Burton Ale Yeast WLP023

[mike77]

Having some fun with white labs burton ale yeast. I pitched it on Saturday and it has slowly been bubbling away since then. Suddenly it has come alive. I got in from work and the whole house stank of fart. I had read it gives off a some sulfur so was expecting this. Also a couple of hours later the krausen has decided to go mental and is starting to come up through the air lock. 2 days in I wasn't really expecting it to kick off like this.

I picked this yeast on a last minute whim when I went up to the brew shop to collect grain. The house is fairly warm just now and burton has the highest optimum fermentation range out of the selection in the shop. I'm brewing an American style IPA with it and looking forward to a bit of extra character from the yeast which is described as apple, pear and honey.

Anyone else used it? How did it turn out?

 

[MyQul]

I cultured up the brakespear strain once which is supposed to be similar/the same. And it too gave off lots of sulphur. Unfortunately it got infected so I never really got to taste the final beer

 

[TheRedDarren]

I don't want to put a downer on your brew but I tried 023 and it was awful!
It completely overpower a lot of hops and made what I thought was going to be a great ipa into a very drab beer.

 

[mike77]

Mmm. Doesn't sound too positive. It's a recipe I've done several times before so I have a good reference point. If it's **** I'll know what the cause is.

Anyway it had settled right down again this morning and appears to be almost done. I'll probably transfer to a secondary for dry hopping on Sunday and collect some yeast from the primary just in case I do want to use it again.

 

[TheRedDarren]

Yea, good luck. I'm sure it's a good yeast, maybe I did something wrong with it!
It still hasn't flocced in that ipa!

 

[IainM]

Hmmm... I have a pack of this in the fridge which I was planning on using next week. I've heard good things about it in the popular Hobgoblin clone, which is what I had in mind.

 

[Simonh82]

This sounds similar to my last brew using Wibbler Brewery (Essex Ale) yeast. It spent two days bubbling away nicely and then all of a sudden it literally hit the roof of my brew fridge. It shot the airlock right out of the fermentor and spayed yeast all over the roof of my fridge.

Strange beasts these English ale yeasts, but they make great beer!