Bored of Nottingham!

[alwilson]

Evening, I'm bored of Nottingham, not the town you see, the yeast...

Are there any other dried yeasts that are interesting, and will do for all around use accross bitters, pales, porters, etc

I used to really love what Windsor brought to a beer, this was early on when I never took a mash temp, and generally it finished around 1012, but now I cannot replicate that and it always stalls at 1020 for me.

So, is there any dried yeasts that give an interesting contribution, that can attenuate to about 1012-1010, or am I now getting into growing up starters from wet vials and smack packs?

Cheers
Alex

[simpleton]

You'll be back ...that bomb proof attenuation, good clean taste, ease of use. I use it everytime for IPAs and most pales.

There is S04 which I found to be a PITA, other people like it.
Then of course S05 which I like, but its pretty clean like notty, so not that much difference really.

Windor tastes great, but really likes to sulk if you don't be gentle with it. I've never got it down past 1016, but then ive never made a bad beer with it, they just take ages to be their best..months and months.

There are others Ive not tried, but liquid is the way forward. Though its a pain having to grow starters and reuse yeast, but it does allow you to brew all sorts of wonderful creations .

[alwilson]

I was worried someone was going to say that!

I recently tried a 1020 beer I bottled and disowned to the back of the cupboard in disgust at its high FG, and then came back to it almost a year later - sublime! Great texture too!

I've been putting off buying a stir plate and all that crap! Maybe I should revisit....

[Hanglow]

You don't need a stirplate, you can just shake a large bottle or demijohn every time you walk past it. That's what I do at least. And make the starter a tad larger than you would with a stirplate

stirplate is preferable though

http://www.yeastcalculator.com/

[mozza]

Buy a couple of bottles of Bengal Lancer (Fullers) and drink the beer and shove the dregs into a small glass of boiled dme. Once it takes off step it up to 1L and bobs your uncle! You don't need a stir plate or anything fancy just keep it sterilised.
Fullers yeast (Wlp002) is fantastic and for the sake of the cost of some DME it's worth a go at culturing

[Blackjack]

A very easy answer, adopt a live top fermenting yeast.
You can feed it, wash it, propagate it, skim it, even get a small 100x and 400x microscope and watch it grow.
Amaze your pals and workmates with your pet yeast.
Count out the little blighters and make beer from it.
Much more fun than watching poor thin weedy Nottingham churn out Alcohol and then sink from sight.

Scounge it properly off a mate or a local micro brewery or buy from Brewlab.
many West Midlands or North West breweries use Thwaites yeast, either regularly replenished or their own diverted strain.

[alwilson]

Oh. You dont need a stir plate?

So, boil up some dme to 1.038 ish?

Can I step it up by adding more boiled dme to the same vessel?

[alwilson]

So, there is Wyeast and WhiteLabs - these are both american, right?

Is there nowhere English that offer English yeast strains?

[Dave S]

So, there is Wyeast and WhiteLabs - these are both american, right?

Is there nowhere English that offer English yeast strains?

Brew Labs in Sunderland. You can get their slants from the Home Brew Shop.

[bob3000]

brewlabs does slants but i've never been able to step to pitching volumes without it getting infected and/or not getting enough yeast resulting ion really weird fermentation.

I'll have another go once i get a stir plate

[jimp2003]

So, there is Wyeast and WhiteLabs - these are both american, right?

Is there nowhere English that offer English yeast strains?

Both Wyeast and Whitelabs have yeast strains from several different countries (UK, US, Belgian, French, German, Czech...).

[alwilson]

I liked the idea of their ready to pitch 15 and 30 litres deals until I saw the price!!!

For a brief second, I did imagine ladeling yeast into the FV's but not at that price!

[OvenHiker]

I liked the idea of their ready to pitch 15 and 30 litres deals until I saw the price!!!

For a brief second, I did imagine ladeling yeast into the FV's but not at that price!

I think you'll find that those Brewlab single pitches are for 15 and 30 barrels, for commercial breweries. Rather more than you are likely to need?

The wyeast and whitelabs products are excellent. There are several ways to make your money you spend on them go further. Search JBK for splitting whitelabs tubes (think it was HordenHillbilly?), or search for repitching yeast.

[alwilson]

They are Oven Hiker, I generally brew 100L at a time...

But I was hoping to keep it in a fridge and ladle out some as required...

[OvenHiker]

They are Oven Hiker, I generally brew 100L at a time...

But I was hoping to keep it in a fridge and ladle out some as required...

Fair play to you! I assumed your brewlength was much smaller.

Do you have a friendly micro nearby?