Morland's Yeast - Recommendations?

[KingBrianI]

I successfully harvested yeast from a couple bottle of hen's tooth last week and have been stepping it up in starters in order to brew the Old Speckled Hen clone recipe from Graham's BYOBRA this weekend. My question for those who have used this yeast, can you recommend a fermentation temperature to help me target those fruity esters OSP has in abundance? I've read some reports on this site that morland's yeast can give a "spicy" character to beer, and would like to largely avoid that as I only get a touch of "spiciness" in OSP, mainly at the back of the palate in the finish. I imagine the spiciness reported here is the result of a low fermentation temperature creating phenols? To get a yeast to throw esters I usually like to ferment around 19-21 degrees C. Will that work for this yeast? Thanks!

[Eadweard]

I met an ex-Head Brewer of Moorland. He fermented Old Spec. at 24 to get the esters high.

[KingBrianI]

That's great information, just what I was looking for! Thank you! Seems a bit high but I'll go with it. I wonder if scaling down from commercial to home brewing would make any difference in the esters produced at a particular temperature?

[Eadweard]

I must admit I raised an eyebrow or two! Stressed yeast will produce more esters and smaller fermenters will stress the yeast less due to pressure, but aeration/oxygenation and pitching rate will also affect ester production.

[oz11]

It's details like this that make it, it my opinion, difficult to replicate a beer from one of the big breweries. If you try fermenting a bitter-style beer at 24c in a typical home brew set more often than not it results in nasty flavours. At our 15BBL micro we go no higher than 22c, at home using the same yeast I keep it to 20c, even with a big pitch.

[KingBrianI]

It's details like this that make it, it my opinion, difficult to replicate a beer from one of the big breweries. If you try fermenting a bitter-style beer at 24c in a typical home brew set more often than not it results in nasty flavours. At our 15BBL micro we go no higher than 22c, at home using the same yeast I keep it to 20c, even with a big pitch.

Would you say the flavors you get at 20C at home are similar to the flavors you get at 22C at the brewery? Do you think if I fermented the Morland yeast nearer to 22C or so I would get the same ester profile that Morland gets at 24C?

[KingBrianI]

I thought I'd update this thread with some observations in case anyone is searching on the characteristics of this yeast in the future. This yeast gave off some rather unpleasant aromas on the stir plate. Harsh, solventy and perhaps even spicy as has been mentioned previously. I'm holding out hope that it will behave better in a beer than on the stirplate, or at least clean up after itself. Another characteristic of this yeast I've noticed is its relatively high propensity to flocculate. After taking the flasks off a stirplate, the majority of yeast will fall out in a relatively short period and what remains falls out quickly when refrigerated. It's a very "dusty" yeast though, and any agitation of the container sends up a plume of fine yeast. When stepping up the starters, I'd try to decant off the beer, but wouldn't get far before a streamer of yeast would swirl its way into the flask's neck. Perhaps given more time, as in bottle conditioning, it will form a more durable mass on the bottom, and won't kick up quite so easily. I didn't seem to have much trouble decanting the beer off the yeast in the bottles of Hen's Tooth from which I collected the yeast after all.

That brings me to another question, according to Michael Jackson, Morland (at least back in the 90s) used a dual-strain culture. I know it has been suggested that Greene King still uses Morland's yeast for the Morland ales, but I wonder if they are still using both strains. And if they are, if both are surviving the long trip in the bottle and the subsequent starter steps I've been subjecting the yeast to. I can imagine the yeast I have now being the dusty, spicy, attenuative half of a dual strain where the other yeast would be less attenuative and more clumpy, and be responsible for the fruity esters. Anyway, that's enough rambling for now. I guess I'll really get a better idea of how the yeast behaves once I pitch it into the OSH recipe in a couple days.

http://beerhunter.com/documents/19133-000104.html

[oz11]

It's details like this that make it, it my opinion, difficult to replicate a beer from one of the big breweries. If you try fermenting a bitter-style beer at 24c in a typical home brew set more often than not it results in nasty flavours. At our 15BBL micro we go no higher than 22c, at home using the same yeast I keep it to 20c, even with a big pitch.

Would you say the flavors you get at 20C at home are similar to the flavors you get at 22C at the brewery? Do you think if I fermented the Morland yeast nearer to 22C or so I would get the same ester profile that Morland gets at 24C?

Impossible to say as there are too many variables. As an experiment three different home-brewers have recently brewed beers to the same recipe and ended up with three different beers.

What I would suggest is try it at the lower end, say 19-20c and see how it comes up. If you have the ability to do it a more scientific approach would be to split the same wort after the boil 2 or 3 ways and pitch the same amount of yeast into each and ferment at different temperatures and see what the appreciable differences are, which you prefer. However you do it you're going to make beer, so relax, don't worry, etc...

