Yeast taste from wlp002

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Eric
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Re: Yeast taste from wlp002

Post by Eric » Tue Jan 10, 2017 12:55 am

WLP002 doesn't need crash cooling. It produces a quite deeo but light krausen that once fermentation is complete quickly disappears on a rapidly clearing beer. What you describe doesn't match WLP002. Did you see what it was likein the first week?

I once managed to pitch WLP002 into too warm a wort. It was finished in 3 days and produced some hot flavours, but otherwise it looked usual in overdrive.
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Re: Yeast taste from wlp002

Post by orlando » Tue Jan 10, 2017 6:20 pm

Sounds like the yeast may have been damaged when pitched into a wort that was significantly higher in temperature than it was being stored at. Can you recall what temperature the yeast was before being pitched? If that isn't the case then we might be looking at the wrong end. Could be that wort production is the issue, but that is a significant can of worms for now.
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Re: Yeast taste from wlp002

Post by McMullan » Tue Jan 10, 2017 7:51 pm

The most shocking things happen to yeast cells when they aren't at the same temperature as the wort they're pitched in. Even a few degrees difference promotes stress responses, rather than growth processes. Mine spend hours in the fermentation fridge at pitching temperature on brewday, before being pitched.

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Re: Yeast taste from wlp002

Post by dshar » Tue Jan 10, 2017 9:02 pm

I'm beginning to fear the worst with this one. After coolin for 24hrs, It hasn't cleared anymore. Also I can see some small black spots on the sides of the bottle.
I think I actually pitched 24 hrs later which prob means The temp was ok but also perhaps allowed time for some nasties to get hold. (Sorry for the wrong info - :oops: ).

Another thing I saw which didn't sit comfortably with me were some black spots on the rubber seal to the fermenter, I cut these off before sterilising and using, but I wonder...
A whole days work and a lot of beer likely down the drain! After a Dozen brews, Suppose it was bound to happen eventually...
On the upside, think I've learnt a bit too, cheers for all the comments

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Re: Yeast taste from wlp002

Post by Dennis King » Tue Jan 10, 2017 9:13 pm

Please don't give up on 002 it's a cracking yeast.

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Re: Yeast taste from wlp002

Post by Kev888 » Tue Jan 10, 2017 9:18 pm

I fully agree, wlp002 is now my main yeast for low and normal gravity British style beers. It has never behaved like this for me, so something is certainly amiss. As the temperature issue was a blind alley, its beginning to sound like some kind of infection.
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Re: Yeast taste from wlp002

Post by orlando » Wed Jan 11, 2017 8:19 am

dshar wrote:
Another thing I saw which didn't sit comfortably with me were some black spots on the rubber seal to the fermenter, I cut these off before sterilising and using, but I wonder...

Probably a mould. Sterilising would deal with that and the spores, but I suspect you mean sanitising. Not the same thing, sanitising only helps to keep background nasties at a level that a healthy amount of enough yeast pitched into a correctly formulated wort can overwhelm.
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Re: Yeast taste from wlp002

Post by donchiquon » Wed Jan 11, 2017 10:00 am

Dennis King wrote:Please don't give up on 002 it's a cracking yeast.
+1 - a great yeast. How many times would you guys repitch it? I think I'm on 6 fermentations with one lot of it.
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Re: Yeast taste from wlp002

Post by lord.president » Wed Jan 11, 2017 10:31 am

I've been following this as l have been getting off flavours in a few brews. Checking my records,it's always with this yeast. Kind of hot plasticy smell and taste,that is worse 'on the burp' and the beer is like mud. From what l've read, it is a hot fermenter,the wort can rise by 5 degrees on it's own. There are also a few suggestions that if you bottle condition,as it's a high flocc yeast,that you have effectively underpitched for the secondary in the bottle,though not sure if that is possible,although thinking about it, the sample out of the FV before bottling is always OK.
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Re: Yeast taste from wlp002

Post by london_lhr » Wed Jan 11, 2017 4:45 pm

If it were autolysis of the yeast, it would be a very characteristic marmite, burnt rubber type taste.
From your description it is probably not autolysis.
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Re: Yeast taste from wlp002

Post by Matt in Birdham » Wed Jan 11, 2017 5:26 pm

lord.president wrote: From what l've read, it is a hot fermenter,the wort can rise by 5 degrees on it's own.
I've seen the biggest temp differentials fridge/beer of any yeast so far, since I got my Brewpi (OK - so not that many different yeasts, to be fair). WLP002 does go off like a rocket and is usually done for me inside 3 days.
Here is a snippet of graph from a 1.065 beer fermented with WLP002. You can see that the fridge is being held 4-5 C below the beer temp for quite a while, so if you were fermenting in a fridge set for 20 you'd be up around 25.

Image

But yeah - WLP002 is a great yeast and the fastest clearing of any I have used. Don't give up on it.

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Re: Yeast taste from wlp002

Post by McMullan » Wed Jan 11, 2017 7:49 pm

What does 'fridge setting' refer to there, Matt?

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Re: Yeast taste from wlp002

Post by Matt in Birdham » Wed Jan 11, 2017 8:22 pm

McMullan wrote:What does 'fridge setting' refer to there, Matt?
My understanding of the Brewpi is that is uses 3x PIDs; fridge to fridge temp, heater to fridge temp and a third, "virtual" PID, which is fridge setting to beer temp. So basically it uses PIDs in the standard way to target a fridge temp with either heating or cooling, but then runs another PID which calculates what fridge temp is required to achieve the desired beer temp. So TLDR: the fridge setting is the target temp of the fridge, blue line is the actual temp of the fridge, red line is target temp of the beer and the green line is (thermowell) measured actual temp of the beer.

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Re: Yeast taste from wlp002

Post by dshar » Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:16 pm

I propagated the yeast with the 'shaken not stirred' method and have 6 bottles in the fridge, so I'll definitely be using this one again. I don't think the bugs were introduced at that stage.. Will just be more careful with my hygiene going forward.

@orlando- I did indeed mean sanitising, but will look into how to sterilise and have a good go at that seal!

In the meantime, I have a cunning plan for the 20l remaining... If the nasties don't leave too much of a taste on the beer, I'm thinking of using a coffee filter! It's going to be a long winter drinking this stuff :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Re: Yeast taste from wlp002

Post by McMullan » Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:28 pm

I use a standard temperature controller with the sensor in a thermowell placed in the wort. I think if I were to plot my fridge temperature and wort temperature data it would look very similar to yours. The fridge temperature plummets during active primary. It's a bit disconcerting when first observed, down to 12*C :shock: , but it seems to work well.

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