Dmtaylor's yeast chart

Ingredients
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I have lots of thoughts! In no particular order:

  • I prefer dry yeast for most of the styles I brew. For clean fermentation character American styles, BRY-97 and WLP001 are my go-tos, and this covers ~50% of my batches. For lagers (another ~25% of my brews), I’ll usually reach for Diamond, S-189, S-23, or WLP860*.

    • My main reason for preferring dry yeast is convenience, reliability and storage–I can buy a half dozen packets, and if they sit in my fridge for a year or two, they’re still very usable. With an expired liquid pack, it’s a complete guessing game as to if it will spring back to life, or if it will be an expensive package of dead yeast. Not having to plan a yeast starter in advance is another bonus, especially with a busy life outside of brewing.

  • I will usually reach for a dry yeast in my English and Belgian styles. As for my “core” brewing styles, it’s just so much more convenient and reliable to know that the yeast will be viable. I’ve had somewhat more mixed results, but at least part of that is figuring out the optimum fermentation conditions for my intended flavors and aromas. As one example, it took a few iterations but I nailed the yeast profile I wanted in my previous batch of hefeweizen using Munich Classic (Lallemand). I’ve had similar results with Belgian strains, once I had some trial and error.

    • That said, I think that character-rich yeast “families” are still going to give the edge to liquid strains. The evolutionary selective pressure on the dry strains will probably continue to limit what tolerates the manufacturing process (an “evolutionary bottleneck”). It’s difficult and expensive enough that we’re not likely to see an extensive range of saison strains, for instance, where a liquid yeast can be more cheaply (I presume) brought to market for a variety of strains with a variety of flavor/aroma outcomes.

  • I predict that we’re going to see a continued contraction in dry yeast varieties available to homebrewers, after the period of expansion during the past 10 years. Core varieties such as 34/70 or BRY-97 will remain, but I expect some of the “niche” strains will disappear from the homebrew market (but a few may live on via repackagers such as Mangrove Jack).

    • Examples include the Köln strain from Lallemand - that was a truly excellent dry yeast (and I just used my final packages, in a delightfully fruit forward kölsch that I now have on tap). Unless something spectacular is out there, I’m going to use liquid yeasts for German ales going forward.

  • Completely random thought - what would it cost to sequence a bunch of dry yeast strains and throw them into the phylogenies that are out there for liquid yeast? This is beyond my expertise, but totally the sort of thing I’d contribute towards in a crowdfunding effort.

*I was initially a skeptic on WLP860, in particular due to its slow start, but wow, it’s a great yeast strain that I think genuinely brings something not seen in other dry lager options (but chime in if others have differing opinions on that!). The main downside now is cost…but the convenience of being able to have a stash to use at any time, without having to worry about a dead culture (and wasted money), has made me a convert. That said, supply is inconsistent – pretty much everywhere is out of it right now, and ordering direct from White Labs indicates a ship date of October!

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thanks both of you.

yes - lallemand munich classic is one of the good ones i wanted to mention. tbh i have just had better experiences with lallemand than fermentis in general, but noticeably so.

i have not tried mangrove jack at all that i can remember.

yes, in general if its a “clean” beer where the focus is hops or heavy/roasted malt that is the best bet for dry yeast. ie. bry97 and the usual suspects.

re: phylogenies - suregork included some of them, which provided some of the early “oh wow!” moments ie. fermentis WB-06 that used to be used for hefeweizens by everyone.

part of the problem with dry yeast is how bad fermentis was about providing information and even basic descriptions on each one. some were accurate but some were way off . im sure they have people who like them but ive had so many mediocre/bad experiences with fermentis compared moving onto lallemand and liquid yeasts finally they have tarnished my view of dry yeast a lot.

really mediocre yeast like T-58 and S-23 (admittedly never used S-23 myself but it gets BAD reviews) continue to be mainstays out there yet actually good S-189 is much harder to come by. why are they like this?

it always seems like they produce and make new varieties based on what is possible to dry and have survive, rather than what is an amazing yeast type.

how are the dry white labs for repitching if youve tried?

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Yes, Munich Classic is a good one! And agreed on Lallemand vs. Fermentis. For whatever reason, I’ve found the quality (and descriptions) of Lallemand to be a notch above Fermentis for many strains. I am a divergent opinion on this, but Fermentis’s W-34/70 is not my favorite yeast strain, and I get a tart/green apple character I just don’t care for (although I need to try it again in an American light lager, where this might be a little more appropriate).

Unlike 34/70, I have had better success with S-23. Maybe I’m just getting better results with my particular grain bills. And I also agree that S-189 is a super nice yeast; my go-to for Fermentis lager strains. Clean and reliable!

