Anglo-American Bitter

[YeastWhisperer]

Anglo-American Bitter

Batch Size: 19L
O.G.: 1.052
F.G.: 1.012
ABV: 5.25%

Grist:

3.6kg Thomas Fawcett Pearl
330g Briess Torrified Wheat
40g Thomas Fawcett Pale Chocolate

Mash: 90 minutes at 68C

Hops:

40g U.S. Cluster 6.2% AA (60 minute boil)
20g U.S. Cascade 5.6% AA (10 minute boil)
40g U.S. Cascade 5.6% AA (20 minute steep after chilling to 71C)

BU:GU Ratio: 0.69

Yeast: Safale S-04

I brewed this beer last weekend. It has not reached final gravity; therefore, I will need to post it at a later date.

Note: The extraction rate for this beer was 30 points per pound per U.S. gallon (251 points per kilogram per liter), which is roughly an efficiency of 81%. While not a super high extraction rate, it is higher than the average amateur brewer achieves. The average amateur brewer shoots for 75% efficiency; therefore, the weight of each component in the grist will need to be multiplied by 1.08 (or 81 / one's extraction efficiency).

Note 2: Please feel free to use British torrified wheat. My home brew supply store does not carry British torrified wheat.

[Clibit]

I prefer to use malted wheat. Do you particularly like torrified?

[YeastWhisperer]

I use malted wheat in wheat beers, but I prefer to use torrified wheat in British-style ales. Torrified wheat has a different taste impact than malted malt. I like the slight "biscuit" quality that torrified wheat possesses. It matches the flavor of British malt.

[YeastWhisperer]

I racked this beer to a secondary fermentation vessel today. I could have racked it to a keg. However, I do not have space in my beer refrigerator as this point in time, so I decided to let it bulk age in a secondary fermentation vessel. As I had hoped, the beer has a blend of Anglo and American traits. I have never used S-04 before because I swore off dry yeast over two decades ago, but I am impressed with its performance. This strain (Whitbread B) performs as well in dry form as it does in liquid form (Wyeast 1098 and White Labs WLP007).

[Hanglow]

I don't think s04 is much like WLP007 for what's it worth, In terms of flavour profile. Whitbread have a lot of strains attributed to them tbf. wlp007 gets better attenuation for me as well

There's a good few dry yeast strains around at the moment, they still lag behind in terms of choice but those that are available are much cheaper and easier to use than liquid

[YeastWhisperer]

S-04 is definitely Whitbread B. It produces Whitbread B's signature tart note, which is due the strain's production of lactic acid. I have also plated Whitbread B enough times to recognize its morphology (I have NCYC 1026 on slant, which is without a doubt Whitbread B). I obtained an apparent attention of 77% with this beer, and it was not mashed low. The mash was actually performed in Fahrenheit and converted to Celsius for this forum. The actual mash temperature was 155F. If I had mashed at 149F (65C), the apparent attenuation would have been at least 80%.

The difference that you see in first generation performance has to do with the difference in how dry yeast is propagated. Liquid yeast is propagated fermentatively (i.e., anaerobically). Dry yeast is propagated respiratively (aerobically) in a bioreactor where the medium (which is not wort) is held at a steady state below the Crabtree threshold by continuously injecting oxygenated fresh medium while simultaneously removing yeast biomass. By holding the medium below the Crabtree threshold, the yeast reproduces aerobically, which is a significantly more efficient way to propagate yeast. During aerobic carbon source metabolism, the carbohydrate in the medium is converted to water and carbon dioxide gas. No ethanol is produced. Dry yeast does not see ethanol until it is pitched into wort, which is one of the reasons why first generation performance is different.

The same kind of first generation performance difference is experienced with US-05. It is the same yeast strain as Wyeast 1056 and WLP001; namely, Siebel Bry 96. However, US-05 is known for throwing the peach ester (linalyl formate) at much higher levels than Wyeast 1056 or WLP001. I recently used Lallemand Bry 97, which is another Siebel yeast strain that is propagated in a bioreactor (Lallemand owns the Siebel Institute of Technology). The dry form of Bry 97 behaves very differently than cultured Bry 97 on the first pitch. I had Bry 97 on slant in my old bank. I thought that I was using a different yeast strain until the fermentation was complete and I cropped the slurry. First generation attenuation was four gravity points less than second generation attenuation using the same wort composition.

Many of the yeast strains that carry a Whitbread accession number are not actually Whitbread production strains. Like many industrial brewers, Whitbread collected yeast strains from other breweries (Anheuser-Busch has a yeast bank that includes strains from all over the world that carry an AB accession number). Whitbread B is a Whitbread production strain. It was selected for continuous tower fermentation, which is a different type of fermentation than amateur and professional craft brewers use (we use batch fermentation). A continuous tower fermenter is basically a bioreactor that produces beer instead of yeast biomass. This type of fermentation requires a yeast strain that does not floc to the top, as green beer is drawn from the top of the tower.

[Hanglow]

Great explanation

I always got a very bready flavour from s04 (that I don't get with wlp007) as well as the tartness but I don't think I have reused it after pitching it the first time, so I guess that's where I thought it was different

Hope your beer turns out good!

