My opinion on Mangrover Jack's Workhorse yeast

This yeast does provide a good clean flavor profile. However it is a low attenuator. My Summer Wheat beer went from 1.050 to 1.016 and my International IPA went from 1.065 to 1.022. I think this would be a great yeast to use for a good clean very malty tasting beer but it is a very poor choice for an IPA. IPAs are supposed to be somewhat dry and really showcase the hops. I am going to stick with Nottingham yeast for my IPAs from now on.

Good to hear.  A company I’m working with to design some kits wanted to use that yeast.  Based on other reports, I discouraged them and now I’m really glad I did!

You have your fingers everywhere Denny.

Good to see you sharing your knowledge and skills with commercial enterprises too.

I’m happy to…that’s what it’s all about.  I was approached by a large wholesaler who will put out kits of 4 of my most popular recipes.  They’re introducing them at NHC with the beers.  That means I have to brew 2 batches each of 4 different recipes next week!

That is wonderful. You also should have your name on it.

That’s the plan.  They want them to be “signature” kits.  Now, if they’d only offer me some $$!  :slight_smile:

Ahh the money. Hope you negotiated something up front because you can not trademark/copyright the recipe.

Or you will be just famous,  poor and happy.

That’s the status quo…might as well maintain it!

Ata boy.

Agree with the Mangrove Jack’s yeast. Workhorse never attenuated below 1.016 for me either. And their other yeasts…same results except for the Bohemian lager yeast, which attenuated to 1.014 in an Oktoberfest and a Schwarzbier. I will never be using their yeast again and discourage it’s use to anyone.

I had the same results in a cream ale with 2lb of flaked maize. 1.049 OG and only 66% attenuation. I do like the flavor and think it would be good for a very low abv beer.

Edit - after kegging and carbing, I don’t like the flavor. A bit of acetylaldehyde, not lager-y at all. I’m hoping some cold conditioning will improve it. Grrr.  I would have been better off using US-05 and cold conditioning.

Really?  Of course each to his own, but personally I so much prefer US-05 from among the standard dry yeasts, for IPAs and pale ales, fermented low 60’s ramped up eventually to maybe 65F.  I’m not a big fan of Nottingham or S-04.

I’m firmly in the Nottingham > US-05 camp myself.  I just seem to end up with a cleaner tasting beer with it.  Though if you don’t control your ferment I could see issues with Nottingham as it can get kind of out of hand.

Interesting!  This makes sense given that I used Nottingham only maybe three times, and in my earlier brewing years, when I definitely fermented numerous beers too warm, based on ambient temps.  After a couple with Nottingham with ferments where beer temp probably went as high as 73F, I just stopped using it.  So, no wonder my complaint is that it was never clean enough tasting…, in fact made it a chore to drink the beer.

Sounds like I should try it again, now that I temp control my ferments, and keep IPAs/PAs cool-side fermented.

Well, maybe…I fermented both Notty and 05 at 62-65 and still found Notty had an objectionable tartness.

Thanks Denny.  Deja vu by the way, but I’m not going to search the archives to prove it.

Truth be known, I cannot change my tastebuds.  They, by the way, are unique to me.