Do liquid yeasts really make that much difference?

[soupdragon]

My opinion is that liquid yeast is best for most types of beer. There are beers that rely entirely on the yeast and fermentation temperature to provide the taste (Adnams Broadside for example)
The only dry yeast i use is US-05, but very rarely. It's important to note that liquid yeasts have a much finer temperature tolerance, so if you don't have temperature controlled fermentation it's a bit hit & miss and impossible to achieve consistency.

Hi jubby

Can you be more specific regarding the taste that Adnams are after and expand on the temperature aspect for me? The reason I ask is that every brew I'm making has an underlying flavour that I've only ever tasted in Adnams beers. I actually want to remove it in my beer so any info you've got could prove useful to me

Cheers Tom

[monkeyboy]

i thought this might get some interesting responses Thanks all - definitely some food for thought there. Don't think i've got the patience for slants, agar and the like, so I think i'll do a bit of reading up on splitting the vial. I don't brew often enough to be able to repitch the cake from the FV (or at least, not without storing it for a while somewhere, and that sounds messy). I'm only brewing british ale, so the the lager/belgian/etc issue doesn't affect me yet. Just interested in making tasty beer. Have noticed that my beers all have a similar taste lurking behind the hops and malt, and i suspect that's going to be the yeast contribution... Now, must go place that order and get brewing!

[jubby]

My opinion is that liquid yeast is best for most types of beer. There are beers that rely entirely on the yeast and fermentation temperature to provide the taste (Adnams Broadside for example)
The only dry yeast i use is US-05, but very rarely. It's important to note that liquid yeasts have a much finer temperature tolerance, so if you don't have temperature controlled fermentation it's a bit hit & miss and impossible to achieve consistency.

Hi jubby

Can you be more specific regarding the taste that Adnams are after and expand on the temperature aspect for me? The reason I ask is that every brew I'm making has an underlying flavour that I've only ever tasted in Adnams beers. I actually want to remove it in my beer so any info you've got could prove useful to me

Cheers Tom

Hello Tom,
Adnams use a blended strain of in-house yeast that originated from the Norwich Brewery during the second world war. They use the same yeast in most if not all of their beers, but the broadside is fermented at a higher temperature (22C from memory, but that might be wrong) which gives it it's very distinctive flavour. There's only pale malt, Goldings, Fuggles and Boadicea (formerly Challenger i think) in Broadside with a bit of colouring, no late hops. I don't really know the answer to your problem, but it might be worth lowering your fermentation temperature if you can and/or change your yeast. I have to say that i spent ages trying to achieve that taste with different yeasts and temps. Managed it in the end with a Brewlabs yeast, but it was a bit too much.

All this info was correct as of a year ago. They may have changed ingredients or methods since then.

[soupdragon]

My opinion is that liquid yeast is best for most types of beer. There are beers that rely entirely on the yeast and fermentation temperature to provide the taste (Adnams Broadside for example)
The only dry yeast i use is US-05, but very rarely. It's important to note that liquid yeasts have a much finer temperature tolerance, so if you don't have temperature controlled fermentation it's a bit hit & miss and impossible to achieve consistency.

Hi jubby

Can you be more specific regarding the taste that Adnams are after and expand on the temperature aspect for me? The reason I ask is that every brew I'm making has an underlying flavour that I've only ever tasted in Adnams beers. I actually want to remove it in my beer so any info you've got could prove useful to me

Cheers Tom

Hello Tom,
Adnams use a blended strain of in-house yeast that originated from the Norwich Brewery during the second world war. They use the same yeast in most if not all of their beers, but the broadside is fermented at a higher temperature (22C from memory, but that might be wrong) which gives it it's very distinctive flavour. There's only pale malt, Goldings, Fuggles and Boadicea (formerly Challenger i think) in Broadside with a bit of colouring, no late hops. I don't really know the answer to your problem, but it might be worth lowering your fermentation temperature if you can and/or change your yeast. I have to say that i spent ages trying to achieve that taste with different yeasts and temps. Managed it in the end with a Brewlabs yeast, but it was a bit too much.

All this info was correct as of a year ago. They may have changed ingredients or methods since then.

It's interesting that you say they ferment at only 22c. Could the fact that my wort ferments at 21-25c contribute to my flavour do you think? I had read on many occasions that fermenting at too high a temp can lead to off flavours but I was under the impression that between 22 and 25 was ok? I'll have to look into some method of cooling my F.V. if that is the case........

Cheers Tom

[gnorwebthgimi]

I have found this topic a really good read!

Regarding high temperatures and dry yeasts, I agree they are very temperature stable. I tried at various temperatures with Safale yeasts and never got "off flavours" even when I've been trying to get them.

[soupdragon]

I have found this topic a really good read!

Regarding high temperatures and dry yeasts, I agree they are very temperature stable. I tried at various temperatures with Safale yeasts and never got "off flavours" even when I've been trying to get them.

What kind of off flavours can be produced when fermenting at temps over 22c?

Cheers Tom

[jubby]

The ideal temperatures depend on the yeast used. S-04 recommended temp is 15 to 24C, but bear in mind that the fermenting beer is around 1 to 2C above room temp when working hard. Nottingham just specify temps above 17C and i visited a micro brewery that fermented Nottingham at 26C so that he could knock out 2 batches a week. His beer was OK, but i could taste the yeast in all of his beers.

