Nottingham as a hot weather yeast

MyQul · Jun 15, 2017

I'd read that nottingham/wilko ale/gervin G12 was good up to about 27C. So as an experiment (plus I need my brew bag for my 5L stove toppers), I pitched a pack into 22L of bitter on Sunday. Monitoring the ambient temp of the corner of the kitchen I had the FV in, it was hovering around 24C/25C so I'm guessing the actual temp in the FV was a couple of degrees warmer than that, so 25C-27C
I've just taken a sample as due to the hot fermentation temps as well as notty having a rep as a fast worker I didnt think it'd take long for it to munch through the wort.
The OG was down to 1.007 from 1.045 in four days, so a good fast turn around yeast, and not a sign of off flavours. No diacetly or fusil alcohols. So I think this experiment was a success. :thumb:

I know a couple of other forumites such as @LarryF and @BeerisGod are interested in temp tolerant yeasts strains so might find this experiment of use

simon12 · Jun 15, 2017

Thanks for posting this useful test.

photek1000 · Jun 15, 2017

As I ferment in my garage and this time of year it can get pretty warm even with my best efforts of keeping the temp down this is very usueful to know.

@MyQul how do you find the Cool Brew Bag, I'm thinking of getting one to replace my fermenting crate, as I still don't have the room for a fridge or ideally two. it's causing some fun and games with trying to keep my PB at a constant temp for carbing up.

MyQul · Jun 15, 2017

photek1000 said:
As I ferment in my garage and this time of year it can get pretty warm even with my best efforts of keeping the temp down this is very usueful to know.

@MyQul how do you find the Cool Brew Bag, I'm thinking of getting one to replace my fermenting crate, as I still don't have the room for a fridge or ideally two. it's causing some fun and games with trying to keep my PB at a constant temp for carbing up.

The brewbag is awesome.Considering it's so low tech it gives you a surprising amount of control on temps. I mostly use it for 5L stove toppers now though With the smaller liquid volumes it's even more effective. Normally it takes 2L of ice to drop the temp 1degree C but with the 5L stovetopper it only takes 1L to drop the temp 1C, which means I can cool ferment to make pseudo lagers even in summer.
@Covrich has one also and loves it too

photek1000 · Jun 15, 2017

Excellent, looks like this has moved up the list of desired items.

It looks pretty big, does it swamp a standard 25 litre FV?

MyQul · Jun 15, 2017

photek1000 said:
Excellent, looks like this has moved up the list of desired items.

It looks pretty big, does it swamp a standard 25 litre FV?

It is huge. You can fit a 60L FV in there. A 25L fits in there nicely. As I've mentioned I've been putting 5L FV's in their recently. It seems fine whatever size FV you put in their

Covrich · Jun 15, 2017

you can collapse it down i have had a large fermentor in there and a 10L along with ice bottles

Even in this hot weather 1 x 2L bottle of ice has kept teh temp at 18 (from 22 if at ambient)

2 x 2L bottles would bring it down to around 16..

This is based on the LCD strip which I know isn't 100% accurate but I generally find it within 1ÃÂºc.

Change the bottle morning and in the evening and the temp remains constant

LarryF · Jun 15, 2017

MyQul said:
I'd read that nottingham/wilko ale/gervin G12 was good up to about 27C. So as an experiment (plus I need my brew bag for my 5L stove toppers), I pitched a pack into 22L of bitter on Sunday. Monitoring the ambient temp of the corner of the kitchen I had the FV in, it was hovering around 24C/25C so I'm guessing the actual temp in the FV was a couple of degrees warmer than that, so 25C-27C
I've just taken a sample as due to the hot fermentation temps as well as notty having a rep as a fast worker I didnt think it'd take long for it to munch through the wort.
The OG was down to 1.007 from 1.045 in four days, so a good fast turn around yeast, and not a sign of off flavours. No diacetly or fusil alcohols. So I think this experiment was a success. :thumb:

I know a couple of other forumites such as @LarryF and @BeerisGod are interested in temp tolerant yeasts strains so might find this experiment of use

I've always been a big fan of the Wilko/Gervin yeast, I always seem to get around 85% attenuation with it and it re-pitches brilliantly. I'm over the moon to hear it's so temperature tolerant without producing off flavours. I switched over to MGJ M10 Workhorse last Saturday. Before that I had a Betterbrew Czech Pilsner on with S04 and was watching the temps hitting 25-26c but it all tasted fine at bottling. I'll know for sure a week tomorrow when I have my first tester. I'll be using MGJ M10 and Mauribrew 514 until late September now, they've both served me well over the last couple of years.

