Michael Burnley
Regular.
I have bought a bottle of this with the intention of harvesting the yeast, I also emailed the brewery and asked which yeast they use, below is a copy and paste from the email I received, in my opinion it is very interesting
Hi Mick,
I do the bottling for Coniston and Ian Bradley has asked me to reply.
One of the things about bottle conditioning is that the house yeast is in the bottle of Bluebird and anybody is free to culture it so you don’t need our permission to do it
. It will obviously be a bit dormant and sluggish at first. However…..and it’s a big however…it’s not a commercial dried yeast. The yeast is a twin strain with one of them being more flocculent than the other and dragging it’s reluctant twin out of suspension at the end of fermentation. The two strains also produce different flavours so keeping a mix is important.
The problem you have using this yeast as a homebrewer is that the proportion of the strains is regulated by the fermentation conditions and unless you do exactly what we do…which is ferment with a depth of about 6 feet and top crop …the proportions will drift and you will probably end up with one strain only. I honestly can’t predict which one will like your brewing conditions more but you will likely drift either towards beers that don’t attenuate properly and are rather bland, or beers that don’t clear properly, are rather solventy and won’t condition in barrel or bottle! Neither strain is very good on it’s own.
If you have a microscope then you should see that one is more egg shaped and a little smaller than the other. Anywhere inside a 70/30 mix either way should work ok.
Probably not what you wanted to hear but at the end of the day there isn’t much to lose from giving it a go?
One other tip. The higher the supposed “quality” of the malt you use the less this yeast is likely to like it. “Quality” in home brew circles tends to mean low nitrogen (to produce brighter and easier fining cask ales) and this yeast likes higher Nitrogen levels. If buying through home brew and you can’t get 1.6 or higher TN ale malt then a Lager malt plus some amber malt is likely to work better than “best ale malt”.
GOOD LUCK!
PeterS
Brewer
Hi Mick,
I do the bottling for Coniston and Ian Bradley has asked me to reply.
One of the things about bottle conditioning is that the house yeast is in the bottle of Bluebird and anybody is free to culture it so you don’t need our permission to do it
. It will obviously be a bit dormant and sluggish at first. However…..and it’s a big however…it’s not a commercial dried yeast. The yeast is a twin strain with one of them being more flocculent than the other and dragging it’s reluctant twin out of suspension at the end of fermentation. The two strains also produce different flavours so keeping a mix is important.The problem you have using this yeast as a homebrewer is that the proportion of the strains is regulated by the fermentation conditions and unless you do exactly what we do…which is ferment with a depth of about 6 feet and top crop …the proportions will drift and you will probably end up with one strain only. I honestly can’t predict which one will like your brewing conditions more but you will likely drift either towards beers that don’t attenuate properly and are rather bland, or beers that don’t clear properly, are rather solventy and won’t condition in barrel or bottle! Neither strain is very good on it’s own.
If you have a microscope then you should see that one is more egg shaped and a little smaller than the other. Anywhere inside a 70/30 mix either way should work ok.
Probably not what you wanted to hear but at the end of the day there isn’t much to lose from giving it a go?
One other tip. The higher the supposed “quality” of the malt you use the less this yeast is likely to like it. “Quality” in home brew circles tends to mean low nitrogen (to produce brighter and easier fining cask ales) and this yeast likes higher Nitrogen levels. If buying through home brew and you can’t get 1.6 or higher TN ale malt then a Lager malt plus some amber malt is likely to work better than “best ale malt”.
GOOD LUCK!
PeterS
Brewer
