Tripel yeast: which one?

[GerritT]

As the title already says: I'm looking for a good estery tripel yeast, it's for a kind of competition. My brewers guild gave some willing members ingredients for a tripel, but we'd have to pick our own yeast and methods. Hops are 30 grams of Northern Brewer and 30 grams of Saaz for 20 liters (I hoped for more hops, but alas).
Coriander seeds are allowed.

The guild wants a new recipe for a tripel so it has to be reproducible and not too exotic.

Any yeast suggestions? Next weekend is brewday, Februari is taste month.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Used an mj triple a few times. Once it turned out hot but that could have been the hop extract used. It is fairly neutral I've found but ages well. 3+ month's

 

[strange-steve]

I would without a doubt go for the Westmalle strain Wyeast 3787. For me this is a style that really benefits from a liquid yeast.

 

[GerritT]

MJ knows to bring character to bigger beers, is my experience, but on the other hand: never worked with liquid yeast before so this might become a learning experience!
@strange-steve what makes it different from the 1214 or the 3522? And do they ferment normal in a 20º ambient?

 

[prog99]

I used crossmyloof belgium ale for a quadruple which turned out very nice.

 

[GerritT]

I appreciate CML, I still have some cml ale yeasts down back in the fridge, but it's too short day to order. Cheers for the tip, I'll keep it in the back of my head :)

 

[strange-steve]

MJ knows to bring character to bigger beers, is my experience, but on the other hand: never worked with liquid yeast before so this might become a learning experience!
@strange-steve what makes it different from the 1214 or the 3522? And do they ferment normal in a 20º ambient?

I really like 3522 and it'd work well too but it's considerably cleaner than 3787 and doesn't have the same level of "Belgianyness" if you know what I mean. I haven't used 1214 but there's something about the Chimay yeast profile that doesn't quite sit right with me, likewise the MJ Belgian yeasts, but that's just like my opinion man.
Westmalle is the quintessential tripel and I really like their yeast strain, so it's a no-brainer for me.

 

[Zephyr259]

I used the 1214 in my dubbel, accidentally pitched it a bit hot, 24c which is still within stated range. It's a bit weird, very estery, touch of fusels (depending on your sensitivity to them) but it's horrendously powdery and kicks up sediment in the bottle very easily unless I've chilled the bottles below where the beer tastes best. Most of this was probably due to my errors in brewing and bottling but hey ho. I like 3522 in my brunette, milder in character but still a decent bit of Belgian spice. Not used any other yet and should probably give 3787 a shot but thinking of going back to 3522 as my default Belgian yeast.

 

[GerritT]

After 3 weeks fermenting...

 

[Zephyr259]

Which yeast did you go with in the end?

 

[GerritT]

Which yeast did you go with in the end?

I forgot to buy the yeast

So I had to go what I had in the fridge, a dry one...

BUT the liquids are on my shopping list! This recipe needs repeating!

 

[IainM]

I used the 1214 in my dubbel ... it's horrendously powdery and kicks up sediment in the bottle very easily unless I've chilled the bottles below where the beer tastes best. Most of this was probably due to my errors in brewing and bottling but hey ho.

Not all your fault, as 1214 is the same as WLP500 and it is just has really low flocculence. I cold crashed it for three weeks at 1C and racked carefully to the bottling bucket without moving the fv, and taking the beer from the fridge still stirs some up. Shame you didn't pitch it a few degrees lower though, because although it is a bit wheaty, which might be why Steve isn't so keen on it, I quite like it. I put off using 3787 for a while because it's marketed as 'high gravity', which I falsely assumed was for strength to the detriment of flavour, but I'd happily use it again.