BeerisGOD · Jun 16, 2017

Another doubt buried without a headstone. Reassurance of the masses restored.
Well done risking a batch Ã¯Â¿Â½Ã¯Â¿Â½Ã¯Â¿Â½Ã¯Â¿Â½Ã¯Â¿Â½Ã¯Â¿Â½

dan125 · Jun 16, 2017

Good work @MyQul :hat:
I'd be interested to know if the finished beer has more fruity esthers than usual. Please let us know how it turns out.

nigelnorris · Jun 16, 2017

It's also interesting that the spec sheet for it says it can be used down to as low as 10C for making lager. I'd be interested in looking into that because it's a darned sight less expensive than most proper lager yeasts. I suppose the difference is how well it functions down at the close to zero lagering temperatures.

terrym · Jun 16, 2017

Slightly related, someone on here suggests draping an old wet towel or similar over your FV in hot weather to lower the temperature by evaporative cooling.

MyQul · Jun 16, 2017

dan125 said:
Good work @MyQul :hat:
I'd be interested to know if the finished beer has more fruity esthers than usual. Please let us know how it turns out.

The gravity sample didnt taste particularly estery. It seemed quite clean really. When I used mauribrew 514 at similar temps there was a big ester hit of dark fruits but the notty doesnt seem to have anything like this. I'm bottling tommorrow and will be tucking in a couple of days later so will post if I detect and particular esters.

dan125 · Jun 17, 2017

MyQul said:
The gravity sample didnt taste particularly estery. It seemed quite clean really. When I used mauribrew 514 at similar temps there was a big ester hit of dark fruits but the notty doesnt seem to have anything like this. I'm bottling tommorrow and will be tucking in a couple of days later so will post if I detect and particular esters.

Promising - it'd be good to be able to free ferment a batch or 2 to build up stocks while other brews are in the fridge - if they turn out OK.

Don't suppose I can tempt you with a bottle swap? I also made a bitter last weekend (basically TT Lanlord but using only first gold hops with a small extra flameout addition) fermented at 17C with WLP002 English ale yeast - I won't be bottling until next weekend, but might be an interesting comparison??

MyQul · Jun 17, 2017

dan125 said:
Promising - it'd be good to be able to free ferment a batch or 2 to build up stocks while other brews are in the fridge - if they turn out OK.

Don't suppose I can tempt you with a bottle swap? I also made a bitter last weekend (basically TT Lanlord but using only first gold hops with a small extra flameout addition) fermented at 17C with WLP002 English ale yeast - I won't be bottling until next weekend, but might be an interesting comparison??

Doing a batch or two to build up stocks is exactly why I tried this out. So I can then use my brew bag for my 5L stove toppers.

As I say I'm bottling it today. I'll do a bit more 'quality control' taste testing, to make sure I didn't miss any off flavours I'm not happy about but if everything still seems ok I'll send you a bottle out - I have some bottle packaging

MyQul · Jun 17, 2017

nigelnorris said:
It's also interesting that the spec sheet for it says it can be used down to as low as 10C for making lager. I'd be interested in looking into that because it's a darned sight less expensive than most proper lager yeasts. I suppose the difference is how well it functions down at the close to zero lagering temperatures.

I'm thinking of making notty a bit of a workhorse yeast for me as it's got such a large temp range. I plan on using it for pseudo lagers fermented at 14C (I havent read the notty spec sheet so didnt realize it can go down s low as 10C),and free fermented bitters during the times it's too warm to use a 'proper' English strain like the gales strain I have at the moment

Robin54 · Jun 17, 2017

MyQul said:
I'm thinking of making notty a bit of a workhorse yeast for me as it's got such a large temp range. I plan on using it for pseudo lagers fermented at 14C (I havent read the notty spec sheet so didnt realize it can go down s low as 10C),and free fermented bitters during the times it's too warm to use a 'proper' English strain like the gales strain I have at the moment

Interesting, since Ive just used Notty on a bitter and it fermented out in 2 days, which I found rather alarming. The smell from the FV knocked me over!
Anyway, I left it undisturbed for 2 weeks and its come out good.

