Has anyone used this strain and finished fermentation to give some reviews yet??
I have a vial in the fridge that I am going to toss in a Tripel recipe that I am brewing up tomorrow. Recipe will be 87% pilsen malt and 13% table sugar, ~20IBU bittering charge from magnum at the start of a 90 minute boil and finish with a 30 minute whirlpool of 3oz Styrian Goldings. Ferment with no yeast starter initial temp at 72-74 for 1-2 days and then let the temp free rise to generate some yeast phenolic character and get a feel for it.
In our next book “Homebrew All Stars” we interview a guy named Lars Garshol. He travels around northern Europe recreating historical beers with yeast that families have saved for maybe hundreds of years. This new yeast sounds a lot like what he calls kviek. There are some recipes in the book that would probably work great with it.
I just tapped my keg of what I brewed with WLP611. I thought I was safe going with a basic Saison recipe.
8.0 oz Briess 20L Caramel Vienne
1 lb Wheat DME
5 lb Pilsner DME
1 oz of US Saaz (6.2% Alpha) @ 30 min
1 oz of US Saaz (6.2% Alpha) @ 5 min
OG was 1.052 since I collected a little more than 5 gallons
FG was 1.010 after three weeks of fermentation for a 5.5% ABV
Calculated IBUs was 23.0
Brewed on 20 Feb. I didn’t make a starter since the vial was less than two weeks old when pitched. I pitched at 64 degrees which I let free rise to 75 degrees over the course of two days where is topped out at. I held it at 75 for a week and then let it fall to 70 for a week. Before removing from my temp control chamber and leaving it in my 60 degree basement for a week to hopefully allow the yeast as much time as it needed. Kegged on 13 March.
The beer has a really great hefeweizen banana like aroma. The flavor upfront is slightly sweet with the banana notes leading the way. Then the middle and end of the flavor profile have a strange muddled fruity ester quality. It isn’t offensive however I wouldn’t say its great either, since my palate keeps expecting the usual hefeweizen finish put keeps running into this wall of unexpected complexity.
Honestly at this point I like the beer but even after tasting the FG sample I decided to not even try to harvest any yeast. I don’t brew a hefeweizen regularly so this was just a one time lets see what happens idea. If you do brew a lot of hefeweizen and are looking for something new and interesting feel free to give WLP611 a shot. Also obviously maybe I let it get too warm or maybe letting the blend work for three weeks was too long, but I figured I should at least pass along my results for those interested. If this beer grows on me a little more in the next couple weeks I’ll let you know.
I was more or less looking for saison qualities from this yeast than Hefeweizen…I did note the banana notes on my gravity sample…ill be kegging mine this weekend
First post here but i wanted to weigh in on this blend as it’s in the mail and have been doing a lot of research on the best use for this blend.
I think one of the reasons you guys are being let down by this blend is because it’s meant more for simple sugars like ciders and wines. It actually originated from spontaneously fermented apples in Denmark. It can ferment maltose but with a lot of esters similar to a hefeweizen, and to a lesser extent, some of the more fruity saisons.
On the flip side, there were a lot of presentations of beer styles fermented with this at the Copenhagen Beer Festival.
I have been hearing good things on this blend from mead makers and cider makers but one thing to remember is that torulaspora on it’s own only gets about 25% attenuation in 5 days so is a long and slow ferment. The amount of of esters from this blend will also depend on your temps. For a more neutral profile, you can ferment down to 50. The higher you go, the more the profile should go to spicy and fruity.
Well I’m a little late on kegging this batch, however I kegged and force carbed it tonight…the first carbed up sample definitely has the banana notes present, but Its a much cleaner and less spicy banana quality than I am accustomed to with your typical hefeweizens