I’ve seen that. I will just say that I get the dry finish with either of those. Been using Diamond now since it is a little cheaper.
Funny how many are described as the most widely used lager yeast in the world, then don’t land close together on the tree.
It’s interesting, I still don’t know what to make of all of it. But one of my old go-to yeasts for a Dunkel, WLP838, turns out to be an ale yeast now. Strange times indeed.
And before anyone chimes in, no, it doesn’t matter. I’m just looking to take a single lager yeast and run with it for a while for other reasons.
I do not believe BRY-97’s delayed start has anything to due with pitching rate because the delay is just too long. It has to be due to an extended lag phase that is needed to get the culture to the point were exponential growth occurs. It is apparent to me that that BRY-97 does not take well to the drying process because it acts like any other yeast culture when repitched.
As we have recently learned, BRY-97 is actually an isolate of BRY-96. I have Siebel’s culture spreadsheet. On that spreadsheet, BRY-96 is labeled as being “slow.” The selective pressure put on what started out as BRY-96 at Sierra Nevada clearly selected for a faster performing yeast culture.
Looking at their datasheets
PITCHING RATE
50 - 100g/hL to achieve a minimum of 2.5 - 5 million cells/mL
if that information is correct, then we are looking at
log(200 / 2.5) / log(2) = 6.32 replication periods
log(200 / 5) / log(2) = 5.32 replication periods
That difference in pitching rate does not result in reduction in time to the start of active fermentation by a factor of two. We are talking about an actual extension of approximately 90 minutes between these two pitching rates, not 18 hours. The reduction has to be due to your process. You mentioned that you measure out your yeast. Are you purchasing BRY-97 in bulk? Do you aerate your wort? If so, to what extent? The addition of Fermax could help, but not be a factor of two.
I bought a 500g brick of a Bry-97 that I keep vacuum sealed in the fridge. On brewday I measure out whatever the mfr recommends for the volume and specific gravity of the wort. My routine beers call for around 14 grams.
The only aeration I am using is provided by the action of the wort transferring into the fermenter (not much). I have always operated under the assumption that dry yeast does not require aeration.
BRY-97 data point…yesterday at 2 PM I pitched one pack, not rehydrated, into 5.5 gal. of 1.067 wort at 65F. No aeration was done other than pumping the wort to a bucket fermenter. This morning at 10 AM I had positive pressure in the airlock and flecks of bubbles starting to form on the wort. So 20 hours from pitching to seeing signs of beginning fermentation
I think I’ve made my experiences with manufacturer recommendations known many times.
[emoji23]
I knew you’d like that! And just to be clear for other people, it’s not that I ignore the recommendations completely. I try it their way, then I try it my way before I decide.
What is interesting is that BRY-97 is under pitched even at 19 grams per five gallon batch (100 grams per hectoliter). At 5 million cells per ml, that pitch rate provides half of the cell density of a 1L starter. Pitching a 1L starter into 19 liters of wort results in a pitching rate of 10 million cells per ml (200B / 20 / 1000 = 10 million cells per ml). That just goes to show that yeast cultures are like nuclear weapons in that close is good enough. 
That sounds like BRY-97. Usually I will pitch 1 pack into ~1.045-1.065 wort at 62-64F and won’t see any obvious fermentation for 36-48 hours. If I am doing it in something clear, I might see some early bubbles forming, but I typically just glance (and have learned not to worry). With US-05 or S-04, I would pitch cooler (58-60F) and expect it to be rocking hard 12 hours later.
WLP802 is even more stress-inducing. I NEVER see major obvious fermentation. I pitch at 48-50F and it always looks like it is just beginning to ferment until it’s done; no more than 1/4" of bubbles on top. I only know it’s really going because it smells like sulfur and it’s cloudy. Then it smells like ale fermentation and its still cloudy. Then I see it slightly clearer up top than in the middle and I know it’s time to crash chill soon.
I brew Trappist “style” ales and 3787 has long been my go to. Not that it helps you here though!
100% this, read the recommendations but do what works for you. Brewed an IPA on Sunday using harvested yeast (WLP007) that was stored in the fridge under beer since april. I made a starter 10 days earlier and let it ferment out and then put it back in the fridge because I had no idea which day I’d have a chance to brew. Took off like a rocket, airlock was pounding at 24 hours and it’s mostly finished on day 4. Oh, and it tastes great.
Healthy yeast has a way of turning our expectations on their head.
Well I just used Bry-97 in a Stout (1.066 OG, 3 gallons) and I had visible air-lock activity in 5 hours. I hadn’t ever seen it take off so quickly.
I hang on to a few strains but I guess that doesn’t really make them house cultures. I found a local lab that releases the Andechs strain at homebrew volumes and that seems like it is in the running to become a house lager strain. I’m partial to London Ale III mostly for English beers and US05 for most American styles because it’s the expected yeast profile. Wyeast lambic blend is my go to option for sour beer. That still leaves holes to fill for other expressive yeast styles like all sorts of Belgian beers and German wheat beers. I have a blend of saison yeast I use which is a house culture for all of my mixed culture saisons but it has a singular purpose.
So I guess, no, I don’t have a house yeast culture.
I generally keep wlp007, wy3864, giga021, and wlp565 all the time. I rarely brew with anything else anymore. I use wy1450 in my stouts, but usually just purchase it fresh. First 4 are probably 10+ gen now. I harvest from a starter every time, I guess that is considered a generation.
I would pay zero attention to MJ names - as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, they seem to be selling Notty as “New World”. I think they’ve merely worked out that the US is the biggest market for homebrew, and adopted “home team” names as a result. The thought is that M54 California Lager is probably a repack of Mauri lager 497, Liberty Bell is a bit of a mystery but may well be Mauri ale 514.
MJ don’t dry any of their own yeast, they’re just repacking other people’s so it’s not going to be something novel. And with roots in New Zealand, you’d expect the first place they’d go to for yeast would be somewhere like Mauri.
I don’t have a house yeast as such but like yourself I’m partial to English bitter. On slants I have Fullers, Timothy Taylor but the one I’m using quite a lot of is Sussex Yeast from supposedly Harvey’s Brewery in Sussex. Really like that one.