[simmyb]

This has gotten a little off topic but raises a question I have had for a while. I have used liquid yeast for all but but 1st AG brew, using wyeast smack packs and reusing slurry many times over with good results.

I have a few packets of dry yeast (S04, US05) as emergency supplies in case of dodgy starters, slow ferments etc. If I was to use the dry US05 for instance, from the what is said above, the first batch may behave slightly differently, but would the second generation from cropping and re using the slurry be identical to the slurry obtained if I had used a liquid yeast in the first batch? I guess once the yeast has gone through one fermentation cycle it is identical whether it came from wet or dry?

Cheers, Simon

[6470zzy]

Dry yeast is propagated respiratively (aerobically) in a bioreactor where the medium (which is not wort) .

Could you tell me what the medium is comprised of? Thank you for your informative post, I read it with much interest.

Cheers

[DeGarre]

Great stuff, YeastWhisperer, thanks.

[YeastWhisperer]

Dry yeast is propagated respiratively (aerobically) in a bioreactor where the medium (which is not wort) .

Could you tell me what the medium is comprised of? Thank you for your informative post, I read it with much interest.

Cheers

The carbon source is molasses, which I believe is called treacle in the UK. All sugars are carbon-based molecules. The simple sugars (monosaccharides) that are encountered in brewing are multiples of CH20, which is carbon bound to water. Molasses is primarily sucrose, which is a disaccharide composed of the monosaccharides glucose and fructose (both of which carry the chemical formula C6H12O6, but have different linear forms). However, unlike pure white sucrose, molasses contains vitamins, minerals and trace elements. The chemical formula for sucrose is C12H22O11 (We lose an H20 molecule every time a simple sugar binds with another simple sugar).

[YeastWhisperer]

I have a few packets of dry yeast (S04, US05) as emergency supplies in case of dodgy starters, slow ferments etc. If I was to use the dry US05 for instance, from the what is said above, the first batch may behave slightly differently, but would the second generation from cropping and re using the slurry be identical to the slurry obtained if I had used a liquid yeast in the first batch? I guess once the yeast has gone through one fermentation cycle it is identical whether it came from wet or dry?

Yeast cultures from any two manufacturers will have slightly different performance characteristics due to genetic drift and environmental genetic expression (phenotype). Anyone who has cultured Bry 96 from a bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale knows that it produces a slightly different beer than Wyeast 1056 or White Labs WLP001.

With that said, US-05 performs very close to cultured Bry 96 straight out of the pack if rehydrated in boiled and cooled water before pitching. Almost all of the American amateur brewers that I know who used to be dyed in the wool 1056 users now use US-05 for its ease of use. I still maintain a yeast bank on agar slants, but I no longer propagate any of the strains that I can obtain in dry form. It's not worth the effort.

[simmyb]

Ok, so I won't worry too much about using 1056 over US05, but would US05 harvested from a slurry be preferable to a new packet of US05 or is there no discernable difference?

Cheers, Simon

[Matt12398]

I always though that WLP007 was whitbread dry which is a different strain to whitbread B. Is that not right?

[YeastWhisperer]

I always though that WLP007 was whitbread dry which is a different strain to whitbread B. Is that not right?

Whitbread Dry = Whitbread B = NCYC 1026

Wyeast 1098 is also Whitbread B. Wyeast 1098 is one of the original Wyeast cultures (David Logsdon founded Wyeast Labs almost a decade before Chris White founded White Labs). I am fairly certain that David Logsdon acquired Whitbread B directly or indirectly from Dr. Micheal Lewis at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Lewis received the culture from the Brewing Industry Research Foundation as NCYC 1026 in 1969.

Strain details from the Phaff Culture Collection at the University of California, Davis:

Strain ID 69-53
Genus Saccharomyces
Species cerevisiae
Synonym
Source "Received by M.J. Lewis from Brewing Industry Research Foundation, Nutfield, U.K.. Natl. Collection of yeast cultures #1026." brewing yeast, ale. Used commercially in APV tower fermenters.

Here's a link to NCYC 1026: https://catalogue.ncyc.co.uk/saccharomy ... isiae-1026

If one click's on "Strain Information" on the page linked above, one will get the information shown below.

Information
Flocculent.
NewFlo type flocculation.
1:5:4:5:5
O2, DMS 33 µg/l, low acetic, high lactic, diacetyl 0.42ppm only, used commercially in Tower Fermenters (continuous process), non head-forming, no estery flavour. Contains 2µ plasmid.
Depositor British Brewery
Deposit Name Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Month of deposit June
Deposit Year 1958
Habitat Ale production strain.
Equivalent Strain Designations ATCC 46785, CBS 6234, CCRC 22576, NRRL Y-11875
Reference Hockney RC , Freeman RF . Gratuitous catabolite repression by glucosamine of maltose utilization in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. J. Gen. Microbiol. 121: 479-482, 1980.
Biotechnol. Prog. 2(2): 91-97, 1986.
Lyons & Hough, J.Inst.Brew. 76: 564-571, 1970 (flocculation).


There is zero doubt in my mind that Fermentis chose to clone Bry 96 and Whitbread B due to their heavy use by American amateur and professional brewers. Wyeast 1056 and Wyeast 1098 were Wyeast's most popular ale strains in the nineties.