Will S-04 make a decent London Porter?
Depends on your recipe. I use it in porter all the time.
I have the Fuller’s London Porter clone recipe. We used Wyeast London Ale Yeast before.
The crazy thing about that culture is that it is allegedly the Worthington Whiteshield culture. That allegation has been made for as long as I have been brewing. Why would Wyeast call a culture that came from a Burton upon Trent brewery “London Ale?”
Marketing to us philistines is my guess.
I personally dont like s-04 at all. any other english yeast is a better alternative.
the best way I can describe the odd flavor I get from s-04 would be the smell of raw bread dough rising, but not in a pleasant way. I wish I did like it, because its other characteristics are great, its a fast and reliable fermenter, it drops clear, but in the end I just dont like the way it tastes.
To OP: go ahead and use S-04. It is a great yeast for porters. I recommend fermenting cool (58-64F, no warmer).
To the people who do not like S-04, I believe you are fermenting it too warm, or at least starting too warm. I get great results from that yeast fermenting under 64F. Almost everyone I know who dislikes that yeast (many people) exclusively fermented in the high 60s or low 70s with it. Even 66F is too warm, IMO. I really shoot for 58-60F with S-04. I chill the wort down to 58F-60F and pitch, then keep my chamber set to 56F. When high krausen hits, I increase the chamber temperature to 64F. 48 hours later it’s usually ready for a cold crash.
That said, taste is subjective. I absolutely despise Nottingham – I don’t find it neutral at all, it makes every beer taste tart to me. I feel the same way about WLP007, which I hate equally in British and American ales. I get nothing yeasty, doughy or overly tart from S-04, just a bit of restrained fruitiness and usually around 75% attenuation. It’s not my favorite for bitters, but I like it plenty in porters and stouts.
I get the same doughy taste from S-04 in pale beers, but I find that beers with a large dose of roasted malts mask that flavor. I can use it in porters and stouts and it’s fine to me, but I hate it in bitters.
Thanks for your input. We will ferment this one cool, just like you advise keeping the temp around 58-60 F.
Exactly. It’s the breadines I find objectionable about it.
I fermented it at 63 many times . Still bready. I also despise Notty.
I agree with keeping it cool. I get undesirable flavors when it goes above the mid 60s so I tend to keep it in the low 60s. Used it in an English Porter recently with great results and it’s currently going in an imperial oatmeal stout.
My plan is to keep the ferment temp at 58, or below.
I was told this is a cleaner, less fruity yeast than the Wyeast London Ale we used before.
One should not have to ferment ales at what are effectively high lager temperatures in order to avoid off-flavors. The parent strain for S-04 was not selected for batch fermentation. It was selected for continuous tower fermentation (i.e., a bioreactor for beer). The strain is an acid producer, which is why it has a tart note.
NCYC 1026
Information Flocculent. NewFlo type flocculation. 1:5:4:5:5 O2, DMS 33 µg/l, low acetic, high lactic, diacetyl 0.42ppm only, used commercially in Tower Fermenters (continuous process), non head-forming, no estery flavour. Contains 2µ plasmid.
Depositor British Brewery
Deposit Name Saccharomyces cerevisiae
You have quite a few choices for English dry yeasts. I like Mangrove Jacks M36. I want to try the new Lallemand Verdant IPA yeast.
Since you typically pitch more than one pack you could easily try Nottingham + Windsor. That is supposedly a symbiotic mix.
I like the flavor of the Lallemand London. The attenuation is quite low. But, that didn’t seem to affect the taste.
Maybe you shouldn’t have to, but why not if you get the results you want?
Related to this point, for those who have done so, what are the results of a “clean” low-temp S04 fermentation? I can’t say that I’ve ever been impressed enough with it to say “if it didn’t have this doughy flavor I’d really want to use it”. To me, there are better clean ale strains and better British ale strains. I don’t see a niche that a cleaner version of S04 would fill.
Stand by, I’ll let you know. We just finished up a big brew day, and pitched the S-04 yeast.
It will ferment at 56 F.
That is a good question. In my world, I select a strain based on how it performs at normal fermentation temperatures for its species. For ale, that means that the strain should perform well at 20C (68F). If one has to hold the internal temperature of an ale fermentation below 68F in order to achieve one’s desired results, then a different yeast strain should be identified. If one is looking for a squeaky clean fermentation, one should use a strain that can achieve that result without having to ferment at lower than normally accepted temperatures. For example, British cultures are not usually squeaky clean because they have been selected for producing flavorful beers at lower gravities than most Americans are used to drinking. As one increases gravity, one increases higher alcohol and ester production because what controls higher alcohol and ester production is combination of genetics and wort composition.
Temperature is often falsely seen as the reason for estery beer. However, that is treating the symptoms, not the problem. I covered this information in detail in “Have You Seen Ester,” but I will cover it here in less detail here. What reducing fermentation temperature does is slow metabolism, especially during the exponential growth phase where it increases the replication period. Where yeast genetics play a role in ester production is in the creation of alcohol o-acetyltransferase. There are two alcohol o-acetyltransferase (ATTase) enzymes; namely, AATase 1 and AATase 2, which are encoded via two different genes ATF1 and ATF2. Where wort composition plays a role is carbon to nitrogen (C:N) ratio. The amount of nitrogen that is available after dissolved oxygen is consumed determines the amount of acetyl CoA that is formed during the growth phase (higher gravity wort not only has more carbon, it has more nitrogen). Acetyl CoA is formed by combining acetic acid with coenzyme A; therefore, more acetyl CoA translates to higher acetic acid-based (acetate) esters. Many of the esters that we find objectionable in beer are acetate esters. For example, outside of Hefeweizen and Belgian styles, isoamyl acetate is unwelcome. Isoamyl acetate is the condensation reaction between isoamyl alcohol and acetic acid. Very few of us find ethyl acetate welcome in a beer. Ethyl acetate is the condensation reaction between ethanol and acetic acid.
How does one reduce ester production without holding fermentation temperature artificially low? The first place to start is selecting the appropriate yeast culture for the task at hand. After the appropriate yeast culture has been selected, one should select the lowest protein barley available. To further increase C:N, one can resort to using a percentage of flaked maize or gelatinized corn grits or even go as far as to use a brewing sugar. I am almost certain the higher-gravity versions of IIPA contain a percentage of sugar.
Finally, Anheuser-Busch ferments with a starting gravity of 1.080 at 13C/55F. A fermentation temperature of 13C is not particularly low for a high-gravity lager fermentation, especially one that will be a very lightly flavored beer where any defect sticks out like a sore thumb after dilution with water. The reason that it is possible in large part is the C:N ratio of the grist, which contains a large portion of adjuncts that dilute the overall nitrogen level of the wort.