How important is the yeast?

[MartinHaworth]

On Friday I enjoyed two saison from fellow brewers. I'm now drinking a hefeweizen.

Lovely beers. All about the yeast.

Just bottled a ttl clone I did with Scottish ale yeast...so I clearly know nothing.

Martin.

 

[GerritT]

I’m currently brewing as many different styles as possible using the same yeast, plan is to go back and do a lot of them again with a different yeast at some point to compare. I know this might not give me the best beer first time but I doubt it’s going to be horrible.

As long as you take notes and share them: god speed!

 

[dad_of_jon]

I've been browsing through my Greg Hughes book, in a "ice inky done one AG so far" way, and it seems like every single recipe I'm interested in requires a different yeast.

What's the deal here? When I ordered for my 'simple AG', I just picked two yeasts that said ale on them. How much of a difference will there be between a 'Whitelabs WLP001 California Ale' yeast and a 'Wyeast 1187 Ringwood Ale' yeast?

I get that you'd want a different yeast for a porter than for a weissbier, but there are 5 porters in this book, which between them use:

Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale
Whitelabs WLP001 California Ale
Wyeast 1318 London Ale III
Wyeast 1028 London Ale

If I wanted to try these 5 porters, how much would it affect the beer to just buy Wyeast 1028? Or do you all have 50 little 11g packets of yeast at home?

Yeast can be really important especially if it is a yeast driven style. take a bavarian weiss yeast and a belgian wit yeast. you may think they are the same but produce totally different beers - even if they are arguably cousins. other beers where the malt is overpowering its not such an issue.

 

[phildo79]

Middle opinion seems to be it's quite important, but similar replacements will be OK, unless you're making a clone

Everything is important when making a clone. They are difficult to get almost bang on the original. I can think of only two that I have made that were very similar to the original and they were both strong stouts.

 

[trueblue]

Everything is important when making a clone. They are difficult to get almost bang on the original. I can think of only two that I have made that were very similar to the original and they were both strong stouts.

Graham Wheeler, a true expert in making clones, said you need to get some of the yeast from the actual brewery to be able to brew a true clone. His recipes were designed to brew a beer in the style of.

 

[Jim Brewster]

When I bottled my first kit which was a partial extract, I pitched an all grain wort onto the old yeast in the fermentation vessel and it ended up tasting very similar to the first brew even though the hops and grains were different, only the yeast was the same.

I would say it depends on the style of beer and how much of the yeast flavour comes through in it. One neutral yeast vs another might not make a drastic difference but one with strong flavours vs another will change the characteristics a lot more.

 

[Braufather]

Personally I would rather have a tooth pulled than ever use S-04.

can I ask why? Haven’t used it before but was planning to on a English pale ale next. Shop didn’t have Fresh liquid yeast So went for dry. I’ve found Us05 to be as good as liquid equivalents so thought I’d give 04 a go too.

 

[MickDundee]

can I ask why? Haven’t used it before but was planning to on a English pale ale next. Shop didn’t have Fresh liquid yeast So went for dry. I’ve found Us05 to be as good as liquid equivalents so thought I’d give 04 a go too.

I’ve used it twice and felt it gave out funny flavours - very odd esters which I wouldn’t associate with English beers (or any beer style I’ve ever had before). The first time I thought it was because I’d accidentally pitched the yeast too hot, but the second one gave out the same flavours. I’ve been using Liberty Bell for British ales ever since although my most successful British Beer was an English Golden ale with the Lallemand ESB yeast.

I’m not a big fan of the Fermentis yeasts in general - US-05 isn’t as good as MJ44 or BRY97; K97 leaves a massive krausen that won’t settle and the fruitiness from it isn’t as nice as the CML kolsch yeast. I’ve not even given their lager yeasts a go because I’ve had such good results with Lallemand Diamond.

 

[Cwrw666]

I've used SO4, US-05, Gervin and CML 5 and honestly can't tell any difference other than the US-05 doesn't stick to the bottle quite as well.
Lallemand London ESB on the other hand does affect the flavour but is so annoyingly unsticky I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole ever again.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

For English style beers I've used nothing but S04 and it's been brilliant never had any off flavours and starts like a bomb.

