Windsor Yeast.... Brilliant

[simple one]

This seems to be a marmite yeast.... mostly hate! I bravely thought I would give it a go.

I thought I would add my voice to the few that sing this yeasts praises.

From reading feedback from across the net I decided to create a wort suited to this yeast. Mashed at 65 with a loose mash. I brewed a 1033 wort, with just pale and chocolate, being a little worried about using crystal. The feed back for this yeast seems to suggest that if there is partial/slow fermentables in the wort the yeast stays in suspension, which seems to be true for higher gravity beers also, the last gravity points maybe keeping the yeast in suspension. I also added a week of 4C cooling to the back of a 2.5 week ferment.

The beer was near crystal going in to the keg and the bottles. The final gravity was 1010 giving it good body for such a fermentable wort. The taste was english as it comes, very pub cask, a light adnams yeasty flavour without the sulphur in its taste and mouthfeel. Not a yeast for those that like blander beer. Really puts the clean dry yeasts to shame, and I would say a good way of brewing something with an english yeast character without going down the liquid yeast route.

The yeast cake was runny like a mcdonalds milkshake, not as thick and solid as other dry yeasts.

I will be using this with a higher gravity wort with a bit of homemade dark crystal in a future bigger bitter. Really good.

[roscoe]

marmite right enough,
sends my blood boiling how such and evil organism can produce such crap beer,
back onto the well trodden stable of working beasties !

[stokie_spaceman]

I've had good results on English style bitters with this yeast, attenuating quite highly. However it does tend to chug on with time. Struggling to find the mash temp sweet spot with higher gravity beers. It can attenuate quite highly given the right conditions and can still leave beer thin even many find it stalls. I find it starts again but it needs time to work. I need to experiment more with it. My last beer with windsor, an oatmeal stout, finished at 1.010 fg from about 1.055 og, was a bit thin and had esters to boot...that was fermenting at about 17 deg c for first 48 hrs! Weird.

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[Jim]

Windsor is also a favourite of mine. It does take more managing than yeasts that are more predictable, but worth it in imo.

[jaroporter]

i've made very good darker bitters and porters with it, but also a pale (when it was all i had so just chucked it in) that just tasted all kinds of wrong. i think it's an "advanced technique" yeast that really benefits from proper recipe design and handling. if you're willing to do that and have a little patience you definitely get rewarded over using an all-purpose yeast like nottingham or us-05, for me..

[john luc]

I used it a few times and never got the quality I wanted. I tried to find commercial brews that used it but was told that most brewery's blend it with notty to help it finish out. My last attempt I started with Windsor and after 48 hours I pitched Nottingham. Beer was OK. It seems to me to be a yeast that you build a recipe around and I reckon you need sugar as an ingredient to help get those final points dropped.

[simple one]

It must take an age to deal with anything darker than an ESB.

I think I like this yeast for it's low attenuation. After all, unlike commercial brewers, I am after flavours, not abv. Ideal for a pale mild beer or a weak bitter, where it needs to drink stronger.

[Hogarth]

I'm a fan, especially for milds.

[Kev888]

I like windsor too; of dried yeast its one of the few types that don't over-attenuate in low gravity, malty beers. Good solid British style flavours, as well.

It can be a little slow to finish sometimes and isn"t very flocculant, but for me its not been routinely problematic, at all. It would be interesting to understand why it won't play ball for some people.

[Bazz]

I'm glad i've stumbled across this thread, i have a packet in the fridge that i was going to use for my next brew, a fairly simple pale ale/bitter of which the recipe is:

95% pale ale malt
2.5% light crystal
2.5% Torrified wheat

EKG 25 IBU's worth @ 60 mins
EKG 5 IBU's worth @ 15 mins
EKG 15g @ flame out

I usually mash all my beers at 66 degC, for this i was thinking of going a little lower, 64/65. I plan to re-hydrate the yeast first in a little cooled boiled water, then pitch at 20 degC and leave it their for at least a week before raising to 22 degC to finish off.

Any advice or feedback?

Thanks.

[john luc]

Do a follow up on the results as I would like to hear how you get on. What sg are you going for.

[john luc]

Mash at 64 and consider adding sugar to your recipe. Also don't go for a high sg.

[Bazz]

S.G. is going to be 1.040, plan is for this to be quite sessionable.

[simple one]

Any advice or feedback?

Thanks.

Recipe looks ideal, not to heavy on crystals. Only advice I have is mentioned above. Just leave for three weeks in the FV, with the last few days as crash cooling.

Had a bottle last night, really makes a good traditional tasty pint.

Good luck.

[rpt]

Make sure you rehydrate the yeast properly. Don't just use some cooled, boiled water but get the temperature right. Find the manufacturer's instructions on their website if it's not on the packet.