Yeast for London Pride / ESB AG clone?

[jmc]

Hi

I'm part way through a brew and would appreciate some advice on best yeast to add to a London Pride / ESB clone.
Too late to get anything else so I have to choose from what I have to hand.

a) Yeast cake from primary Chimay Red Dubbel. - This started from Chimay bottle yeast / WLP500 I believe.
Clearly this would start it off really well, but would yeast flavour be too much for an English ale?
Also its just brewed a 1061 OG ale to 1010 so will it be OK?
b) Nottingham
c) SO4
d) Windsor

Brew is OG 1045, midway between London Pride & ESB OG. based on London Pride recipe from BYORBA, but malt & hops ramped up a bit using beer engine.

Heating up sparge water now...

Thanks in advance for the advice.
ATB
John

[jmc]

For anyone interested I went with the Chimay yeast cake.
It looked too good to waste.
Chimay in secondary. London Pride + in fermenting fridge.

Next time I'll either propogate the yeast from Fullers Bengal Lancer a few days before, or use WLP002
ATB John

[staplefordbill]

I'll be really interested to know how it turns out. My first AG was London Pride from BYOBRA but it didn't really taste much like the real thing. Partly because I wasn't using water treatment then, but I now know the yeast is an important part of London Pride so I'm going to keep a beady eye on your results jmc! I bet it'll be a really nice drink.

[jmc]

Hi staplefordbill

London Pride+ took off like a rocket on the Chimay yeast.
In FV onto yeast cake at 10:30pm, and by 11am next day its pushed out of fermentation lock.
by 8pm SG had gone from 1045 to 1030

I'm keeping temp at 18C to try to reduce too much banana / ester from yeast.
Yeast from Chimay clone clearly still has plenty of life in it.
ATB John

[coatesg]

London pride on Chimay yeast? Really? That's gonna be funky...in a very Belgian way...

I would have gone for Windsor out of those options, but really the yeast you want is wlp002 or Wyeast1968. Propagating from Bengal Lancer will work too, but I've tried a few times with 1845, and it's never really worked out anywhere near as well as using the commercial yeasts.

[phatboytall]

I reckon thats going to taste very different to the real thing. A huge part of Fullers is the yeast flavours.

I did an ESB clone, a last minute yeast failure meant i had to resort to the only sachet left in the house on a sunday evening..... T-68? It was a belgian wheat beer yeast.

The result was very peppery, fruity, a niceish beer, but tasted nothing whatsoever like ESB. Its a shame as the colour was bang on.

I understand the Windsor yeast is similar to fullers, big malty profile.

As for extracting a yeast, i've had success with Fullers 1845, but failed with my attempt on a bottle of Bengal Lancer at the wknd.

Good luck!

[jmc]

London pride on Chimay yeast? Really? That's gonna be funky...in a very Belgian way...

I would have gone for Windsor out of those options, but really the yeast you want is wlp002 or Wyeast1968. Propagating from Bengal Lancer will work too, but I've tried a few times with 1845, and it's never really worked out anywhere near as well as using the commercial yeasts.

Hi
I'm sure you're right and Windsor would have been the most appropriate choice from the yeasts I had.
However after the dissapointment of my last batch of Pride (brewed with Nottingham), I was more interested in having something with more body and yeast input. The Nottingham batch was a bit bland to be honest.

As soon as I used the Chimay yeast, I knew it would end up tasting quite different to London Pride, but as long as its plateble and interesting I don't mind. I kept the temp lowish at 18C to try to minimise the Chimay banana /esters etc, but that certainly didn't hold the yeast back.

Its nearly brewed out now, SG 1010 this morning.

I'm trying (a bit late) to start a yeast from Bengal Lancer, using some of the Pride wort and its not doing a lot...

If I was to have a proper go at Pride or ESB again I'll probably get some WLP002 in a few days before.
ATB John

[coatesg]

You'll certainly get something with some yeast input You'll probably find you get a spicy, slightly phenolic beer, but you will still get some fruity esters, some banana and maybe pear.

Nottingham can be quite bland I agree - it works well when there is say a strong hop focus as it's nice and clean. Windsor does give a nice malty fruity flavour, but it's a real pain to clear...

[jmc]

Hi

Looks like its brewed out now.
Started at 11.5 Brix / 1045 Saturday night.
It was 5 brix yesterday (Tuesday) and today i.e.1006, so about 5.1%

Tasting tiny sampled taken for refractometer and its the yeast flavour (not suprisingly) that is dominant at the moment, but I think it could be lovely.

