The photos of the grant are really interesting. The Ballantine brew house must have been a work of art.
I am always impressed when I see a photo of a Baudelot cooler. I have a 1946 copy of the Master Brewers Association of America publication “The Practical Brewer.” A lot of cool old technology is covered in that textbook. The neat thing about the Baudelot cooler is that the refrigerant runs inside of the tubes while the wort runs on the outside of the tubes, which is backwards from the way that a counterflow chiller works. These guys were dealing with ammonia (R717)-based refrigeration systems. Ammonia changes phase from a liquid to a gas at -33.3C. It sinks a lot of heat during that phase change.
The culture should reduce the diacetyl if you give it time to work. However, diacetyl is not out of place in a bitter. An ordinary bitter is such a small beer that it needs flavor contributions from the yeast. I personally like a touch of diacetyl in my British beers, but I rarely get it. I plan to study NCYC 1333 in the fall. NCYC 1333 is a Yorkshire strain. Yorkshire strains are notorious for producing diacetyl bombs. That’s why the square system was invented.
Ok, now here’s a question right on topic. In the chart Dave directed me to, Muntons Ale yeast is listed with question marks as (possibly) the equivalent of WLP002 and 1968. Any reason to believe/disbelieve that? I know my LHBS carries it in 6 gram packets, but I’ve never used it. Maybe I should give it a try.
The Munton’s Gold yeast strain may be related to Young’s, which, in turn, is related to Fuller’s. However, that’s a stretch. There’s a dry yeast strain in the UK that is marketed under the Young’s brand name.
Felt the need to resurrect this puppy… I just figured this out… If you get Zymurgy magazine, take a look at issue March/April 2017. Right there on page 18, Fuller’s themselves are endorsing Danstar/Lallemand London ESB yeast. So if you’re looking for WLP002/1968, then look no further than the new London ESB yeast from Lallemand.
IDK dave, they perform completely differently. Something is up with the dry yeast, it doesn’t seem to be able to attenuate as much. I know enough organic chemistry to know that whatever I would say would be technically incorrect, but I suspect that there’s some part of the typical carbohydrate metabolism that London ESB dry just can’t ferment, maybe maltotriose?
You are the second person to tell me this now. Hmm. Yeah, the drying process must screw it up somehow. Could compensate perhaps by mashing extra long, like an overnight mash?
I just used this in a 1.050 Bitter almost 2 weeks ago. Mashed at 150* and fermented dead nuts at 66*. It got to work quickly, I had activity ~4 hrs after pitching. It also fermented quickly, krausen was about gone by day 3. I have yet to try any samples and the beer is still to drop clear like you would see with 1968 but if there are any similarities among flavor and character it will still be a winner in my book. I skipped any finnnings to see how it performed on this trial batch. I usually use whirlfloc in the boil. If need be after cold crashing I guess the beer could also be cleared with gelatin.
But I have also heard from anyone to use it that they are not quite the same animal. Rather it seems to be sort of a spin off of Windsor. Perhaps teaming it up with Notty would be a nice mix.