White Labs WLP037 Yorkshire Square

[adm]

Oh buggery bollocks......it looks like this yeast is dead.

Anybody have any experience using this yeast before, because I am not sure this is working at all....

I got the tube yesterday and the yeast was a very, very thick sludge at the bottom with a layer of wort at the top - i.e. completely separated out. After a good shake, it went into suspension, but would settle out very quickly if I left it still.

I made up a 1.4 litre starter with 140g of light DME, and pitched it about 5pm yesterday. It's been on the stir plate overnight, but it doesn't look as if anything is happening. There is no CO2 activity visible, and the yeast is in big grains only, floating about in the flask. If I turn the stir plate off, it drops out in seconds.

The strange thing though, is that the gravity was 1.030 this morning, although I didn't measure the starter solution gravity at first, I'd imagine it was about 1.040. So it looks as if it did a bit of work then died. It smells a bit "beery" but that might just have been from the yeast in the tube... Temperature is a steady 20C.

Any ideas? I was going to use this yeast for my JBK Anniversary brew tomorrow, but it looks like it'll have to be good old SO4 instead.

[adm]

Just so you can see what I'm talking about, here's some pics:


This is the yeast being stirred in the flask. As you can see, it's all big flocs, not nicely cloudy like most yeasts.


And if I turn the stir plate off, this is what it looks like after only about 1 minute. It simply all falls out of the wort and clumps together....

I've never seen anything like this.....pretty sure it's died, but there's no off smell or anything..... White Labs do say "highly flocculent", but this is beyond a joke!

[WishboneBrewery]

Might need a lot of rousing, re: Yorkshire Square, probably the strain from either Black Sheep or Sam Smiths brewery who still use their Yorkshire Squares.
The Whitelabs yeast I've used have all taken at approx 24 hours to see any life, even the Burton Ale slurry I pitched yesterday around this time has only just started creating a yeast head in the past hour or so.

[softlad]

I treated my WLP037 really badly

I left it out of the fridge while I was brewing and kept shaking it. Like you say, it drops out of suspension really quickly and I had two distinct layers in no time at all.

I then pitched it directly into the wort (no starter made) and the following morning I had a thin layer of white bubbles. Later that day I had an impressive krausen which has remained from Monday morning. Today it seems to be subsiding but its still there. I'm fermenting at 21 degrees.

SG dropped from 1052 to 1020 in 3 days and then dropped to about 1016 in five days.

Having not made a starter its difficult to say if I had the same flocs. Mine seemed to be creamier in the bottle but thats no real comparrion.

[adm]

Ah well.....I think I'll leave it until tomorrow morning, as it looks like there are MORE flocs.....but still no evident CO2 activity. Then I'll take the wort SG again, so I'll definitely be able to tell what it's up to. If it's still at 1030 I'll ditch it and use S04

It was very creamy looking in the tube after a good shake....but in the starter it's just flakes and flocs!

[nobby]

I have made a starter with WLP002 and its looks just like your WLP037, almost like it curdled. I pitched some in a brew on sunday and its woking away just fine.

[adm]

It looks like this one was definitely dead.....no progress from 1.030 on Sunday, or today.......

Ah well. I've emailed H&G to see if they'll replace it.

[Toby]

I've just exactly the same issue with this yeast, been on a stir plate for about 2 days now, the gravity has not dropped at all. Going to give it another 24 hrs then email patsy and see if it was a duff batch.

[adm]

John was very good (and quick) about replacing it. I decided not to get another one though as the only two he had left were from the same batch and I didn't want to risk it. Looks like you must have ended up with one of them

I ended up with a WLP001 California Ale as i've got a few hoppy little numbers planned for the near future....

[mysterio]

Did you guys put in a special request for this yeast? I don't see it on the website.

The pictures you posted looks like it behaves like WLP002, sometimes those yeasts need a couple of days to kick into action

[Toby]

Not a special request / order, I seem to remember it was listed as a just in in one of the advert blocks on the right of the site. Think I'll give go for the Californian as well, fancy a go at a SNPA assuming I can find some Magnum hops.

I've always found the customer service from John and Patsy to be excellent, I'll give them a ring on Monday.

[adm]

Did you guys put in a special request for this yeast? I don't see it on the website.

The pictures you posted looks like it behaves like WLP002, sometimes those yeasts need a couple of days to kick into action

Not a special request per se - it was on the site as a White Labs Platinum strain available September and October only.

I spoke to John about it and he said he'd only got that batch in the day he shipped it out to me - but softlad had some the week before, so they must have been getting it in regularly.

I've had a few liquid yeasts that have taken a while to kick off (WY 1214 for example always seems to take about 36-48 hours to get going), but this one was definitely dead after 72 hours. It certainly LOOKED OK, but I've never seen yeast floc out so quickly - literally inside a minute from fully suspended to completely flat on the bottom, so my guess is it got overheated (or frozen to death) on the flight over.

John said he would bring it to the attention of Chris at White Labs too - and if Toby's had the same problem from the same batch, it looks like a real issue with this batch.

[Toby]

Yep mine dropped like a stone as soon as I switched the stirplate off, as you say never seen anything like it.

[mysterio]

Sounds exactly like the WLP002! 37 seconds from switch off to fully settled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JfrviUFc2w

1.030 overnight doesn't sound totally out of the ordinary to me

[softlad]

I've just kicked off a sort of Northdown Wonder (using Northern Brewer instead of Northdown) with the yeast saved from Jims beer. It seems to be behaving. I'll report on progress tomorrow.

I'll dig out the bottle tonight and see if theres a batch number on there to compare