Bengal Lancer harvest

[orlando]

Got the yeast from 4 bottles of lancer and have stepped from 100ml to 500 to 1.5l. There is quite a bit of dark trub, which I wasn't expecting to see so much of. I want to pitch this into a Fuller's London Porter clone on Monday, can anyone see any difficulties with this?

[Dr. Dextrin]

I've just done a London Porter with the Fullers 1845 yeast and it's pretty delicious. So I reckon you won't go far wrong there.

[orlando]

Are they the same?

[Dr. Dextrin]

I think they're a little different, but not much. Presumably closely related. The attenuation and most of the flavour seem to be the same, the 1845 yeast has a bit more "darkness" to the taste, though.

[robbarwell]

I am sure that they are the same yeast.

I would go with the Bengal Lancer though as the gravity from the bottle is a bit less so therefore should be more viable. I have brewed many beers with this yeast and can vouch for its compatability with making very flavoursome beers. I use Thwaites yeast in the colder months as this needs to be chilled at the end of fermentation to clear but use Fullers BL for the rest of the time as it does not really need the chill

[orlando]

Thanks for that. I am going to brew with it tomorrow. Had a look this morning and although I have had it in the fridge since Friday thhere is still more yeast in supension than I would like so will pitch the lot including the starter wort just to ensure I don't decant the more attenuative yeast. I don't mind it finishing a little earlier as I want a full bodied Porter so am already mashing higher but I want it to get down to at least 1.012 to 1.014. How does it usually perform? If it throws a good krausen I will top crop as this usually gives the most viable yeast and the least amount of trub.

[Dr. Dextrin]

The BL yeast usually ferments pretty fast IME and it's a good one for top cropping too.

[orlando]

Thanks. Just about to weigh out the grain and move the liquour to the HLT so tomorrow I will be brewing

[subfaction]

How is this progressing, I'm looking to do a similar thing with x3 bottles I've got in the fridge. How long did you leave in between the steps?

[orlando]

Really well (see my brewday post).

I started by recovering the dregs from 4 of the bottles but suspect you could achieve nearly as much with one. I followed the advice in Yeast and the experience of others on here and only left it on the stir plate for approx. 24 hours, anymore and you begin fermenting, when what you really want is just to tap the exponential growth phase and no more.

[subfaction]

Cool, so 24 hours for each step, sounds do-able. Just ordered a range of flasks to make the process easier and safer bug wise. I take it you pitched the whole old step into the new each time?

[orlando]

I did but you can store in the fridge until the yeast drops out then bring up to within 8c of the new wort and pitch into that. I did this with the final step and poured off the excess wort. Bit nervous with this part because you can dispose of the yeast that gives full attenuation. It has dropped 26 points in 36 hours so far so a good start, just have to hope it gets it down to around 1.014.

[orlando]

Update to this:

I didn't get the beer below 1.018 in the end but to my amazement it has turned out full bodied but not over sweet, in fact I was delighted by how dry tasting it was considering it finished so high.

[robbarwell]

Is it a good un

[orlando]

Drinking a pint last night. It turned out really well the coffee notes are just subtle enough to not over power the malt. I kegged it, which I haven' done with a Porter before, and I really liked how quickly it conditioned and how it was tasting great very early on. Best part is I must have at least 10 litres left