Wickwar cask yeast - any good?

[fbsf]

I've managed to get a bottle of dregs from a cask of Wickwar BOB. It's in good nick (the beer that floated to the top of the sample tastes fine), and it's working well in the 1L starter I've currently got it in.

Does anyone know if this is the same yeast they use in brewing, or if it's a separate strain used just for conditioning? According to their website, it looks as though it's just transferred straight from the fermenter to the cask...

Curious to know if it's likely to be worth using on my next brew or not. Might give it a go on a small brew to see.

 

[dennisking]

Bumping this as it has had no reply's.

 

[rpt]

Since no one seems to know why don't you ask the brewery?

 

[fbsf]

I did think about doing that, but didn't want any awkward questions as to where it had come from.

It's fermented a litre of 1.040 really quickly, and there is a lovely thick white yeast deposit on the bottom of my demijohn, so as long as the "beer" smells and tastes ok, then it'll be going into an american pale ale tomorrow. I'm going to do a 3 gallon brew so if the worst happens I've only lost 3kg of malt and half a pack of hops.

Watch this space...

 

[RobWalker]

good luck, following this topic closely!

 

[fbsf]

Details are here in the brewday post viewtopic.php?f=21&t=50852&p=487327#p487327

:

 

[fbsf]

Update in post above, but the brief synopsis is that it's worked very well, and seems to have a flavour profile somewhere between S04 and US05.

So defo a winner, given that it only cost 50p of malt extract to bring it on...

I've been told that I can also have the dregs of Butcombe Bitter or Sharps Doombar. I have a sneaking suspicion that Sharps may well filter and seed with a conditioning yeast (given that they are part of the Coors empire now), so will probably give that one a miss.

 

[Hoppy]

Hi FBSF

I would say that this would be the brewery strain. I haven't been to a brewery yet that uses a different yeast for pitching into a cask that they didn't use in primary FV.

Your observation is probably correct many breweries yeast have the characteristics of Saf-04, this was developed to closely mimic UK ale yeasts' properties.

Regards

Hoppy

 

[fbsf]

Hi Hoppy,

Have a read here, and you'll see where my thoughts came from... http://blog.beer-pages.com/2010/05/mars ... reads.html

 

[Hoppy]

They are currently the only one doing it! CAMRA does have an agenda!

Regards

Hoppy