Do you think it’s a result of having different facilities/labs, or different QC programs?
I agree with both of you.
All of that and probably more.
It seems like Lallemand is actively trying to grow their market share by rebranding and adding new varieties. Whereas Fermentis seems complacent. They are just selling the same strains in the same packaging. I know that has nothing to do with quality, but it makes me wonder if their attitudes may extend throughout the respective businesses.
In my humble opinion, Lalleman has gone more “in” with respect to brewing than Fermentis. Fermentis is owned by Lesaffre. Lesaffre pretty much owns the worldwide baking yeast market. Everyone has heard of Red Star yeast. That is just one of their baking lines. Lallemand also has a baker’s yeast business unit, but they have made a bigger investment in brewing in terms of company focus than Fermentis. Lallemand acquired controlling share in the Siebel Institute in 2000. They then purchased AB Vickers Ltd in 2001.
Here is a photo that I shot of a slant I ordered from the Siebel Institute several years ago. If you look up the address on the slant (6100 Royalmount Montreal, Canada), you will see that it is home to a large Lallemand research complex.
FWIW, baking yeast is still Lallemand’s largest market.
Thank goodness that during the height of the pandemic I could still buy brewer’s yeast. Baker’s yeast? Not so much. Besides being an avid brewer, I’m also an avid bread maker. At least one of my passions was still well supplied.
I have not tried Diamond yet. Is it more or less the Lallemand analog of 34/70? In my head, I viewed it as the analog more of S-189. Or are its characteristics something in between these two strains?
I admittedly don’t yet have a huge breadth of experience with dry yeast overall (I’m a relatively recent convert from liquid), but I do love 34/70 and S-189. I’ve been using these two for a while now and am very impressed. My pre-pro lager with S-189 is as good as beer gets, to my palate. Once there is a good dry yeast analog of Mexican lager WLP940, I will have my dry-lager-yeast quiver fully stocked (for now, I’ll keep using 940…god I love that strain).
Question for our resident yeast expert Saccharomyces: I taste the off-flavor from dry yeast that you have mentioned in this and previous posts. With me, I can only describe it as musty/soapy. I suspect it’s a fatty acid. Which makes sense, given that with the way dry yeast is propagated, they are enriched in fatty acids. I suspect that flavor is because some cells of dry yeast die at the initial pitch and the flavor comes from autolysis. Curious if you knew any research about this.
Aerobic propagation in bioreactor was perfected using baking lines. That is a bigger market than brewing. What is weird is that surplus yeast from brewing allowed bakers to move away from natural leavening. It was the switch from using skimmable top-fermenting cultures to bottom-fermenting cultures in brewing that resulted in the creation of the baking yeast industry. The process of removing the brown head before taking a crop results in a much cleaner yeast culture that is nowhere near as bitter.
It was out there if you looked. I bought 2 lb. in that period.
Yes, it is reputedly the same strain as 34/70, but with differences that come from different companies.
I eventually located a 2lb package as well, but by then, I had a healthy sourdough culture. Yeast and flour were pretty much gone from local grocery store shelves for several months and I was not going to pay scalper prices on Amazon. It was a crazy period.
I live in a small town, population <3000. 100 miles from the next city, so we only have 2 grocery stores. First time I could find it in town was August 2020. It was crazy.
I ordered on Amazon since at that point I wasn’t going to stores.