Does anyone have a significant amount of experience with this yeast?
Is it a slow fermenter?
Had brews done in 4 days with it.
Not usually a slow fermenting strain.
Interesting.
It’s been slow at fermenting; it took off after 12 hours and started slow, I transferred to secondary today, after 5 days.
Might just have a packet that’s like a diesel engine in the winter.
US-05 is a “Swiss Army Knife” of yeasts. Follow the rehydration instructions from Fermentis, and be sure to aerate/oxygenate your wort well. If you do that, you should have activity in 24 hours or less. You can run it slow at lower temps for a cleaner profile, or let it rip at higher temps to get some estery character. If it’s fresh, its a good performer and will attenuate well. I’ve run it as low as 60F and as high as 72F.
Keep in mind that some fermenters don’t always seal well - so sometimes an airlock isn’t a good indicator of activity. I’ve had beers where I thought they never started because the airlock wasn’t bubbling and when I checked gravity, they were almost done.
US-05 is essentially my default yeast, unless I have a specific reason or wild hair to try something else I’ll usually use 05. I have sprinkled it dry on top of the wort, rehydrated according to instructions, and used it with yeast starters and it always works. Most of the time I will do a starter, and of course when I do it takes of quite a bit quicker than sprinkling dry or rehydrating - about 12 to 24 hours faster. I usually ferment in the mid 50s to lower 60s without problems, although reaching final gravity does take a couple days longer than when I ferment in the upper 60s.
As the previous poster noted, US-05 is probably as close as you can find to an all purpose yeast, even if it is disliked by some of the folks on this forum.
+1. Though my fermenter does seal well, I recently pitched 34/70 at low temp and even though I raised the temp throughout the process I never saw the first bubble. First ever for me.
While I prefer O-4, I use O-5 a half dozen times a year with good and quick responses. While I add O2, not really needed with the dry yeast. I rarely rehydrate it. I usually have an O-5 beer in the keg inside of a week. What works for me is to begin at 66, then bump a degree a day till 72…
I like it. High attenuator, about 80-82% average with all-grain beers (I can’t speak to extract beer).
My only issue is with cold temps- some phenolic express in the cold for me.
I’m an outlier, but I don’t care for US-05. I’ve tried fermenting cooler, fermenting warmer, in between the two, in different styles…I just don’t like it. I’ve had better results with the liquid varieties of the strain, but honestly the results weren’t much better.
I enjoy the Chico strain in commercial beers, but personally I’ve never been happy with the results when I brew with it.
You’re less of an outlier than you might think. I don’t care for 05 and have stopped using it. Like you, I prefer the liquid “versions” (yeah, they’re not the same) specifically 1056.
I’ve seen some questioning whether WLP001 and 1056 are even the same source as claimed by many, as well as US-05. I’m pretty sure all 3 are quite different actually. I myself have never done side-by-sides with each to know what the differences really are. Anyone interested really should do experiments to see what the differences might be.
All three have at least one thing in common: They’re the only yeast which have for me have produced uninteresting beer. Every time I try one of the three I end up wondering why I bothered. Since trying 1450 at Denny’s suggestion, it’s been my default strain for American styles.
Again, I enjoy commercial examples using these strains, but not my own beer. Might be interesting to try them in a LODO batch and see what happens though…
DJA testing has shown them to be different yeasts
Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Makes sense. They all attenuate differently, which should be a somewhat obvious indicator.
The yeast genome project has shown they are different, i.e. 1056 vs. 001. Nothing I have seen said anything about US-05 being different, but so much is coming ouT of that study, it is hard to keep up sometimes.
1056 and 001 were what I was referring to, per Dave’s comment. I know the source of 05, but I don’t know if there has been genetic drift from the source.
The same DNA studies are what I was referring to, too. As for US-05 (as well as any other so-called “equivalents” anywhere), I imagine there’s always a little bit of drift between manufacturers.