Yeast taste from wlp002

[dshar]

Hi all,
I recently brewed a Harvey's Sussex best from a recipe on the forum. Fairly simple recipe with bit of crystal and maize, and various hops, not that different to a few brews I've made successfully.

The only thing I never used before was the wlp002 which some recommended for this brew.

I fermented at 18c for 3 weeks and then crash cooled to 0 for 24hrs before bottling. Then carbed at 2around 22c for 3 weeks. All pretty similar to what I would normally do..

Now after an extra couple of weeks conditioning, the beer has a strong yeasty taste, not very nice at all. I've tried a couple of bottles and they're all the same. I left half a glass overnight in a cold kitchen and tasting it the next morning, it was much better, the yeast seemed to have dropped out.

I therefore chilled a bottle and tried again, but still yeasty.

Any tips/thoughts? Should I chill them longer and drink cold? Will the yeast all eventually settle out?

Appreciate any suggestions, I was really looking forward to this brew and can't bear the thought of drinking 20 litres of it as it is!

[McMullan]

It might be a touch of autolysis? Three weeks on the yeast can be risky, depending on what shape they were in at the start.

[jaroporter]

couldn't say if it's the same thing, but..
as seen on the "creeping attenuation" thread, i've had problems with this yeast once bottled. not an issue on cask as it gets vented as served, but in bottles i find after initially tasting nice they've often picked up a carbonic taste, and maybe flavours that could be described as yeasty. all before overcarbonation became obvious. either way, once vented the beers did improve.
may or may not be relevant..

[dshar]

Cheers for the tips guys..
I usually do 2 weeks in the fermenter but I had a busy time and was only able to bottle after 3 weeks. I did a lot of reading on it and most seemed to think that 3 weeks or even longer should be fine?? Guess I'll go back to my normal routine...

As for the venting, that would explain why it tasted better the next morning but not after chilling! It has v little carbonation as it is, but I may have to wait overnight and drink these completely flat!

[Dennis King]

A yeast I use a lot. Personally I never leave for more than 10 days in the FV.

[Eric]

A yeast I use a lot. Personally I never leave for more than 10 days in the FV.

Yes, it's usually done in 5 and set like concrete on the bottom in seven.

[dshar]

Consensus is that it's Auto lysis then? That leaves me with a large amount of cr@p beer!

[Jocky]

Personally I'd be surprised if it's autolysis (unless use a heat mat?). It's hard to achieve on a home brew scale with small fermenters, and more relevant commercially where you have massive pressure at the bottom of a fermenter due to the greater volume.

I'd be thinking about infection first.

[McMullan]

Does the beer remind you of 'beef flavoured crisps'? How old were the yeast? How were they stored? Did you make a starter? What temperature were the wort and the yeast at pitching? Did you aerate the wort prior to pitching? Would you say the beer is over carbonated?

[BrannigansLove]

I'd be surprised if it was autolysis, I leave beers on yeast for 3 weeks all the time (it's my standard process).

[Kev888]

This yeast variety normally ferments fast and then drops out very quickly. After three weeks in the fermenter and crash chilling before bottling I wouldn't expect large quantities to make it to the bottles, and it seems odd that what is in the bottle has then not compacted on their bottom during the maturation stage. At least, I assume thats the case if leaving a poured glass overnight helps it settle out and taste less yeasty.

The suggestions of autolysis are good ones, but personally I'd only expect noticeable autolysis flavours within three weeks if using a heat mat (which warms the settled cells), or if something else had gone wrong to stress the yeast or otherwise make them behave abnormally. I wouldn't expect Autolysis flavours to diminish much in a cold kitchen overnight either. Combined with your observation of it visibly settling out during this time, I'd have to favour it indeed being yeast or maybe some other type of suspended matter.

TBH I don't understand this though, it seems as if the yeast aren't acting like WLP002. Unless something is stirring them up as (or shortly before) you open and pour the bottle (does it look yeasty before you open/pour it?), I'd have to wonder if there was something wrong with the yeast or their fermentation/priming conditions, or if some other/wild yeast may be contributing.

[dshar]

Cheers for all the comments guys, they've certainly made me think..