 

[Edison]

I find I just don’t like the taste of S04. Real ales I most enjoy are malty and maybe slightly sweet without excessive minerals. To my mind this yeast makes quite dry, almost powdery tasting beer, I don’t find the esters taste particularly fruity, more sulphury perhaps. It’s hard to describe and everyones tastes are different. Occasionally I think “I haven’t had a pint of Pedigree in a while“, then I taste it and remember why!
I really enjoy the taste of London III but it’s behaving like a spoiled princess for me at the moment. There’s more dry ‘English’ yeasts I want to explore before I give S04 another crack at the whip.
BTW, US-05 always tastes super clean for me at 19c and as there’s lots of pro breweries use this to brew the styles of beer I like it gets a lot of use here. Didn’t notice any improvements using this over their liquid equivalents so I always have a pack on hand. I just found when I used it for every brew I was finding less interesting variations between the beers I had serving at the same time.
I’m currently serving a Belgian Blonde with Wyeast #3522 Belgian Ardennes, a dark English IPA with Wyeast #1318 London Ale III, I did have an Elderflower Pale with Lallemand London ESB English and I have a Raspberry Wheat in bottles using Crossmyloof Kristallweizen. Although obviously different recipes, the different yeasts make sure there are less overlaps in taste.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Everyone's tastes are different and I do like 04 and 05, but I've ordered CML Trent for a change. I've never used a liquid yeast as dry make a good beer for me.

 

[Galena]

Graham Wheeler, a true expert in making clones, said you need to get some of the yeast from the actual brewery to be able to brew a true clone. His recipes were designed to brew a beer in the style of.

True, but I find it a shame that he could not share what yeast he found to be closest to the style, yeast choice being rather important.

 

[TheOsprey]

I only bought 2 yeasts, s04 (because everyone seemed to use it) and Nottingham. I used s04 in my simple AG with mandarina. I was worried it wasn't doing anything, as it was slowly bubbling within a few hours, and then did nothing. Sure enough I tested after a week and it was at 1.008.

No idea on taste yet though...

 

[JockyBrewer]

True, but I find it a shame that he could not share what yeast he found to be closest to the style, yeast choice being rather important.

When most revisions of BYOBRA were published there simply wasn't the choice of yeast available.

Even when I got the 3rd revision in 2010 there was still only one place I knew I could buy Wyeast packs (with a limited stock) that was quite a journey away, so most of the time I was limited to the available range of dry yeasts for English ales (Fermentis US-05 and S-04, Danstar Nottingham and Windsor, Gervin).

 

[JockyBrewer]

On the original question, yeast is enormously important for the final flavour profile of beers, but you really need to use a particular yeast a few times (and ideally with the same recipe) before you really know what it can do.

For example, for quite a while I adopted WLP028 as my go to yeast for anything that was an English or American ale. Over that time I found it was a fabulous yeast for dark beers, you need to mash a bit lower and longer than some other yeasts to dry pale beers out.

Much more recently I went back to US-05 for the first time in about 5 years recently and was surprised by how much it made the hop flavour shine.

 

[Braufather]

On the original question, yeast is enormously important for the final flavour profile of beers, but you really need to use a particular yeast a few times (and ideally with the same recipe) before you really know what it can do.

For example, for quite a while I adopted WLP028 as my go to yeast for anything that was an English or American ale. Over that time I found it was a fabulous yeast for dark beers, you need to mash a bit lower and longer than some other yeasts to dry pale beers out.

Much more recently I went back to US-05 for the first time in about 5 years recently and was surprised by how much it made the hop flavour shine.

Same. It was after reading back on brewing notes it dawned on me the couple of times I’d used us05 it turned out great Beers, compared to the equivalent liquid which I normally use.

 

[Braufather]

Jury seems to be split on safe ale 04 though?

 

[Galena]

When most revisions of BYOBRA were published there simply wasn't the choice of yeast available.

Even when I got the 3rd revision in 2010 there was still only one place I knew I could buy Wyeast packs (with a limited stock) that was quite a journey away, so most of the time I was limited to the available range of dry yeasts for English ales (Fermentis US-05 and S-04, Danstar Nottingham and Windsor, Gervin).

That is a good point

 

[PhilBrew]

Jury seems to be split on safe ale 04 though?

... isn't that because you're always going to have differences of opinion when it's a matter of taste? ... personally, I dislike the dry aftertaste that Notty leaves in beers fermented with it, but lots of brewers seem to think it's the only yeast they ever need to use

There's lots of discussion and opinions on this thread, ALL of them valid, for those brewers/drinkers ... and the overriding answer for @TheOsprey (the Original Poster) has to be "it might, or it might not make a big difference, but only you and your tastebuds can decide whether it makes a difference, for you" ... personally, I found tasting the (unhopped) beer decanted off yeast starters was what helped me understand what flavours different yeasts brought to the table, and recognise them better when they were in the mix with the malt and hop flavours

Cheers, PhilB