White Shield

[Graham]

You are supposed to open the other end - dumbo.

[DaveH]

SiHoltye: Where did you get the bottles of White Shield from? I know Sainsbugs used to stock it, but both of our local ones no longer do:(.

Ta chap!

[SiHoltye]

You are supposed to open the other end - dumbo.

I was struggling with the opener so just twatted it and drank from the yard floor via a straw Unseriously though, how was I to know yeast would continue to ferment available sugars, you guys are no help

I'm comfortable with my award winning beers enough to illustrate when i drop a b*llock

[Graham]

Unseriously though, how was I to know yeast would continue to ferment available sugars, you guys are no help

I reckon that it is bad brewmanship if that happens frequently, even with a bottle-conditioned beer. It seems they bottled too early or overfilled the bottles. I know the temperatures are high, but it only makes the inevitable happen sooner. At 15°C cellar temperature the yeast doesn't stop dead - it will continue to work and eventually the same thing would happen. At one time all bottled beers were bottle-conditioned, there were no fridges, and some bottled beers were matured for a year or more. Of course, if it was an overfilled bottle it would be expansion that caused it, but an overfilled bottle is unlikely with an automatic filling machine.

[Graham]

Of course it does make me wonder about their yeast. I know that the Bass, now Coors, conical yeast is a two-strain yeast, but it has been selected to withstand the high hydrostatic pressures present in 60-foot-high conicals. High pressures inhibit the yeast, which is useful in a bottle (or cask), because when the pressure has built up to a particular level the activity slows down considerably, thereby reducing the risk of overpressure. However, if White Shield uses the same yeast as the big brewery, which I think they do, my theory is that it will happily keep munching away at high pressure.

It goes some way to explaining why Bass used to switch the yeast to a "bottling" strain with White Shield and Red Label in the 1990s
umm...

If I were the brewer at White Shield, I would walk up the road to Marstons and borrow a bucket of their yeast.

On the other hand it could be something simple like faulty or cracked bottle.

[Scooby]

I bought 6 bottles and tried one when I got home must have been about 18c I only managed 1/2pt, after chilling to about 4c it's fine but throws a pea soup of a haze.

The brew has been in the keg just over 2 weeks now the fg was 1.012 from 1.047 so just over 74%, I guess it will have gone down some more before I inflict it on guests at a BBQ the weekend after next. Had a quick sample today and it has a very distinctive flavour that can only be down to the yeast as it's an all MO Challenger/Goldings ale similar to many I've done before, I'd describe it as nutty, spicy oak, I like it a lot

[Graham]

If they were to swipe some of marstons yeast they couldn't claim each bottle contains a small amount of William Worthingtons feisty dual yeast on the lable. I get the impression they are fond of their own particular yeast strain.

I think they are pushing their luck a bit with that; there hasn't been an independent Worthington Brewery since 1927, and the brewery itself was pulled down in 1967. In any case, Worthington yeast would have been the same as Bass yeast which would have been the same as Ind Coope yeast which would have been the same as Marstons yeast and so on, because they used to often swap buckets of yeast in the old days.

Same with all the Yorkshire stone-square yeasts; I bet there wasn't ha'p'orth of difference between any of them until modern manipulation.

[Scooby]

I've taken to chucking all my bottles of WS straight into the fridge and they are chill proofed after 2-3 weeks. If you make the starter media as per my video a day in advance and put it in the fridge, all you have to do is pour the last few dregs of the WS into the jam jar after pouring your pint and allowing it to warm up naturally. (just flame the neck before pouring).

I also have them in the fridge but will try and leave for 2-3 weeks

Yep, I pitch with both at fridge temp

[Invalid Stout]

I've got a brew on with this yeast at the moment (see here). I've only ever used dried yeast before. If it's true top-cropping yeast, does that mean it will stay floating on top of the beer even once fermentation is finished?

[Invalid Stout]

* runs off to sanitize a spoon *

So I should skim the head off and give it a good stir?

[Invalid Stout]

Well, I ignored Chris's advice (through being busy, not through arrogance) and the beer has fermented right down to 1011 without any rousing. Maybe it does better in warm weather? It's about 23ºC here.

[Scooby]

The ambient temp during my brew was 22-23c but it still needed a helping hand, rousing early morning and later at night when cooler.

Could be the smaller brew length of 10-12l had an effect?

I'm not one for maturing my beer for long having not noticed much improvement at the end of the keg (4-6 weeks) but I think this brew with the WS yeast has shown a marked change in character over the 4 weeks since kegging

[Invalid Stout]

Oh well. Still nice yeast though, and nice of a brewer to take time to explain things in so much detail.

[Graham]

It looks like Graham was right, Worthingtons were being a little economical with the truth about bottling yeast.

Nice to know that I can talk out of my mouth sometimes, rather than my arse. Unfortunately, this time it was purely accidental and I was merely surmising, based upon knowledge of previous incarnations of White Shield. It is not based upon direct experience. You see - even when I get things right, it is accidental.

[Scooby]

Well unlike TEA it's not S04, (definitely not).

Still you said rousing it was a pita Chris