Wyeast or Whitelabs.

[carpet19]

I have always used dried yeast for my brews, especially Safale, with good results. My next brew is going to be Abbaye Notre Dame Orval, from Wheelers classic european beers recipe. this is a specialty Belgian ale, rather a trappist, and i am looking at using one of the special liquid yeasts available. I have come across a number of yeasts, the most popular being Wyeast or Whitelabs. My question is, which one would be best. the Wyeast is slightly cheaper and its a smack pack which i have never used, the Whitelabs comes in a vial which i will make up a starter from. Here is the recipe:

3.4k Maris Otter.
1.15k Vienna malt.
740g Caramunich malt.
37g Styrians.
32g Hallertau.
16g Goldings.
560g White Cane sugar.

OG:1057
EBC:22
IBU 36.

Using a simple one step infusion mash.


Either Wyeast Belgian ale 1214
or
Whitelabs Belgian Ale WLP550.

I know I could simply use the trusted old Safale, but i would really like to get my feet wet trying the special yeasts, just to see if there really is a difference. The extra expense tells me that there should be. Please help me decide. Thanks and happy brewing.

[dartgod]

Since you are making an Orval beer, you might try WLP500 instead of 550 since it is one of the Trappist Brewery Yeast.....if not you will be fine with the 550.....

[carpet19]

Thanks for the quick replies gents. Just a thought, but i mentioned earlier of the extra expense of liquid yeasts over dried. After seeing jims article on splitting the wyeast packs into six bottles and refridgerating them, then youre basically getting six brews from one packet of liquid yeast. Wahoooow. Mind made up. Gonna go for the whitelabs 500 as suggested. If all goes bollocks ill just add a packet of safale so4, no probs. Thanks again.

[roger the dog]

Gonna go for the whitelabs 500 as suggested

If you've not already bought it it's on special offerhere

[oblivious]

Since you are making an Orval beer, you might try WLP500 instead of 550 since it is one of the Trappist Brewery Yeast.....if not you will be fine with the 550.....

I believe orval is a multi strain of four yeast

[mysterio]

I've used the Bastogne 510 (Orval) yeast in a tripel and it's good. It doesn't have any Brett character so if you're doing an Orval clone you'll need to use bottle dregs at some point.

I think you're better off with White Labs as the cell counts are much higher than the Wyeast propagator packs. For a beer like this, you will definately notice the difference over Safale.