Clibit Brewday

[stevej]

Pot.Kettle.Black.

I just like taking the Mick MyQul:grin:

 

[clibit]

Well I'm not the only one that's given up work around here. The yeast in my Redundancy Stout has packed up at about 1015, not what i hoped for from US05 in a 1047 wort. Not as dry a stout as I planned! No idea why it's stopped short. The rehydrated yeast was lively, I aerated well too. Loads of unfermentable sugar? I did mash in too high at about 68C, now I look back at my notes.

But I've accepted it and put the FV in the fridge to cold crash.

Edit: just bottled it 24 hours later, cos it has cleared really well, was already clear going into the fridge. Got 7.9 litres into 20 bottles of various sizes from about 8.5 ish litres in the FV. Tasted very roasty and there's a strong bitterness from the Chinook. ABV 4.3%. Very promising. :thumb:

 

[clibit]

Just made 4 mini yeast starters, more in hope than expectation, using 3 very old yeast vials someone gave me last year, and some top cropped 1469 Yorkshire yeast that I brewed with in May.

I think the three vials are Brewlabs strains, they are labelled with a marker pen as Fullers, Thwaites and Sussex. I've put all 4 into 300ml starter worts made with DME, and will see what happens. Rather than step them up, I may split an 8 litre batch and ferment 2 litres with each, and then use any that are successful in subsequent brews. Less spoilage loss with any that don't work out. That way I can compare the 4 strains in the same brew.

Does this sound like a feasible way to grow the yeast?

The 1469 and Thwaites smell great, the other two smell OK. I think! Time will tell.

 

[rodabod]

^^ I sometimes think that fermentability can be unpredictable when you mash high. 1015 doesn't sound unreasonable at all for a stout that's mashed high to me.

Good luck with the yeast.

 

[clibit]

^^ I sometimes think that fermentability can be unpredictable when you mash high. 1015 doesn't sound unreasonable at all for a stout that's mashed high to me.

Good luck with the yeast.

Yeah I agree, I'm wondering why I mashed high - I didn't intend to, Can't have been thinking straight at the time. But the taste at bottling allayed my fears.

 

[MyQul]

Just made 4 mini yeast starters, more in hope than expectation, using 3 very old yeast vials someone gave me last year, and some top cropped 1469 Yorkshire yeast that I brewed with in May.

I think the three vials are Brewlabs strains, they are labelled with a marker pen as Fullers, Thwaites and Sussex. I've put all 4 into 300ml starter worts made with DME, and will see what happens. Rather than step them up, I may split an 8 litre batch and ferment 2 litres with each, and then use any that are successful in subsequent brews. Less spoilage loss with any that don't work out. That way I can compare the 4 strains in the same brew.

Does this sound like a feasible way to grow the yeast?

The 1469 and Thwaites smell great, the other two smell OK. I think! Time will tell.

By putting the yeast grown in the 300ml in 2L of beer you are in fact stepping them up just using 'real wort' instead DME. What was the gravity of the 300ml wort? Ideally 1.020 to just wake the yeast up but I think it would be ok in 1.040

 

[clibit]

Nearer 1040, I put 90g DME in a litre of water and boiled it for 20 mins, down to 900ml ish.

 

[McMullan]

Just made 4 mini yeast starters, more in hope than expectation, using 3 very old yeast vials someone gave me last year, and some top cropped 1469 Yorkshire yeast that I brewed with in May.

I think the three vials are Brewlabs strains, they are labelled with a marker pen as Fullers, Thwaites and Sussex. I've put all 4 into 300ml starter worts made with DME, and will see what happens. Rather than step them up, I may split an 8 litre batch and ferment 2 litres with each, and then use any that are successful in subsequent brews. Less spoilage loss with any that don't work out. That way I can compare the 4 strains in the same brew.

Does this sound like a feasible way to grow the yeast?

The 1469 and Thwaites smell great, the other two smell OK. I think! Time will tell.

