing...so still going along
BRY-97 was last to start up, but eventually it went back to an airlock two days ago. However, this morning I am back to crud in the airlock again! So somehow this thing decided it wasn't really done yet. (This is at day 6)

(as an aside, the description of 97 seems to be "• Quick start and vigorous fermentation, which can be completed in 4 days above 17 °C. • Medium to high attenuation," .... which is NOT my experience so far. Granted I am fermenting at 17.7778C, but that is 'above' dang it. Last one to start and still going at 6 days in.)

 

[sablesurfer]

Bottled these over the weekend.

Here they are in their happy little home. (This was also first run of my new homebuilt fermentation chamber.)


Looking at them in fermenters, not much in the way of difference. They all blew off, so kinda sticky.


Side by side of my gravity samples. I will say that S-33 is NOT nearly as flocculant as the other two. This was after >hour in the fridge and middle one still got some lighter color to it.


A close up of the S-33 sample that hopefully shows the yeast sediment in the gravity sample after time in the fridge.


Now, down to the numbers:
[All started at 1.046]
Nottingham FG = 1.006 but with Brix of 5
S-33 FG = 1.006 and a Brix of 6.2?
(Not sure how they had similar hydrometer but different brix. No I didn't do a conversion because the calculator was confusing.)
Bry-97 FG = 1.011 and a Brix of 6.1
(Yeah, the brix readings were all over the place.)

Tasting notes:
[They were all fermented at 64F and were very similar, nothing jumped out and went, "Damn that is different."]
S-33 - Seemed to have a slightly fruitier sweeter note to it.
Nottingham - Seemed a bit more on the richer grain notes, not fruity
BRY 97 - Seemed the cleanest? with a bit of hop showing through I would guess.

They were all way to young at this point, so I was working to find the differences among the yeast aroma and young beer stuff. All bottled up and will test carbonation in a week.

 

[sablesurfer]

BRY-99 is definitely the cleanest of the three. The bitterness seems to be less harsh here and dry finish. When I say clean, I don't mean no aroma/flavor, it is clean beer flavor balance.

S-33 definitely has more of a dank grain character to it, so not malt flavors, but grain. Bitterness here was harshest of the three. This one had most citrus, kind of an orange note.

Nottingham was much more interesting aroma of honey, caramel and malts. Taste was more of the grainy malt but with honey and pear in the finish.

Ironically, what I am learning most about this is that it is either my ingredients or my process that could be leading to Safale-05 not working for me. Fermentation was different this time as first time I used my new fermentation chamber, but this beer with the Nottie is pretty close to some of the worst that Safale-05 has produced on bad beers.

(I am filtering out the not right flavors and aromas from the side by side, since they are more my fault than the yeasts.)

However, even with Nottie just dealing with what it was given, the BRY-99 actually cleaned up the beer. It made it much more drinkable and it was the sample I refilled. Interesting.