Are Liquid yeasts a bit of a fad?

[Oblivious]

I generally prefer them but as aleman said they do require a little bit of froward planning

 

[Oblivious]

If you were brewing an english bitter in the style of London pride, Wyeast London ale yeast may seem a better bet than a dried ale yeast packet stuck to a kit, or muntons ale yeast,S04 nottingham, windsor ect but is there a real difference?

Windsor is probably the nearest but it still can beat something Burton, fuller or brewlabs and all three yeasts are quite different

 

[llannige]

Great post Screwy,have made a note of it and will try it out soon.

Thanks for the tips :thumb:

 

[steve_flack]

I use both liquid and dried. If you can get the flavour and characteristics you want in a dried yeast then use it - it's a lot less faff and much easier to get the amount of yeast you need. I'd use Safale US-05 over the wyeast or whitelabs product because it's so close it's not worth the faff of wet yeast. I'd also use dried W34-70 over the liquid 'German Lager' yeast simply because it's a pain making a big enough starter from liquid yeasts. On the other hand, I haven't found a dried yeast that makes a decent Belgian Abbey Ale or one that comes close to the various English ale yeast that are sold by WhiteLabs/Wyeast/Brewlabs.

Some people swear by S-04...I personally swear at it. Don't like it. Nottingham is dull as dishwater for English ales. Windsor is probably the best of the bunch in terms of flavour but has other issues.

 

[Brewmarc]

As I live very neer windsor I might give winsor yeast a try just need to match a brew with it :wha: & I have some in the fridge! :grin: I wonder if I can get some fresh yeast from the Fullers brewery at Chiswick I know that some brewerys will let you have some of there own yeast if you ask nicely :P

 

[prolix]

I have used liquid yeasts a couple of times, and found them very good. Getting a starter going was always the chore for me having to use spray malt is a pain. Being thinking about filling a 1L bottle with wort from previous brew and freezing it to use as starter wort, just need to get into routine.
I tend to use Sa04 for any brews with a lot of dark malts in, and also a lot of styrians in because of the flavour. would never use it in a pale ale otherwise as to powerful. Going to try US05 to see if that works in pales.

I tend to brew on sundays and keg mid the following week so take a jar of the yeast cake and put it in the fridge until saturday then remove to room temp. On brew day take a litre of wort from second batch sparge ( always close to OG)
boil that quickly and cool in the sink add the slurry. This gives it three or four hours to pitching. Always racing away by pitching time.

I fthere is a break in brewing or big change in styles I'll use dry yeast giving the brew a couple of vigourous stirs for first 12 hours or so.

 

[Vossy1]

Liquid Yeast requires more planning and preparation . . . but nothing touches them

I totally agree, I love liquid yeasts, but just can't plan them around my brew days, as they tend to be 'ad hoc'
I brew 60ltr lengths so I have to considerably step liquid yeast up.
Using DME to build a starter or to step up a split yeast, adds considerably to their cost.
It would probably be easier for me to wash a yeast cake and or split that, but again I don't have the time.
When I do use them though the difference is usually massive. If you taste an S04 beer and a liquid yeast beer with the same malt base, you'd swear they were totally different beers.

 

[Wez]

I'm the same as you V - getting a liquid yeast to a 60L pitchable volume takes time.

As I ferment in 3 seperate FV's what I may do though next time though is make a liquid starter for one of the FV's and use dried in the other two - then brew again but split the liquid yeast cake between the 3 fv's :hmm:

That should work ? I think ?