-I don't use a heat mat, but a converted fridge +stc to keep temp stable
-it doesn't taste bad like an infection, just very yeasty, like the last beer you bottle from the bottling bucket with all the sediment n stuff
-it doesn't taste like crisps (unfortunately the yeast was a new pack from MMiler and pitched with a starter. Pitched to wort at 25c or so. Aerated wort in my usual way of splashing it around. And it's certainly not over carbonated, under if anything.
-looking at a clear bottle more closely, I see that it's actually quite cloudy, more so than my usual beers. I can actually see suspended particles. Makes me wonder if the crash cooling was long enough. There is yeast at the bottom too but maybe not as much as normal

One other thing that comes to mind is that when it was fermenting, I noticed that it didn't have a decent krausen/head formed. There was plenty of fermentation and krausen but just under the surface, the yeast seemed to be suspended rather than forming a 'head', I put it down to the different strain that I'd never used before...

So either it hasn't fallen out of solution yet for whatever reason, or a wild yeast infection are looking like the culprits. I'll put a bottle in the fridge for a couple of days to see if it's the (fingers crossed) the first reason, and if not, well let's see...

[Dennis King]

Cheers for all the comments guys, they've certainly made me think..

-I don't use a heat mat, but a converted fridge +stc to keep temp stable
-it doesn't taste bad like an infection, just very yeasty, like the last beer you bottle from the bottling bucket with all the sediment n stuff
-it doesn't taste like crisps (unfortunately the yeast was a new pack from MMiler and pitched with a starter. Pitched to wort at 25c or so. Aerated wort in my usual way of splashing it around. And it's certainly not over carbonated, under if anything.
-looking at a clear bottle more closely, I see that it's actually quite cloudy, more so than my usual beers. I can actually see suspended particles. Makes me wonder if the crash cooling was long enough. There is yeast at the bottom too but maybe not as much as normal

One other thing that comes to mind is that when it was fermenting, I noticed that it didn't have a decent krausen/head formed. There was plenty of fermentation and krausen but just under the surface, the yeast seemed to be suspended rather than forming a 'head', I put it down to the different strain that I'd never used before...

So either it hasn't fallen out of solution yet for whatever reason, or a wild yeast infection are looking like the culprits. I'll put a bottle in the fridge for a couple of days to see if it's the (fingers crossed) the first reason, and if not, well let's see...

Couple of bits from this post, 25c seems a bit high to pitch to me I always pitch around 20c. The fact it is cloudy seems strange as this yeast is famed for dropping very clear and packing tight at the bottom. Don't think it's the lack of crash cooling as I never crash cool.
Do you still have a bottle you could send to someone with a more refined pallet than me to assess there are a few BJCP judges knocking around here.

[Kev888]

Yes i agree with Dennis. WLP002 is quite rapid and creates a lot of heat too, so if the fridge was taking time to drop it from the 25c pitching temperature it could have become really quite hot in the fermenter - I've seen it rise four or five degrees C above ambient through self-heating within 12 hours of pitching, even at home-brew scales. I've not tried pitching that warm though, so I don't know how wlp002 behaves in those conditions.

On a couple of the other points: whilst wlp002 is a fast fermenter I don't find the krausen is especially important or impressive with this strain - it doesn't always produce a large one and even if it does then my (largely failed) attempts to top-crop suggest there isn't much actual yeast in it. The crash cooling was perhaps a tad short, but wlp002 should have mostly settled out by then in any case so i doubt that was a contributor either.

I still think its suspended yeast and whilst the fermentation temperature 'may' have somehow caused less flocculant results, I'm no idea why that would be cloudy in the bottle yet would settle out overnight after pouring into a glass - that seems plain wierd unless the bottle was warmer (and perhaps still busy priming for some reason). I wonder if you have gremlins shaking your bottles up..

[dshar]

Will keep pitching temp in mind next time. With notty, i even pitched at the upper end of their recommended range in the past, which was 35c with no problem.

I was actually thinking about sending beers off for critique, in this case it will be more for a diagnosis!

I'll see if the one in the fridge settles out in a day or two and report back.

Cheers fellas