Total experiment...... Really surprised

[MattGuk]

So a few weeks ago I brewed a batch that was total experimentation.
At Christmas I ordered a Bells Oberon kit from TMM along with other stuff and only just got round to brewing it.
A friend of mine grows hops on his allotment and told me they were first Gold and thought these may go well with a wheat ale, from what I have read they impart and orangy taste.
So I used the supplied hops and then threw in 220g of these First Gold hops at flame out, then I realised that my vial of WLP4040 that came with the kit all them months ago was well past it.
According to brewers friend 0% viability, but I thought sod it, let's just put it in as an experiment without a starter and see what happens.
3 days until fermentation started, which I wasn't surprised at, however, what I am surprised at is 3 weeks later the hydro sample is reading 1.002 and tasted surprisingly nice, very close to Leffe which I love.
Tons of body despite the gravity with nice caramel tones to it, but also definitely has an orangy flavour.
Maybe the monks used to seriously stress yeast because I also have no temp control and this tasted seriously good.
Anybody find that using outdated yeast with no starter has produced a beer that you really didn't expect, but for the better?

 

[chthon]

Difficult to say, but a couple of weeks ago I made a starter from Westmalle yeast, that I had harvested somewhere at the end of last year, and saved from a 5l light beer brew, into a small jam pot and was since then waiting in the fridge. I built a starter in doubling steps, 5mL-10mL-20-40-80-160-320 (more or less).

I brewed a tripel (from my Blind Henry recipes), and I got an attenuation of 97% at after three weeks. Last time I brewed with Westmalle yeast a couple of years ago, I got 80%.

Things I do different from then:

• In addition to using yeast nutrients, I also use yeast nutrient salt like used in winemaking (diammoniumphosphate) when making starters
• I always start with open fermentation (covered by cheese cloth)
• When racking after four to five days, I also add a bit of DAP

Even so, getting to 1.000 is a bit of suprising.

However, it tasted fantastic and smelled like banana (a bit), so now I am waiting until end of next week to taste the first fully carbonated bottle.

 

[Sadfield]

I wonder if you've introduced autolysised yeast at the start of fermentation, and as a result, starch degrading enzymes that would ordinarily be contained within healthy yeasts cell walls. Thus rendering your wort more fermentable.

 

[MattGuk]

I wonder if you've introduced autolysised yeast at the start of fermentation, and as a result, starch degrading enzymes that would ordinarily be contained within healthy yeasts cell walls. Thus rendering your wort more fermentable.

Sorry for my ignorance, but can you tell me what you mean by this?
Is that a bad thing?

 

[Sadfield]

As in the enzymes within yeast that break down the sugars the healthy yeast cells convert to alcohol, have leeched from the dead cells into the wort, breaking down the complex sugars the healthy yeast can't consume, into something they can. Recreating similar conditions that happen in the mash to break down starches into less complex sugars. Similarly, to hop creep or diastatic, super attenuation yeast strains.