Yeast for Fuller's ESB

[monk]

I'm finally getting around to brewing another clone of FESB. But this time I'd like to try it with a dried yeast rather than the liquid I've done in the past. Can anyone recommend a good dried yeast for the job? I've got a bunch of Safale 56, but I think that attenuates out a bit too much. Thanks in advance...

cheers,
monk

[steve_flack]

Wyeast 1968 is the actual Fullers yeast strain but obviously that's a liquid yeast. It's quite distinctive flavour-wise and nothing comes really close from the dried yeasts. The best bet is an unattenuative strain like Safale S-04 or Danstar Windsor. Safale is the more flocculant of the two. I quite like Windsor in milds but I haven't tried it in an ESB.

[mysterio]

I would probably go with S04. Good fruitiness and residual sweetness.

[tribs]

Personally, I'd go for the wyeast 1968 to get as close to the original as possible. If I couldn't get it, then I'd use S04.

[bitter_dave]

Dried yeast wise I've used safale 04 and Gervin on the bitters I've made, and Safale wins hands down for me as it doesn't ferment down as low and I think allows more of the malt and hops to come though.

[monk]

Thanks, guys. I may do a small (2.5 gal) batch with dried yeast to try it out before I do a normal batch. I'm quite low on funds at the moment, and too busy to get down to the hb shop, so I'm trying to see if I can brew the ESB without buying anything. At home I have 5 pounds of English 2-row, some crystal 75L, and a lot of hops (challenger, target, ekg, a little Northern Brewer, etc.). Now I just need to decide whose recipe to use (there are a LOT of Fuller's ESB recipes online) or make a synthesis of a few.

My tentative ingredients are:

english 2-row (1.055)
crystal 75L
aromatic malt
amber malt
some brown sugar
target, challenger, NB, and EKG hops (in that order in the boil)

look good?

Monk(ey)