Haven’t tried, myself.

Thank you for the reminder - I had forgotten about that one! (now it would be nice to get more dry strains in there!)

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I think Lallemand is mainly targeting breweries with the newer strains, providing options like a House strain, a non diastatic saison strain, a hybrid lager strain. These seem more attractive to smaller breweries than to home brewers to me. But some home brewers will choose them too.

I’m not really a lager person but I’ve been happy with results from S-23, which divides people, it seems. T-58 has its fans too, and can be useful in a blend, in my opinion. And it has biotransformative properties.

Fermentis has confused people with its descriptions of S-33 and WB-06, and a slowness to correct and update the information. I believe. Home brewing has moved on, and improved, including dry brewing yeast. But there are good options in the Fermentis range, not least for lager. But also the likes of US-05 and S-04 for pale ales, and BE-134 for saisons. They also have some new strains, targeted at breweries, it seems, that I know little about.

Mangrove Jack yeasts are worth a look in my opinion because they have some different and good options which don’t seem to match any of the Lallemand or Fermentis strains. Like M36, M41, M31, M54, M84, M20 and M21. I don’t see any straight matches for these in the Lallemand and Fermentis ranges, and I doubt M47 has a straight match either. I’ve tried them all, with good results. It’s a well constructed set of brewing yeasts, in my opinion. I particularly like the Belgian options.

I’ve not used the White Labs dry yeasts, the prices here are pretty prohibitive. They’d have to be amazing to justify the cost, for me. And the drying process won’t improve them, it’s likely the opposite is the case.

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I think that is the core issue with Fermentis yeasts - they get a bad rap due to mismatch of descriptions, expectations, and reality. (I used WB-06 in a Belgian single recently, and it was stellar! It would have been mediocre to awful in a hefeweizen.)

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an issue i have with mangrove jack is that its hard to tell if the mix of dry yeast you are getting contains diastaticus or not.

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This document provides information about each MJ yeast strain including the classification of each strain. The diastaticus yeasts in their range are M29, M31 and M41.

https://help.mangrovejacks.com/hc/en-us/article_attachments/13551379984785

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thanks, good to know.

also - and again - youve had good experiences with them?

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Personally I’ve used M20, M21, M31, M36, M41, M44, M47, M54, M76, M84.

I’ve not used any of them many times. I’m not an expert in any way but I was satisfied with all of them. It seems like a set of yeasts that has been carefully put together by using various sources and trying to cover a wide range of styles. I suspect James Kemp, who is a top brewer in the UK but from NZ, was likely involved, as he helped them develop the MJ craft series beer kits.

M20 didnt produce a lot of flavour for me, my temperature was probably too low, but it was pleasant. I’ve used Munich Classic and WB-06 and M20 would perhaps be the pick. I rarely drink wheat beers though. If I did I’d use liquid.

M21 seems well regarded as a dry Wit choice, and it worked pretty well for me. I doubt there’s a better dry Wit yeast. And some claim it’s a match for liquid.

M29 I used once a long time ago and I was happy with it. It’s similar to Belle Saison but I’m not sure it’s identical. Possibly. My M31 saison was better. Both good.

M31 produces a pretty good saison in my limited experience. I’m going to do another soon, see below. Attenuation is high.

M41 is very nice. Quite refined, nicely muted at lower temperatures, I’ve recently made a nice Bitter with it but it is great for Belgian styles in my, as yet, limited experience. Attenuation is high. I think this must be a saison yeast combined with a fairly neutral strain to tone it down.

M47 I have only used once. It was fruity and pleasant. Maybe too fruity for me, I favour spicy, herbal, earthy types of beer. Generally speaking. I’d rather have a lager than a fruit bomb.

M36 is maybe as good a dry yeast for English styles as there is. It provides some English flavour and a good medium level of attenuation. I like to use liquid yeast for English styles. I sometimes culture up brewery strains from commercial bottles. I understand and enjoy English styles better than anything else so I’m fussier. Done right, nothing beats them imo! The world needs to catch on. So much industrial lager out there!!!

M44 is surely Bry-97?

M54 is a good option for lagers at room temperature. A friend of mine made a very good lager with it. Better than I achieved but my couple of uses were pretty decent.

