Yeast starter questions: Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale

[Goulders]

Have you brewed with it YeastWhisperer? Gales is apparently DERIVED from Whitbread B.
Personally if I wanted be sure I had the correct strain of Gales yeast I would order a slope from Brewlab. But anyway it may work out for Hambrook, time will tell.

[YeastWhisperer]

All I can say is that whoever stated that the Gales strain is derived from Whitbread B was more than likely spreading misinformation. There's no way that the strains are genetically related. Top cropping strains were selected via top-cropping. A flocculent strain that settles to the bottom instead of rising to the surface cannot be transformed into a true top-cropper with a serious genetic mutation occurring. No one would pick Whitbread B for open fermentation, at least not in a single strain culture.

[Goulders]

Personally I wouldn't rely on an American Wyeast that claims to have originated from Gales goodness knows how many generations ago. Gales used to use fresh yeast every 2 weeks. As I've said above, if I was to want an exact yeast strain that Gales used, I would get a slope from Brewlab.

[YeastWhisperer]

I can tell you with 100% certainty that the yeast strain shown in the film footage that hambrook posted is not Whitbread B. I have confirmed Whitbread B in my bank. The culture was brought to the United States by Dr. Michael Lewis at U.C. Davis (Lewis is a Briton). It behaves nothing like the yeast in the film.

Whitbread B is a well researched and documented yeast strain. It was selected by Whitbread for use in tower fermentation vessels. Tower fermentation vessels are used for continuous fermentation, which is very different than they way you, I, and most non-large-scale breweries ferment beer. We ferment beer using batch fermentation. In continuous fermentation, wort and oxygen are continuously added to the fermentation vessel while yeast is recycled from the cone, and beer is drawn from the top. A top-cropping yeast culture like the one shown in the film would not work in a tower fermentation vessel. The strain that Gales used may have been a Whitbread strain, but it is was not Whitbread B, that is, not unless Gales changed strains after the film was shot. Like most large breweries that can afford to have Ph.D. microbiologists and/or biochemists on staff, Whitbread held a large collection of yeast cultures; hence, there are many yeast strains with Whitbread accession numbers.


Tower Fermentation Vessel

[BrewerBen]

Ill be growing the Gales yeast slope i have from Brewlab this weekend so will post some pic's as it gets going to compare. Hopefully i'v been paying attention to the info in this thread and plan to do the following.
Make a 300ml starter as per brewlab instructions and try and catch this at high krausen to then pitch into 3L of well airated wort. As i'm planning to split the batch and store it i assume i can then let this ferment out. Ill then re suspend the yeast and split it into 6 500ml bottles and then put in the fridge.
Each time i brew a day or 2 before i'll prepare a starter using yeast whisperers guide of pitching the starter at high krausen. I realise there will be a bit of trial and error getting the starter size and timing right for what i want but as long as i make beer then all will be fine.

When bottling the starter as long as its fermented out is it ok to use the usual glass crown capped bottles or am i risking bottle bombs?. I'm guessing its no coincidence that the threads i read on yeast splitting use plastic bottles. I have beer bottles and caps to hand but will need to go buy some fizzy pop if the plastic bottles are safest.

[BrewerBen]

Well not much seems to have happened, Its been 72 hours or so but I've not noticed any kins of yeast head forming and only a very thin film of yeast at the bottom of the demijohn as per the first pic below. The second pic shows the foam forms when i give it a gentle swirl so hopefully it is fermenting. Should i give it a bit more time before stepping up to 3L or do it now and hope for the best?

[hambrook]

EXACTLY what I experienced, Even keeping it at 21 degrees in the brew fridge. After 18 hours I pitched it. 4 days later its still working and movement inside the beer doing its thing.

[BrewerBen]

In that case I've probably given it too long and need to step it up to 3L asap.

[YeastWhisperer]

I need to study this strain. Wyeast lists 1332 as being highly flocculent, but a highly-flocculent yeast strain should have flocculated out into a sticky sediment in 72 hours. Did you allow the Activator pack to swell?