I'm enjoying a gravity sample from a 2 week old 'London Pride' fermented with Brewlabs Thames Valley 3 (Fullers, I think). Smells and tastes really nice, just needs to clear a little. I used the recommended 300ml starter and left it for 48 hours. Morning after pitching to 22L, it was rocking. Primary took about 3 days. Added this one to the collection. Sussex is on the cards too. I think you'd easily get two 10L batches out of a 300ml starter. I think the viability of these slants are much higher than you get from liquid yeast. So you can probably get away with lower 2nd generation starter volumes, if you split your starter. I wouldn't go with 2L starters, though. I think it would be like a small beer rather than a starter. The way I see it, you want to get the yeast to grow and that's it, trying to minimise subsequent fermentation. Save that for the beer wort. Interested to see how it works out. I'm going to re-pitch slurry directly from the FV over the weekend.

 

[clibit]

They are not actually Brewlabs slants - the yeast came in White labs vials, re-labelled. Maybe they come from beers made with Brewlabs yeasts. Maybe they come from the beers themselves, but the one labelled Sussex suggests it came from Brewlabs to me.

 

[McMullan]

If the yeast are old, MyQul is spot on... low G (1.020) small starter to get them going. But, if you have slants, the shelf life is up to 12 months. Mine was about 5 months old.

 

[clibit]

If the yeast are old, MyQul is spot on... low G (1.020) small starter to get them going. But, if you have slants, the shelf life is up to 12 months. Mine was about 5 months old.

Yeah, should've gone for 1020, but hey, it'll be a bonus if I get a usable yeast from those three. The Wyeast 1469 should be fine.

 

[McMullan]

Yeah, should've gone for 1020, but hey, it'll be a bonus if I get a usable yeast from those three. The Wyeast 1469 should be fine.

Like MyQul said, it should be fine anyway. Yeast are surprisingly tough...

 

[MyQul]

The couple of times I've cultred up from bottles I started off with a couple of step ups at 1.020

 

[clibit]

The couple of times I've cultred up from bottles I started off with a couple of step ups at 1.020

I was kind of being optimistic, there was a fair bit of yeast slurry in the vials, albeit very old slurry! There may be very little viable yeast of course, I was hoping there would be more than in a bottle of beer. But I've never tried to culture up some very old yeast before.

 

[MyQul]

I was kind of being optimistic, there was a fair bit of yeast slurry in the vials, albeit very old slurry! There may be very little viable yeast of course, I was hoping there would be more than in a bottle of beer. But I've never tried to culture up some very old yeast before.

I think you will be OK if you had lotsof trub to work with, tbh. When I cultured up the Brakspear strain from a bottle of Triple I couldn't even see any yeast in there. The first step up was completely on faith :pray:

 

[clibit]

The 1469 is full of life but the other three, 24 hours in, showing no signs of life as yet. :geek:

 

[clibit]

Well the three starters containing the old yeasts are doing nothing so not looking great. However, the 1469 is very alive, and I've just had a delivery of WLP006 Bedford, Wyeast 1728 Scottish and Brewlabs Somerset 1, so plenty to play with and compare.

I still intend to culture some bottles but I think I have enough options for now. I really want to get hold of the Marble and Holts yeasts, both Manchester breweries, and culture Youngs and Hopback from bottles.

Then decide which yeasts suit me best and stick with two or three probably. Grow a big starter of each and split.

 

[MyQul]

Quite a haul you've got there. Are you planning have a go at freezing with glycerin too so you can have a little yeast bank of all those strains?

 

[clibit]

No, Can't be arsed with that. I'll try them all in small batches, harvest them all and split the slurry, use them 2 or 3 times each and carry on using the best. WLP006 sounds ideal for me as a house yeast. I got a just out of date vial for �£3.

http://www.whitelabs.com/yeast/wlp006-bedford-british

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=356842

But I'm hoping 1728 could also make a good house yeast. Looking forward to comparing.

https://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=143

The Brewlabs Somerset was just to check a Brewlabs yeast slant out cos the place I bought from sells Whitelabs, Wyeast and Brewlabs. I read a post by someone trying to clone Exmoor Gold who said the Brewlabs Somerset yeast is the closest he's got, so I may do something similar.

I like the Wyeast 1469 too. Really nice. Definitely one to use in some beers, paler ones I think.

https://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=189

The choice of yeasts is doing my head in tbh! Too many to try...

 

[MyQul]

The WLP006 and 1728 both look good house strains.

1469 might be good in paler ales but I've been eyeing it up for milds (brew corner still in the mid 20c's so will be using S04 for a while yet) as it the flavour profile looks like it will suit. I also might try out WLP023 as that's also supposed to be a good all rounder too