 

[Vossy1]

I was going to do the same thing when I stepped up the brew volume, so I could have a good play with different yeasts.
Must make a bigger fv cupboard to hold all 3 fv's first

 

[Brewmarc]

A lot has been written about yeast pitching rate & stepping up cultures into adequate yeast cell counts for pitching :thumb: .The best brew that I ever did to date was pitched with yeast cultured from a commercially bought beer . I was worried (needlessly) about weather I woud get a viable fermentation due to the cell count (not many I suspect compared with HB cultures). The resulting fermentation was very quiet & quite short, & when racked ino secondary allready crystal cleer :wha: 3 weeks in the secondary & bottled it produced a perfectly carbonated cleer ale & at the desired FG :rofl: :party: I was amazed at what small quantity of yeast produced a great ale :thumb: so I am going to take Screwy's advice (amongst other fantastic advice frome here) & split future liquid yeast cultures when I bye them frome the HBS, thanks Screwy. : :thumb: P.S i should note that the brew length for this beer was 23L & the culture was from 1 x 500ML bottle of bottle conditioned ale.

 

[Screwy]

A lot has been written about yeast pitching rate & stepping up cultures into adequate yeast cell counts for pitching :thumb: .The best brew that I ever did to date was pitched with yeast cultured from a commercially bought beer . I was worried (needlessly) about weather I woud get a viable fermentation due to the cell count (not many I suspect compared with HB cultures). The resulting fermentation was very quiet & quite short, & when racked ino secondary allready crystal cleer :wha: 3 weeks in the secondary & bottled it produced a perfectly carbonated cleer ale & at the desired FG :rofl: :party: I was amazed at what small quantity of yeast produced a great ale :thumb: so I am going to take Screwy's advice (amongst other fantastic advice frome here) & split future liquid yeast cultureswhen I bye them frome the HBS, thanks Screwy. : :thumb:

brewmarc, follow the same lines again when making the same beer, however underpitching may not produce "the goods" in a different beer. Pitching rates are very important, underpitching and overpitching and recommended rates all have their uses. Stressing yeast by underpitching can increase ester production, this is a good thing if ester production is what the brewer wants in the beer. Clean lagers need a big pitch as do big ales. Application can be strain dependent as some yeast strains will give up and attenuation will suffer. I use both dried and liquid depending upon style and what I want from the beer. I love Windsor in bitters, for the esters it produces at normal pitching rates, but it needs some help in the attenuation department. If sucrose is added to increase attenuation the yeast has an easier time, but the trade off is less ester production. Yeast strain selection and application is all Horses For Courses.

Screwy

 

[Brewmarc]

Some great info thanks once again Screwey, :thumb: :clap: Im still on the very steep learning curve with regard to experimenting & tweeking my ales here & there to achieve something different, mainly with hops at the moment, but there is plenty of food for thought here. :wha:

 

[Wez]

Interesting poll results.

Looks like lots of people are happy that liquid yeasts are worth the effort, but almost an equal number of folk have yet to try one. It's inspired me to have another crack at it, i'm currently an s-04 junkie.

 

[dennisking]

Interesting poll results.

Looks like lots of people are happy that liquid yeasts are worth the effort, but almost an equal number of folk have yet to try one. It's inspired me to have another crack at it, i'm currently an s-04 junkie.

good luck wez I`m sure you won`t be dissapointed

 

[Brewmarc]

Have a crack at yeast culturing from bottle conditioned beer I have had great results & its not difficult :thumb: . the yeast is free & you get to drink the beer as well :drink: :party: I think there is a pretty good how to on this forum

 

[tubby_shaw]

I must agree with Brewmarc :thumb:
I love re culturing yeast from bottled beer and over the many years I have only has one disaster and that was trying to re use yeast from Hens Tooth by Morlands :sick:

 

[dennisking]

before liquid yeast I use to culture from worthington white shield, made great beers.

 

[Brewmarc]

Keep em coming :thumb: Im compiling a list of viable ales to culture from, Brackspear tripple Sierra Navada, as well as most belgian ales are all good :party:

 

[commsbiff]

Can you reculture from any ciders too?

 

[Aleman]

Keep em coming :thumb: Im compiling a list of viable ales to culture from, Brackspear tripple Sierra Navada, as well as most belgian ales are all good :party:

Schnieder Heffe Weisse is the only wheat beer bottled with the original wheat beer strain. The others use filtration and inoculate with a 'lager' yeast