this is the first time in a long time i used s04 and its kinda surprising how fast this yeast ferments, i pitched a pack rehydrated 2 days ago and its done already, of coarse im gonna let it condition before packaging it but damn that was fast, granted the OG was 1.052, this is to be expected with this strain from what i gather, what are some other fast strains you recommend?
In my experience, Nottingham is also pretty fast. Ringwood (1187) too if you ferment in an open vessel.
My experience also is that S-04 will usually be done in a couple of days, less than 3, and yeah Nottingham is maybe even faster. My last batch with Nottingham finished in 48 hours, 12.7°P down to 1.5°P. And S-04 and Nottingham don’t seem to have the oxygen requirement some strains like 1187 have.
A side affect of S-04 finishing fast and then dropping like a stone is low attenuation. But if you plan for it the results can be a beautifully clear pint of English goodness.
My last run with WY 1469 was very rapid. All 3 beers I made were done fermenting in just about 2 days. Ranging in OG from 1.045 up to 1.058.
Does 1469 require extra aeration or open fermentation to do this? Recall hearing somewhere it might be one of those.
Just brewed something with WLP004. It went off in the fermenter like a bomb and finished at 1.086 OG beer in 2 days, taking it down to 1.030. The only problem I had was heat, such a vigorous ferment I had trouble controlling the heat despite using a refrigerated ferment chamber. Even though things heated up into the 70’s, I don’t detect any fruity esters in there and no alcoholic-fire-breath.
I brewed a British Ale using Windsor Yeast it started at 1.046 and it was finished fermenting in 3 days at 1.016. My last milk stout using S-04 started at 1.057 and finished at 1.023 in 4 days. Both of these yeast strains finish fast and have low attentuation. Safebrew Abby Ale Yeast BE-256 is also a fast fermenter of Belgian style beers if I remember correctly.
Wyeast 1968 London ESB is fast too. I brewed a British Brown Ale with it that finished in 4 days from 1.048 to 1.015.
Pretty much any genuine English ale yeast is fast. Breweries there typically expect 2 days, 3 tops, fermentation, then a few days settling, and it’s in the cask and out the door a week after brewing. They’ve bred the yeasts to get beer in the pub making money, not taking up room in the equipment. If English yeasts ever take longer for us, we’re probably not giving them the exact conditions they expect.
I brewed a Belgian Golden Ale with Fermentis BE-256 yeast on 2/19/19, OG was 1.074. Today, 2/24/19 its at 1.007.
FWIW, I’ve got a batch now with BRY-97. The interwebs will assure you that this strain has a 24-48 hour lag time and is very slow thereafter. It was active at 5 hours, and at 42 hours is at 62% AA and still rocking and rolling fast, low to mid 60°s fermentation temperature throughout. Exactly like every other ale fermentation I have with other strains. It’s probably not so much the strain as wort composition, yeast health, pitch rate and so on that determines fermentation rate.
That is remarkable. I have waited three daze for Bry-97 to kick off before. Once it gets going I’ve had great results.
How did you pitch the yeast?
Propped it up. Seems to alleviate most of the problems I’ve encountered with most dry yeasts in the first generation. (Though Notty propped up still sucks in the first generation IMO, so I think I’m done with it. But that’s another topic.) Removes the potential convenience, but I’m looking at dry yeast simply as another way to get a new culture, and since there is apparently no liquid culture of BRY-97 available at present, I got the Lallemand dry and treated it as I would a liquid pitch. BTW this is probably the current front runner in my search for a new house ale yeast.
Seems to have finished sometime yesterday (in about 3-3 1/2 days) at 78.5% AA. Will give it a few more days before crashing. Depending on how it performs in a repitch, I may have a provisional winner.
S. Cerevisiae believed it was the same strain as WY1272 or WLP051.
I haven’t gotten around to reading some of the new stuff on strain origins that’s been floating around. Has the thinking on this changed?
1272 is now placed by at least one study in the Beer 1 clade, near the Whitbread B family (incl. 002, 007, 041, 1332, 1968.) 051 has been proven to be a S. pastorianus strain! (White Labs now notes this in their catalog.) And BRY-97 is firmly in the Mixed clade, more or less related to lots of bread yeasts, some distilling yeasts, and Windsor, S-33, Muntons (not Gold, but the one taped onto cans of crap,) and T-58. So there’s no connection between them. We do know the provenance of BRY-97 that S. cerevisiae laid out hasn’t been challenged, he showed the accession documentation from Ballantine’s ale brewery to Siebel. But it obviously didn’t pass on to become those other two. Nor can more than one of the 3, if any at all, be Anchor Liberty.
Interesting, thanks.
I’ve not tried BRY-97. WY 1272 is mostly what I use for APA, though I haven’t been brewing much of that recently.