[tourer]

Wow! That's warm. Do you know if 23.5C is the fermentation vessel internal temperature or the ambient room temperature?

I have been telling American home brewers that having to start a fermentation in the 15C to 16C range in order to produce an off-flavor-free product is a sign of poor sanitation and/or yeast management for quite some time. Most American home brewers stare at me like I am from outer space when I make that claim. Starting a fermentation at 15C to 16C retards the growth of wild microflora; thereby, giving the domesticated yeast culture an even greater competitive advantage. The yeast culture owns the wort by the time the temperature rises high enough to support rapid wild microflora growth.

Why did lager beer come to dominate the world market when influential brewing scientists like Dr. Max Wallerstein considered well-made ale to be a more flavorful product? Well, mechanical refrigeration coupled with lager yeast (a.k.a. Saccharomyces pastorianus, S. pastorianus) made brewing a consistently high quality product on a scale never seen before possible. S. pastorianus works at temperatures where wild microflora growth is severely retarded. One only needs to open one's refrigerator to see this wild microflora growth limiting phenomenon in action. Food that will spoil in a couple of hours at room temperature will last a week or more at 4C. That's because the temperature retards the growth of food spoiling microflora.

I enjoyed that, thanks Yeastwhisperer.

[BrewerBen]

I need to study this strain. Wyeast lists 1332 as being highly flocculent, but a highly-flocculent yeast strain should have flocculated out into a sticky sediment in 72 hours. Did you allow the Activator pack to swell?

I didnt use a Wyeast pack but a yeast slant from brewlab (sorry hambrook if i'm hijacking your thread). The pic's above were of the first 300ml step. I made up 3L of 1.040 wort yesterday and here was the pic from this morning:



and then from when i got back from work:



It looks like i missed the moment when it tried to escape but i'm now pretty relieved to see a nice active fermentation going. I plan to let this ferment out and split into 6 500ml bottles and then refrigerate until i brew. I pitched the 300ml starter at 6PM yesterday and guessing that it reached peak activity at midday today i'll use 18 hours as a starting point when estimating the time required when stepping it up before pitching for a brewday.

[hambrook]

Hijack away Ben - we are both searching for the holy grail of gales yeast. 8 days on and the Wyeast 1332 is still moving inside the brew though activity is declining - this is much longer than the 3 days worth of activity I am used to with Safale S-04. All smells nice and fruity when I open the brew fridge. Continuing to ferment at 20.5 degrees. Planning to crash cool on days 12 & 13 to 10 degrees then bottle.

I still have the other Wyeast 1332 smack pack and plan to activate and decant into 3 or 4 vials and do a yeast swap with Ben

[Wonkydonkey]

Just to add my 2p worth,

I just got back from asda, 4 bottles £5 so I picked up a few bottle conditioned beers, 2 of them being gales HSB. They do have signs of yeast in the bottom,

Unless someone says it's not a primary strain, I'll be culturing these.

Edit: add pic.


Sorry if this is the wrong thread, it was just cos you spoke about Gales.

[BrewerBen]

Thats interesting, i didn't realise HSB was bottle conditioned, I'll have to grab some if i see them. I did enjoy a pint from the local purely for research last night, i couldn't resist as the pub was next to the Polling station and it was curry night.
The 3L starter has finally started to show signs of finishing up. It still has a slight head on but but a layer of sediment has formed so i'm hoping to bottle it at the weekend and store for later use.

[Wonkydonkey]

Well, after reading a few post, someone said you should look at the bottles to see if they have had trouble filtering the beer,
So that's what I was doing this morining, holding bottles up to the light. You never know how long the bottles have been on the shelf. A few hrs or a few days....so I picked up gales HSB and saw what was in the bottom, (see the pic in 1st post).

It was only tonight, I gets the bottle out to have another look, then read the label, and sure enough it says bottle conditioned.

So guess I'll be trying to find out about what yeast they use.

Reading the label more, it says log on to fullers.co.uk to find out about more award winning beers

Edit, from the fillers page