MyQul · Jun 17, 2017

Robin54 said:
Interesting, since Ive just used Notty on a bitter and it fermented out in 2 days, which I found rather alarming. The smell from the FV knocked me over!
Anyway, I left it undisturbed for 2 weeks and its come out good.

I think mine fermented out in 3 days but I left it other day before I took a gravity sample to see if it had finished. Ideally I'd leave mine for another week or so but I've almost ran out of beer as usual so need to get this packaged. I think it should be ok having spent so short a time in the FV though. After all commercial brewers dont hang about with their cask conditioned beers.

MyQul · Jun 17, 2017

@dan125 Just supping a 'gravity sample' whilst I wait for Mrs MQ to go out so I can get on with bottling

Peckham Best Bitter (Special/Best/Premium Bitter)

Original Gravity (OG): 1.045 (ÃÂ°P): 11.2
Final Gravity (FG): 1.006 (ÃÂ°P): 1.5
Alcohol (ABV): 5.07 %
Colour (SRM): 6.7 (EBC): 13.2
Bitterness (IBU): 32.1 (Tinseth)

3.77kg Pale Malt
200g Biscuit
200g Crystal 60

20g Magnum (11.1% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
23g East Kent Golding (6.8% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
23g East Kent Golding (6.8% Alpha) @ 1 Minutes (Boil)

As you can see I went for a classic supping bitter. I'm quite pleased with the result and defiantely cant detect any off flavours. The body is a bit thinner than I may have liked as notty attenuates so highly(attenuaton 86%). Another characteristic of notty I've read about is it can strip hop flavour, which I think is the case. Tbh I'm happy with the beer myself as I'm not much of a hop head but you may want to add more hops. As you can see I added 46g for flavour and aroma but it doesnt taste like I added that much. The clean ester profile seems to have been retained even with such a high fermentation temp. I havent used notty much but I dont think it tastes any more estery than when I've fermented at more conventional temps.
My water isnt that good for bitters but I just use CRS to strip out alkalinty. I could probably do with adding some mineral salts but I'm happy enough with my results so I never bother

dan125 · Jun 18, 2017

MyQul said:
@dan125 Just supping a 'gravity sample' whilst I wait for Mrs MQ to go out so I can get on with bottling

Peckham Best Bitter (Special/Best/Premium Bitter)

Original Gravity (OG): 1.045 (ÃÂ°P): 11.2
Final Gravity (FG): 1.006 (ÃÂ°P): 1.5
Alcohol (ABV): 5.07 %
Colour (SRM): 6.7 (EBC): 13.2
Bitterness (IBU): 32.1 (Tinseth)

3.77kg Pale Malt
200g Biscuit
200g Crystal 60

20g Magnum (11.1% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
23g East Kent Golding (6.8% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
23g East Kent Golding (6.8% Alpha) @ 1 Minutes (Boil)

As you can see I went for a classic supping bitter. I'm quite pleased with the result and defiantely cant detect any off flavours. The body is a bit thinner than I may have liked as notty attenuates so highly(attenuaton 86%). Another characteristic of notty I've read about is it can strip hop flavour, which I think is the case. Tbh I'm happy with the beer myself as I'm not much of a hop head but you may want to add more hops. As you can see I added 46g for flavour and aroma but it doesnt taste like I added that much. The clean ester profile seems to have been retained even with such a high fermentation temp. I havent used notty much but I dont think it tastes any more estery than when I've fermented at more conventional temps.
My water isnt that good for bitters but I just use CRS to strip out alkalinty. I could probably do with adding some mineral salts but I'm happy enough with my results so I never bother

Looks good - and a very similar amount of hops to what I used in mine

Nottingham as a hot weather yeast

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