[KingBrianI]

I've done similar experiments before where many of us brew a particular recipe and compare the results. As you sai,d it is always interesting to see how different the resulting beers are. I brewed up the OSH clone yesterday, and this morning the Morland yeast was blowing a steady stream of CO2 through the airlock. I chickened out on fermenting so high as Morland, and pitched at 20C. Tonight I'll raise the set point for the fridge to 22C and let it free rise to there to encourage more esters. Right now, the smell isn't far off from a clean yeast like us-05. Hope it starts throwing a lot more esters or this wont be much of a clone.

[KingBrianI]

I set the fermentation fridge for 22C last night, and when I checked on it this morning, fermentation seemed to be tailing off, so I went ahead and bumped it up to 24C. Some sulfur coming out now too. Hope that cleans up. So far, nothing I've smelled from this yeast has made me think "Morland". Of course I won't really know until I'm drinking this beer. Reports on this site claim it's primary strain in the Hen's Tooth bottles, does anyone know from where that claim came, or have a reference to that info?

[RZH]

Hi there,

I'm new to this forum and it was this post that made me join; I've been looking for info on this yeast everywhere!

I managed to harvest this yeast from a bottle of Hen's Tooth for an ESB recipe I've brewed for my Dad's birthday, as it's one of his favourite beers and I've worked out that he loves the rich, fruity, nutty flavours that English ale yeasts such as this give. I gradually stepped it up to a 1.5 litre starter in time for the brewday.

My recipe aimed for an ABV of 6.0%. Hard to have a proper estimate as there's no data for this yeast strain on Beersmith.

The brewday last Thursday was great. I built a new cooler mash tun and only lost 0.1°C over the hour and ended up smashing my efficiency. I used to get 66-70% with my old system, ended up getting 82% and an OG of 1.072. The ESB evolved into a Strong Ale.

Pitched my very lively starter, set the fridge to 19°C and had activity through the blow off tube within 6 hours. Checked gravity yesterday and it was down to 1.022 leaving current attenuation at 68%. Obviously, it's only been fermenting for a matter of days and I plan for it to be in primary for at least 3 weeks. But for those with experience of this yeast, is it likely to drop any further? What sort of attenuation have you been seeing?

As above, didn't get much in the way of esters from the sample, so I've crept it up to 22°C to perhaps set them free!

Anyway, ramble over, I look forward to sharing experiences of this yeast!

Cheers,

Robbie

[KingBrianI]

Robbie, I'm so glad you posted because as you said, information on this yeast is quite hard to find. I hope between our experiences, we'll be able to record at least some data on it here for the reference of those like us who are interested in it. Sounds like your dad will be in for a treat on his birthday!

Just as an update on my beer, the temp raise yesterday morning has kept the fermentation chugging along, but no real esters are being kicked out yet. At least the sulfur smell has gone. I'll report back with a final gravity once I think fermentation is over, but my attenuation numbers may be high because I intentionally mashed low, and my recipe had 12% invert sugar.

[RZH]

Here's my recipe for your reference.

Pale Malt 87.6% (6.0 EBC)
Crystal 7.5% (150 EBC)
Torrified Wheat 3.3%(4.0 EBC)
Chocolate Malt 0.8% (1000 EBC)
Roasted Barley 0.8% (1300 EBC)

Mashed for 60 mins at 66.7°C

I'll update you in due course and let you know how it's coming along. It went from 1.072 to 1.022 in 4 days so it doesn't hang around.

[KingBrianI]

FG for my OSH clone was 1.007. A bit drier than expected and an apparent attenuation of 86%. Flavor at kegging was tart with some yeast-derived off flavors. At this point, I can't recommend fermenting this yeast in the 20-24C range that I tried based on the recommendation of the Morland brewer. We will see how it ends up after conditioning for a few weeks, but I'm not hopeful. I suspect that a bottling strain is used to condition Hen's Tooth, and that it isn't the primary yeast. The tartness and consistency of the yeast cake suggest Nottingham to me. I've only ever fermented Nottingham at 18C or less, so I'm not sure if it puts off these kind of off-flavors >20C, but I wouldn't be surprised. Whether it was the temperature or the strain of yeast that caused the beer to taste nothing like OSH, I'm not sure, and I don't intend to do any further experimenting with that yeast, as I don't want to end up with another batch of subpar beer. My recommendation for anyone thinking about using the Hen's Tooth yeast to brew beer is to ferment <20C, and to possibly use it in a small test batch before resting the fate of a full batch on this yeast. You could probably get the same results with less expense and hassle by pitching a pack of Nottingham, if, as I suspect, they use it for bottle conditioning.

[RZH]

Very interesting.

At the last check my brew had worked its way down to 1.016. The samples I tried were quite tasty - if perhaps a little tart, but being a 1.072 OG beer I suspect that the high alcohol content helped round those out somewhat. I have been getting some nice fruity/nutty notes from the beer, I'll update you when it's bottles and carbed. Thanks for updating, very useful to know.