Jan 2003 Grand Yeast Experiment

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The Great BrewBayou Ale Yeast Experiment

I have found it difficult to get a feeling on the impact the yeast we choose has
on our beer.  When I first started brewing, as long as the little yeast converted
the sugars in the wort to our favorite drug, I was satisfied.    As our brewing
skills evolve, so does the taste buds, and we become a little more critical of
our brews.  

You may have finally found a brew that you really like, but just want to tweak it
a little one way or another.  Changing the yeast you pitch could be a good way
of doing that, if you stick with a yeast that has similar characteristics.  But
if you make too drastic of a change, you could end up with a completely different
beer than you expected.  As much as you consider Crystal Malt as an ingredient in
your brew, so is the type of yeast you use.
  
In Ray Daniels book, "Designing Great Beers" he mentions splitting up a 5 gallon
batch of beer into 5 one gallon fermenters, and pitching 5 different yeast's to
compare the differences.  Well, we decided to give that a try. A few weeks ago, 
Tom, Norman, Gary and myself brewed up a 5 gallon batch of pale 
ale.  Here is the recipe. 

Grain
9#      2-Row
.25#  Wheat
Hops
1.0 oz of Czech Saaz     60 minutes
.5  oz of Czech Saaz     30 minutes
Yeast
?

Dough In was at 158 deg. for a saccharification rest of 148 deg for 60 minutes.
Mash out at 168 deg for 15 minutes and sparge for 45 minutes.  Sparge water temp
was 175 deg.  We stopped drawing the runnings at SG 1015. Water used was 3 parts
RO and 1 part filtered tap water.The IBU's ended up at 19.5 by Promash.  We kept
the IBU's on the low side so the yeast profile would shine.The boil was a total
of 75 minutes.

We Chilled the wort with a Counter Flow Wort Chiller to 67 degrees to five 
different fermenters.  The  OG was 1052.  We then pitched all five ale yeast, 
one in each container and fermented at 65 degrees in a controlled environment.  
We bottled all the beers 9 days later.  All beers dropped clear very nicely.  
Measuring priming sugar was going to be a problem, as each fermenter did not have
exactly the same amount of beer in them.  (We were drinking homebrew while we did
this ya know.  In fact, I think Norm had a empty glass in his hand when he walked
in)  Anyway, back to bottling, we decided to use Prime Tabs.  Prime Tabs are a
pre-measured amount of corn sugar pressed into a tablet.  You can add anywhere 
from 2-5 tablets per 12 oz bottle.  We added 3 tabs per bottle for carbonation.
I hope we're not drinking flat beer at the meeting.  

There ya have it.  We are planning on doing a Blind Bubba test at the February
meeting.  The bottles are all color coded, and we will have one or two servers
decant 2 or 3 bottles in a pitcher and serve everyone in small cups.  Tom will
hand out some evaluation forms to fill out on each.  We will put it together and
have a presentation at the next meeting. See ya at the February Meeting.

Bill Tobler

The Great Brew Bayou Yeast Experiment

Results

5 yeasts, identical wort fermentation's and priming.
WL530, Belgian Abbey; Wyeast 
1728,Scottish; Wyeast 
1335,British2; Wyeast 
1272,American2
 Danstar Windsor.

We had a total of 9 composite score sheets.  
                            
AROMA-6 of 8 judged aroma very low to none for all beers except 
Windsor-all scorers comments estery, green apple, acetaldehyde, 
citrus, honey, orange blossom.  Abbey got "phenolic/Band-Aid"
         
APPEARANCE- All beers had some chill haze, head retention was low on all. 
Scottish got best marks for color, followed by Windsor.
           
FLAVOR- Belgian flavor notes were noted and not liked by most. All comments 
on the Brit2 were positive- "crisp, clean, mild, balanced", AM2-clean, cornlike.

  Scottish, nice, tart. . Windsor got  "cardboard, apple, lingering, sweet" 
          
MOUTHFEEL-Comments on carbonation split evenly- "low carb/ok carb" except 
Abbey-all low carb, and "astringent".  Brit2 and Scottish got "dry" comments.
                             
OVERALL-Brit2 got 6 of 9 "Pleasant" Am2 and Scottish got 4 of 9 "good". 
Belgian got mostly negatives and "typical Belgian". Windsor got slammed, 
with 8 of 9 negatives; "fruit drink, weak cider", "commercial water" 
(Miller?) and "flabby"         
                 
SCORES- quite close.  Scottish- 29; Brit2- 28; AM2- 27; Abbey- 25 and 
Windsor 22.   
    
SUM UP- Brit2 was best liked, while Scottish was crisper and cleaner. 
Am2 appears to throw wheat/corn notes and the Abbey was Belgian!  
Dry yeasts (at least this one) are not ready for prime time, at least not 
in our club.  More tasting is needed.  Interesting thou that in the very 
ambitious 1999 FOAM RANGER yeast experiment with 14 yeasts- this same Windsor 
yeast was rated high; thou beaten by WL Cal ale and Wyeast 1338, European.  
In another club test this last Jan, with 4 dry yeasts Vs WL Cal ale, as a 
control, the White Lab yeast was rated best.  See Tom for details on these 
experiments.