In the ale world, many brewers freely substitute the WL001, WY1056 and the S-05 as being the Chico Strain. Being new to the lager world, would the WL830, WY2124 and S-23 all be considered the same German Strain? The descriptors on these just say they are the most popular German Strain…just curious… cheers!
I think they usually compare them this way WL830, WY2124 and 34/70. Cheers!!!
+1. There seem to be some very subtle differences, but they’re more or less the same. Haven’t done split batches so i can’t be sure. S-23 sucks, IMO. 
Brewing Science Institute does NOT refer to 830 and 2124 as a yeast of the same origin.
http://www.brewingscience.com/PDF/prodlist/BSI_Product_List.pdf
That is interesting.
I always considered WLP830 as the German 34/70 strain. But then again, the differences for lager strains can be very subtle.
On the other hand, the WY2206 strain and the WLP830 strain do behave differently in my brewing and the aforementioned link lists them as being the same.
Kai
+1
I made ten gallons of a German Pils and split the batch between WLP830 and 34/70 and found the two yeasts to perform very similiarly. The beer profile between the two batches was almost identical. There were very subtle differences. The main one being the attenuation of 34/70 was slightly higher than WLP830. Other than that I could not tell the difference.
Bluesman,
When you mean 34/70, do you mean the dry yeast or do you have liquid culture that you know is 34/70?
Kai
I’m referring to 34/70 dry yeast.
I’ve been using this lately, too. I like the performance and have no issues with attenuation. It’s nice to know it’s most likely the same as WLP830. I didn’t realize that.
I tried that one once and found it way more “sulfury” than the liquid lager yeasts that I used before.
Kai
Yes…initially I found the same result but the sulpher fades away as the beer lagers. I lagered for about two months and the sulpher was undetectable.
Ryan I gotta agree with you that S-23 does leave a fuity wang in the beer.
I tried the S-189 however and did like that enough to try a couple beers with it again
this lager season…(coming soon)