Tom, your taste maybe nothing to do with the yeast. It's difficult to pinpoint taste problems as they can be fairly subjective unless it's an infection and fairly obvious.

That doesn't really help much

[soupdragon]

The ideal temperatures depend on the yeast used. S-04 recommended temp is 15 to 24C, but bear in mind that the fermenting beer is around 1 to 2C above room temp when working hard. Nottingham just specify temps above 17C and i visited a micro brewery that fermented Nottingham at 26C so that he could knock out 2 batches a week. His beer was OK, but i could taste the yeast in all of his beers.

Tom, your taste maybe nothing to do with the yeast. It's difficult to pinpoint taste problems as they can be fairly subjective unless it's an infection and fairly obvious.

That doesn't really help much

I'm almost certain that it's not an infection. My latest thought is regarding the amount of trub and break that I've been allowing into the F.V. My next brew will be passed through a voile filter to remove as much of it as possible, Fingers crossed for that one.............

Cheers Tom

[SMASH3R]

I was under the impression that some trub and hot break in to the fermenter was necessary to provide all the required nutrition for fermentation. I have brewed some quite good beers simply straining wort through grain in a bag, and a friend of mine just sieves his wort without too much trouble. I am sure that you don't need to excessively eliminate trub to brew a good beer.

[steve_flack]

There's only pale malt, Goldings, Fuggles and Boadicea (formerly Challenger i think) in Broadside with a bit of colouring, no late hops.

Apparently (according to the head brewer), draught Broadside uses first gold now (just bittering) along with pale malt and caramel colouring fermented at 21C. Bottled Broadside is stronger, has late hops and uses 2% chocolate malt and is fermenetd at 23C.

[jubby]

There's only pale malt, Goldings, Fuggles and Boadicea (formerly Challenger i think) in Broadside with a bit of colouring, no late hops.

Apparently (according to the head brewer), draught Broadside uses first gold now (just bittering) along with pale malt and caramel colouring fermented at 21C. Bottled Broadside is stronger, has late hops and uses 2% chocolate malt and is fermenetd at 23C.

Yes, that doesn't surprise me. The recipe i'm using is a couple of years old and was given to me by the assistant brewer who is now the head brewer. I drink a pint or two of Broadside a week and I had noticed a change in taste.

[lancsSteve]

The yeast you choose to brew with is the single most contributory factor to what beer you get out of the bucket at the end of fermentation.

The chosen yeast strain provides 80-90% of the flavour profile for the brew and also what temperature it is fermented at dictates the final product, you can mess around with different malts etc but the yeast is the decider to what beer you produce,

I can't agree with that at all - if you use a load of roasted malt your beer WILL taste of roasted malt no matter what yeast you throw at it. Hops too - if you use a load of cascade it will taste utterly different to something with a few goldings. Within a narrow range of malt bills and hops e.g. BYOBRAAH resipes then yeast will be a massive influence on the less definable 'character' but a guinness-type stout recipe is going to taste like a stout and packed full of roasted flavours no matter what yeast you use in it - even with assertive yeasts such as belgian trappist or the like they would add a belgian character to a beer that would be front-and-centre a stout. Likewise hops - try Achouffe's 'Trippel IPA' for a great belgian twist on an American style IPA with tons of amraillo front and centre but the achouffe yeast providing a definite belgian touch/character.

To asser "yeast strain provides 80-90% of the character of a beer" seems a fair assertion in that yeast provides both its own influence (which can be profound with assertive 'character' yeasts such as Belgian's or weissen yeasts) in balancing the malt and hops and adding its own signature - character is also less quantifiable than 'flavour'...

Stan Hieronymous's 'Brewing with Wheat' book has an excellent section on the effect of temp on the belgian and german weissen yeasts - fermentation temp is a BIG influence.

I do wonder if the reason why a lot of micro's brews are , to me, quite dull is the prevalence of Saf-04 / US-05 / Nottingham which bring either a single flavour in the case of saf-04 (the bready hint) or very little at all for US-05 and Nottingham? Beers brewed with classic yeasts which add flavour and balance e.g. Sam Smiths or Black Shep or Tim Taylors seem like much richer and deeper beers than those where it is JUST the malt/hops 'balance' with yeast adding so little... Just a thought/rumination.

[monkeyboy]

I'll be brewing on monday, and planning to use whitelabs wlp002 with it. Now i know this is a long way from being a scientific test, but i'll report back with what i think once it's done. My last porter was pretty good and i have enough left around to do some comparisons.

[dave-o]

My take is that yes, they make a big difference and are essential for some speciality ales.

However, using a liquid yeast doubles the cost of most of my brews, and does not make it twice as good, so i will only use one rarely!

It depends which way you look at it; either it's only costing you about 12p extra a pint, or it is doubling the cost of your ale.

[lancsSteve]

using a liquid yeast doubles the cost of most of my brews, and does not make it twice as good,

Unless you split them in which case they're cheaper and better - see http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/liquid_yeast.htm

I tend to split them and keep some back - at minimum I'll make up a big starter, swirl up and pitch most of it then keep a little back to either step up and split or just put back in the vial and fridge...

For lager's they're cheaper anyway as dried lager yeasts seem to be pricier and you need to pitch at least two packs so might as well buy white labs or wyeast