Yeast suggestion

[mashweasel]

To Graham's wonderful conjecture's, the vast majority of the fantasy strains he suggest I've made up have been verified either by the brewery or by the producer.

[Graham]

To Graham's wonderful conjecture's, the vast majority of the fantasy strains he suggest I've made up have been verified either by the brewery or by the producer.

It is no wonder that I have such a low opinion of your capabilities when you come out with stuff like that. At least give me the credit of knowing a bit about the geography of Britain and the history of her breweries. If you wish to insist that you are correct, as you always do, then you are implying that the yeast producers are mislabelling their products. You are effectively libelling them.

[mashweasel]

Graham,

Come on dude. Everything doesn't have to be an argument. I also know my geography. Your knowledge of breweries is not in question. What I have in the yeast list has been verified to a very high degree. Now, from time to time people will have more information for me about the original source of the stair or the like. I think make changes. This is not a static document. Rather than denigrating the work, If you have any specific knowledge of these strains, I would more than welcome it!

[mysterio]

Kristen, I always wondered about the WL Burton Ale yeast/Brakspear connection. Can you shed any light on that one? Not disputing it as the flavour profiles are similar. Why's it called Burton?

[mashweasel]

I do actually. Basically Brakspear did/do the double drop fermentation which is pretty much what Marstons did/does. The yeast and technique originally come from them. That being said, it was originally a 'multi-strain'. The strain in which we talk was an individual strain picked from the multistrain. Which is why its very similar but stil has some differences at the same time. This happens an awful lot for UK strains. Fullers was originally multistrained and went to a single. So a yeast picked form a more complex multi-strain by a newer brewery is it more helpful in indicating the origin or where the exact strain in question came from. Make sense?

[mysterio]

Yeah, I suppose that makes sense. It's a nice yeast.

[Graham]

Graham,

Come on dude. Everything doesn't have to be an argument. I also know my geography. Your knowledge of breweries is not in question. What I have in the yeast list has been verified to a very high degree. Now, from time to time people will have more information for me about the original source of the stair or the like. I think make changes. This is not a static document. Rather than denigrating the work, If you have any specific knowledge of these strains, I would more than welcome it!

That is the problem. I do not have any more information about those strains than you do. The only people that know for sure are the propagators themselves. They rarely name the brewery because of perceived legal problems. The name 'Bass', for example, is a world-wide registered trade mark, and companies are very protective of their trade marks these days. Although nothing is likely to happen, they are not prepared to take the risk. In the days when I supplied liquid yeast, the source was cyphered in a simple manner as the product code, which could of course be deciphered by those in the know. I reckoned that that would be enough to protect my arse.

Not knowing the origin or locality of these yeast strains for sure, is why I did not suggest any particular liquid yeast in my recipe book. It was just too difficult. I do not have the resources to experiment with every yeast in a supplier's range, several time over. The few that I have played with behaved nothing like the real stuff obtained from the brewery; Ringwood yeast is the best example of that. Ringwood is also an example of the suppliers being able to name the source because the name of a town cannot be trade-marked. As there is only one brewery in Ringwood it is obvious which one it is. However, Ringwood yeast can still be confusing because it is in fact a Yorkshire yeast; during its formative years it was brought up on Yorkshire stone squares. Ringwood themselves pinched it from the now defunct Hull brewery in Yorkshire. It is also extensively used by American micros, one of which would doubtless have been the secondary source for the American yeast suppliers.

When specifying yeast, I would be happy enough to use a yeast from the same region as the beer's origin. It is fair to assume that all the long-established brewers within a radius of several miles of, say, a major town would use the same yeast. This is due to the historic practice of a brewer with a yeast problem 'borrowing' a bucket of yeast from one of the neighbouring brewers to start off his fermentation again. This causes the yeast employed over a wide area to be fairly incestuous stuff. The same stuff except for the drift caused by the yeast adapting to the particular environment of an individual brewery. At one time there was little or no difference between Barclay Perkins and Whitbread yeast. I recall on Ron Pattinsons site that Whitbread yeast was specifically mentioned in one of the B.P. logs. Obviously B.P. had had a yeast problem or they were doing a bit of out-crossing to maintain the pedigree. All the central London brewers of the time would have been using the same yeast for the same reason.

There are pitfalls and gotchas with trying to match yeasts, due to the spate of brewery closures. Many well-known beers are just brands that are moved around from brewery to brewery depending upon who wins the brewing contract. I doubt if the yeast follows the beer around. Also, when a beer that was brewed in traditional fermenting vessels, gets brewed in a big brewery that uses conicals, a yeast change is inevitable. It is rare for a traditional yeast to perform properly in 50-foot high tanks. It is equally as rare for a yeast used to 50-foot tanks to perform well in our 18-inch buckets.

[Blackjack]

GW. More common sense and less pretension than I have seen in a months of Sundays,

[Bribie]

After trying quite a number of Wyeasts over the last 3 years, the only two liquid yeasts I regularly use are Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire and Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale. For anything clean or blonde or American I go back to US-05 all the time - even for a modern UK Summer Ale.

The West Yorkshire works beautifully if you try to emulate the Stone Square system (fermenting around 17°, aerating, rousing etc) and produces a beautiful rocky head of floating yeast. And the Irish Ale makes perfect Stouts and Irish Reds in record time at 23° C and almost holds up a placard "I am in the same family as Guinness yeasts that are (or were, if G has changed its current yeast) allowed to rise to 24° "

However I haven't found another liquid ale yeast that really does the job - I've tried Thames Valley and London ESB in the last six months, and they both turned out rather dull ales. For the OP I'd probably go the 1968 over the dried yeasts but not by much.

[mark]

Yes 1968 and 002 are the same yeast

http://www.mrmalty.com/yeast.htm






.

Having made starters and fermented batches out with both of these yeasts, I would question that statement personally.
Could be wrong though, and often am

[BarnsleyBrewer]

Given a good batch you can't knock Nottingham.

BB