Reading in the Zymurgy magazine, Vol. 21 No. 1 Spring 1998, about Guinness and they mentioned a certain yeast for their stout in the article. The article said “Originally, the brewery used several strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, but narrowed it’s yeast to a single strain in 1960. The variety is unusual in that it tends to disperse evenly throughout the vessel, neither rising to the top nor sinking to the bottom. The yeast is pitched at a wort temperature of about 63 degrees F (19 degrees C), which may rise to 74 to 80 degrees F during the brief but vigorous primary fermentation. The result is what Jackson describes as a moderate degree of fruitiness.”
So I am curious as to what this yeast is named? I have just used a Wyeast lab yeast to make an Irish-American Stout and it is Wyeast - Irish Ale 1084. Could this be the same yeast, as it fermented very quickly for me and had excellent attenuation? Or is this yeast (Guinness) known by another name?
WY1084 is a Guinness yeast – that is the reported source of the strain. Is it the Guinness yeast currently used at the brewery? That I have not seen confirmed. A number of yeasts available to us are no longer used by the original source.
I won the stout category at our local Homebrew Competition for a Dry Irish Stout using 34/70 lager yeast - fermented at 50F for 4 days and then ramped 1 degree a day for a week.
IMO there are an abundance of flavors from the roasted malts used which allow any clean yeast to sit in the background and it just works. Normally I use a 70 - 20 -10 malt bill (base - roasted barley - flaked barley) but this time I made it complicated for some reason…probably because of what I had laying around.
Batch Size 11.50 Gallons
Boil Size 15.00 Gallons @ 75 min
OG 1.046
FG 1.009
Color 41.5° SRM
Efficiency 80%
Bitterness 31.3 IBU (tinseth)
BG:GU 0.68
Alcohol 4.8% ABV
Calories 151 per 12oz
Fermentables
67% Golden Promise - UK 3°
14% Flaked Oats - US 1°
5% Patagonia Perla Negra 340°
11% Roasted Barley - UK 425°
3% Chocolate Wheat Malt - DE 400°
Hops
oz variety type usage time AA IBU
3 First Gold Pellet Boil 60 minutes 6.1 31.3