M76/M84 I don’t drink or brew much lager but I have very soft tap water that comes from a lake and my lagers turn out pretty well. I’ve only ever used dry yeasts for lager. W34/70, S-23, Diamond, Cellar Science German and Berlin, M84 and M76. They vary a bit but I’d happily use any of them. My eldest son says his favourite beer I’ve made was a lager with M76 and Hallertau Blanc. He’s wrong obviously. :smiley:

The MJ yeasts I am most likely to keep buying are M41 and M31. I mostly brew bitters, and I do a couple of saisons a year. I was really chuffed with the bitter I made with M41. That’s happening again soon. I liked the mild phenolic contribution of the yeast and the dry finish. That might just be me. It didn’t really feel out of style to me because there are some English bitters that are fermented with mildly phenolic English ale strains. Some of my favourite beers occupy this space around dry bitters and saisons, which can be fairly similar, hence the M41 bitter revelation. Lower abv saisons aren’t far removed from the likes ofHarvey’s Sussex Bitter which can be noticeably but mildly phenolic.

I need to use M31 again in a saison to compare it with other saison yeasts. A split batch possibly. I just recall finding Saison Dupont (surprisingly) on a keg tap near home while I was drinking that home brew and being shocked at how similar they seemed. I didn’t have the home brew with me in the bar obviously and I’m not a beer sommelier! But I’ve been drinking beer for nearly 50 years and there was an obvious similarity at least.

The M31 beer was too much when it was young, lots of banana and spice, but it settled down really nicely and didn’t take that long iirc. 4-6 weeks maybe. More complex and interesting than M29. My guess is that M29 is just Belle Saison, or BS slightly modified, and M31 is BS plus a fruitier yeast like Abbaye, and the combination is better than either of the yeasts on their own. Spice, pepper, citrus, banana, pear etc. Needing a bit of time to mellow out.

Look what you made me do. ^^^

You pressed my button. The above notes are simply my thoughts and opinions based on my experiences. Obviously .

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Great review of MJ yeasts. Thanks for sharing.

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MJ41 is surely BRY97? How did you reach that conclusion?

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I didn’t, look again. :wink:

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“M44 is surely Bry-97.”

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You said M41. I’m not alone in believing M44 is Bry-97, other homebrewers have said the same, and DMTs spreadsheet agrees.

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Sorry for the typo.

Unfortunately, belief is not proof.

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Of course. But it seems likely to me having used both M44 and Bry-97 quite a few times, and others appear to think the same. They are at least extremely similar to the point of being safely interchangeable, in my personal experience and opinion. But there is no proof, I didn’t say there is, there is only anecdotal evidence, and you don’t have to believe it. It’s just my opinion but based on actually using the yeasts, not on things I’ve read or heard. I could be wrong.

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That’s all I was getting at. Without DNA evidence or the company saying the source, all you can really say is “seems to produce a beer similar”.

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Absolutely, though they also behave in a very similar manner during fermentation, stats are the same, and I spoke to a senior MJ rep who told me they repack Nottingham, same manufacturer. So there are reasonable grounds to believe they could be the same. Just no absolute proof. I’m pretty sure myself that it is, others must decide for themselves. Some have come to the same conclusion as me.

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MJ yeasts have not yet been genomically tested, that’s why we talk about them so much, because all any of us can do is guess as to how they might be equivalent, except for the very rare case like with Nottingham and Belle where MJ allegedly leaked that yes there is in fact one of their selections that is identical.

As for BRY-97… that one is an educated guess, seems to fit. But M44 might be US-05 as well. The two are very similar…

It just also SEEMS that MJ tends to repack Lallemand or Mauri in almost every case, except in the case of Belgians where they seem to have possibly made a separate deal with Fermentis for their Belgians. That’s the working hypothesis right now at least. Can hypotheses change? Of course! Will they? Probably! Are we getting pretty close to reality? Everyone is a judge.

All I’ll ever officially claim in the court of the interwebs is that about 95% of so called “equivalents” are hardly ever “truly equivalent” but rather equivalent “for most intents & purposes” which is what I’ve said since day one, and if I ever slipped, whoops sorry. It would never be my intent to mislead anyone, but to provide food for thought mostly, and to advocate for experimentation – let’s not just use US-05 (or anything else) for every effing beer, but expand horizons, live a little, learn a little, and by golly, DISCUSS MORE than a little!

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i really appreciate you making that. i have built my entire skillset for homebrewing and understanding beer from people’s internet posts, some documentation published online and my own recorded notes. a lot of people especially over the past couple of years - in the interest of debunking myths,etc - have started saying nothing is valid without properly set up multi-party testing. ive found that “testing” extremely lacking and i have had no problem going through users’ posts to gather datapoints like this.

this kind of thing is where its at and i hope to post something similar in a logfile ive kept on yeasts used over the past few years. particularly i try to keep observed fermentation characteristics because that is something almost never mentioned for yeasts.

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