What are People's Experiences of Using Windsor Yeast?

[An Ankoù]

Just tried pitching Windsor for the first time on the understanding that it gives a good flavoured beer with low attenuation, but without leaving the beer tasting sweet. So I knocked up a pale ale with an OG of 1040 and pitched the yeast Sunday afternoon. Astonished to find the gravity had dropped to 1006 this morning, after only 2½ days.

Mashed overnight at 66C- this may be a factor.
Have checked hydrometer calibration.
Pitched at 25C and brought temp down to 22C and then 19-20C
The beer is, of course, still very, very cloudy as we would expect of a low flocculating yeast, but it tastes very good, even so.

I had read some horror stories of beers finishing at 1020 with this yeast and having to be finished with a drier yeast.
What are others' experiences? Does mine sound typical?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

85% attenuation implies something other than Windsor is fermenting your wort.

 

[An Ankoù]

85% attenuation implies something other than Windsor is fermenting your wort.

My thoughts too, but not in 2½ days, and it tastes ok, too. Had difficulty with keeping the temperature within recommended parms so maybe that has something to do with it. I'll rack it tomorrow and see if there's any further attenuation, in which case I'll reckon you're right. I can't imagine the yeast was wrongly packaged.

 

[JonBrew]

Pretty sure that will be your overnight mash.

 

[Sandimas]

Only used it once but FG was very high, I was very nervous bottling it. But it was done and hasn't produced the bottle bombs I expected. Much weaker than intended but taste-wise one of the best beers I've brewed.

I'd be tempted to brew it again adjusting the grain bill for the low attenuation.

Yours do not sound right for this yeast.

 

[NormanHurst]

I've only used it once. It was a Porter that had a relatively low base malt % and mashed a bit too high. FG was 1020 but it tasted brilliant and wasn't too sweet at all. Need to use it again but with a different recipe.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

I used it for a spitfire bitter clone. Took ages to finish fermenting like 4 weeks and was at appropriate temperature. Took even longer to clear the beer in a keg.
Recent trials of the bottled part of it have all been gushers, not infected but I think it just keeps going. I didn't have as positive experience with it as others above.

 

[Sadfield]

My money would be on the mash temperature not being high enough to denature beta amylase, limit dextrinase etc, resulting in a wort with very little maltotiose, and therefore plenty of sugars that Windsor can assimilate.

A very slim outsider could be a Saccharomyces diastaticus contamination if you aren't sanitising effectively and you use Saison yeasts. Which won't produce noticable off flavours, but this is more likely to present with super attenuation (90%+) at packaging.

Attenuation figures are guides not limits, based on standard methods of wort production.

 

[Braufather]

I used it for a spitfire bitter clone. Took ages to finish fermenting like 4 weeks and was at appropriate temperature. Took even longer to clear the beer in a keg.
Recent trials of the bottled part of it have all been gushers, not infected but I think it just keeps going. I didn't have as positive experience with it as others above.

looking to do a spitfire clone at some stage myself. could you share the recipe?

 

[RoomWithABrew]

@Braufather I'll dig it out in the morning and post it, no problem.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

@Braufather
Not my own recipe but from Clone brews. This is all grain they do have extract and mini mash options. They assume 70 %efficiency so I tend to do a bit better than their figures. It's for 19 litres
3.3 kg Brit 2 row
0.45 kg Flaked maize
0.34 kg 55L Crystal malt
0.113 kg Torrified wheat
0.227kg Corn sugar ( not in the mash )
0.227 kg rice or oat hulls ( i used glucanase instead )

Mash 66.2 celsius for 90 minutes
Boil 90 minutes with 21g of Target hops and the corn sugar

14g EKG and 14g First Gold or WGV at 15 minutes with Irish moss

14g EKG in last minute

Yeast Wyeast 1275 Thames Valley or Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ferment at 20 - 22celsius

Add 14g EKG in secondary as dry hop.

OG 1.046 - 1.048
FG 1.010 - 1.011

IBU 39 SRM 12 ABV 4.7%

 

[Braufather]

Great thanks for that. Ingredients for next 3 brews ( including whitsable bay) arrived today. I will give this a go in the next batch. Surprised with maize in there? Also thought there might be some amber malt?

what does glucanase/ rice hulls bring to the table?

 

[Saisonator]

Only used it once, FG was too high so I used another yeast to finish it.
Would probably go back to Liberty Bell for my next bitter.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Rice hulls I suppose because of concern about a stiff mash. Mine lautered fine. Glucanase is an enzyme that dissolve the b glucans in grains making it less gummy. Takes up no volume in mash tun, quite cheap and seems to work well for me. flaked maize and torrefied wheat are really like cornflakes and puffed wheat so a lot of gel potential.
You probably could substitute corn sugar for some of these adjuncts.

 

[An Ankoù]

Great thanks for that. Ingredients for next 3 brews ( including whitsable bay) arrived today. I will give this a go in the next batch. Surprised with maize in there? Also thought there might be some amber malt?

what does glucanase/ rice hulls bring to the table?

I don't recall seeing maize in the Clone Brews recipe. Rice hulls prevent a set mash and make sparging easier. Not really necessary with this grain bill. Glucanase is something different altogether and will make your wort fully fermentable. I wouldn't use it in this recipe.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

@Ankou Glucanase totally different to gluco amylase which would make your wort fermentable. Different enzymes different actions.

Maize is in the all grain method bottom of the page after the British 2 row pale malt, page 187

 

[An Ankoù]

@Ankou Glucanase totally different to alpha amylase which would make your wort fermentable. Different enzymes different actions.

Maize is in the all grain method bottom of the page after the British 2 row pale malt, page 187

Enzymes: Course it is. Don't know what I was thinking of.

Nope. No maize on p 110 of the 1998 edition. A quarter pound of wheat malt instead. That's why I wasn't expecting a beta-glucan issue.
Protz' Almanac 5th ed. specifies 10% cereal adjuncts so I guess the maize should be there
We are talking about Szamatulski "Clone Brews"? Mine only has 171 pages.

Edit:
Just checked Amazon and I see you're referring to the 2010 edition "completely updated". Time I updated my copy, too, methinks.

 

[Braufather]

From tescos website
Ingredients
Water, Malted Barley, Glucose Syrup, Hops

no mention of Maize? Always thought that was for american lagers?

maybe up the sugar a wee bit but wouldn’t want it more than 10% I would have thought?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Water, Malted Barley, Glucose Syrup, Hops

no mention of Maize? Always thought that was for american lagers?

Maize has always been fairly common in British brewing, particularly in southern England - it dilutes the protein so making the beer clearer, and it was meant to help finings to work. And talking to John Keeling of Fuller's, he reckons it "opens out" the flavour a bit. But better farming/varieties means that malting barley has less protein these days, and CAMRA's ahistorical campaign against adjuncts that equated them with Watneys means that a lot of breweries have moved away from them for marketing reasons.

 

[stubrewworx]

1.049 down to 1.012, bang on target but brewfather didn't know my thermometer was out and mashed well sub 66c.