I think its more like a Belgian Pale Ale rather than a London Pride
However I think it will be very drinkable

Talking about using incorrect yeast for the brew, I initially started the Chimay yeast using spare wort I had from a highly hopped American Pale Ale. Instead of throwing the used wort away I bottled it. Mean I know.

I drank this the other evening and it was lovely. All the US hops, (Simcoe, Amarillo and Cascade) with all the added flavour and mouth-feel from the Chimay yeast.

[jmc]

Hi

Just an update in case anyone is interested...

In late March I did a brew with a slightly ramped up (1045 OG) BYOBRA London Pride recipe, but with a Chimay yeast as it was to-hand (yeast-cake from previous brew).
This yeast had proved to be so much more flavoursome than other AG brews with dried yeast eg Nottingham.

Not suprisingly it ended up very full-bodied & Belgian tasting, but as I love Chimay (Red, White & Blue) that's fine by me .

As an experiment, the week after the 'Belgian Pride' , for my next brew I used the same recipe but with a yeast starter using a Fullers Bengal Lancer yeast. Again this brewed more vigourously than a dry-yeast and the Fullers yeast is very, very flocculant (it dropped like a stone after a few days) so I've just tried a first taster bottle.

Its lovely but TOTALLY different to 'Belgian Pride'.
Same malts, same hops, just a different yeast.

To the more experienced on here this is probably what you would expect, but I was really suprised by the difference the yeast gave the brew. The Chimay & Fullers yeast are my first try at using proper brewery yeasts and the extra flavour and mouthfeel are very impressive.

I'm looking forward to trying other liquid yeasts now, but at the moment the Fullers yeast could well end up being my 'house yeast' for bitters

ATB John

[phatboytall]

Great stuff, i did something almost identical, an ESB with a Belgian Wheat Yeast, totally different.

I've recently been using the Fullers yeast from a White Labs viral i bought, (no luck in 3 attempts at Bengal Lancer and 1845) I've brewed a London Pride clone which gets cracked open this Friday for the royal wedding street party.

For me taste wise yeast is one of the biggest factors, I love the caramel biscuit crunch the Fullers seems to bring, its going to be my "house yeast" too

[AnthonyUK]

I've recently been using the Fullers yeast from a White Labs viral i bought, (no luck in 3 attempts at Bengal Lancer and 1845)

I'm pretty sure I heard in a recent BN podcast interview that Fullers use a Champagne yeast for bottle conditioning so I imagine you'd be lucky to harvest their brewing strain from the bottle.
Lucky you went with a known sample.

[jmc]

I've recently been using the Fullers yeast from a White Labs viral i bought, (no luck in 3 attempts at Bengal Lancer and 1845)

I'm pretty sure I heard in a recent BN podcast interview that Fullers use a Champagne yeast for bottle conditioning so I imagine you'd be lucky to harvest their brewing strain from the bottle.
Lucky you went with a known sample.

Hi Anthony

For the second brew I used yeast based on starter made from Bengal Lancer.
It seems like Fullers yeast to me.
Lovely malty result, highly flocculant and tendancy to form clumps.

I've used champagne yeast in the past and it didn't seem like that at all.

Sounds like I was lucky to propagate, but this could be due to maybe my bottle being fresh or not subject to extreems of temp etc.

This yeast currently being used in an 80/- ale. 12 Brix Saturday, 6.5 brix last night (Tuesday). Really fast worker.

I'd give it a go. Only problem is you have to finish off the the bottles of Bengal Lancer

ATB John

[AnthonyUK]

Hi John,
It could be that they only do that for specific beers. I believe 1845 is one of them but I have seen many people are successful with Bengal Lancer.

Only problem is you have to finish off the the bottles of Bengal Lancer

Yeah that is a problem. One I don't mind having though

[coatesg]

As far as I am aware, Fullers only use one strain of yeast. If they used champagne yeast, I'd maybe expect the FG to plummet in the bottle over time, and gushers, ensue. The real trouble I think is that in both 1845 and Bengal Lancer (the two bottle conditioned beers they offer), the amount of yeast present is so small, it's hard to reculture. (I've tried and failed to get a decent result three times, even though I've had a good amount of yeast for pitching...)

With WLP002 and Wyeast 1968 (both reported to be the Fullers yeast) it's much easier to get a pitchable quantity, though you don't have to force yourself to finish a bottle of fine ale first