Mer-man
Well-Known Member
Yeah, just remember to pitch yeast at a higher rate when you use so much sugar.
Yeah, just remember to pitch yeast at a higher rate when you use so much sugar.
I'll gladly try this yeast again on Milds or Ordinary Bitters where I want more residual sugars, but I doubt I'd ever use it on an ESB or anything with a higher gravity.
I really regret using this on a Wee Heavy, I ended up pitching White Labs 099 Super High Gravity Yeast because I read that it will finish lower in a hostile environment (hoping for the best). The original Danstar ESB yeast barely achieved 50% attenuation.
Just out of curiosity, what was the OG, mash temp and percentage of crystal in the grain bill? I hope that wlp099 works for you but like london esb it is rumored to not be able to utilize maltotriose.
OG: 1.088
FG: 1.040 (and almost undrinkable).
Only 1/2 lb crystal 90, but I also took about 1 gallon of first runnings and boiled it down to about 1/4 gallon, it wasn't a thick syrup.
Yeah if wlp099 doesn't utilize maltotriose, I probably won't see much difference, I'd be very surprised if there are many simple sugars left. I'll give it a month and then keg it again.
So I just kegged it and the wlp099 took the gravity all the way down to 1.006 (about 10-20 points more than I wanted, but now it's at least palatable and not like drinking syrup).
In the future I'll probably only use the yeast on low gravity beers that I want plenty of sugars left over.
Two weeks ago I brewed a bitter and used this yeast for the first time. Simple recipe, 10lb MO, .5lb carapils, .5lb Fawcett crystal 1. Warrior (bittering) and EKG hops. Somehow messed up measuring or calculations on the mash and ended up with a very high mash temp initially (around 163F) which i corrected. Ended up with an OG of 1.048.
Hydrated and pitched the yeast into oxygenated wort and put the the fermenter in my temp controlled chamber per my usual routine. Had obvious fermentation activity within a few hours, which is faster than I typically see. A day later it was clearly going well, and at 36 hours had seemingly already finished. I ramped temp up over a couple days, then took it out of the chamber and let it sit in the house (around 70F) aiming to give the yeast some warmth and time to finish up. Saw no activity.
About a week into fermentation (a week ago) i took a gravity sample and was sad to see it at 1.020. Recalling my high initial mash temp, I couldn't be entirely surprised though. Looking around, found this thread and saw lots of reports of low attenuation and figured that I may need to pitch some more yeast or brett to get close to target FG and not have a terribly sweet beer. As I don't rush my beers, I just let it sit and figured I'd at least take another gravity sample in a few days.
About a week later brings me to this morning. Take a glance at the fermenter and see airlock activity. That seems strange, there's been no big temperature changes in the room, so I take a closer look. There's a thin (but normal loooking) krausen on the beer and it seems to be actively fermenting again.
I'm going to let this sit for at least a couple more weeks at this point. Just thought I'd share this in case anyone else is seeing this odd dormant period with this yeast. I won't rule out some sort of infection (which would explain what I'm seeing) but it seems unlikely.
I should have read this thread before ordering, and trying, this yeast. I did a split batch Ordinary Bitter this weekend. I planned to use Nottingham in one and Windsor in the other. Decided to swap the Windsor out for the London ESB. I mashed more for a medium body...around 152. Wound up with an OG of 1044.
I'll post my experiences once fermentation is complete.
As of this point, the Nottingham has dropped completely. There is still a layer of krausen on the London ESB.
Gravity going from 1.044 to 1.002 seems really abnormal. Being almost devoid of character is a bad sign. Could be an infection - I hope not.
I've brewed two beers with this yeast, although both were co-pitched with a dry american ale yeast. Both were very cloudy at bottling, even with an extensive chill, however they have cleared perfectly with no finings other than irish moss during the boil. No chill haze either. Also the yeast adds an obvious and pleasant fruityness to the beers, so I can recommend it, at least with copitching with a more attenuative strain.
Which one ends up dryer, Nottingham or London esb?
What is your method of co-pitching, and what yeast do you co-pitch along with London ESB? I.E., do you pitch two yeasts at the same time, or one later on in the ferment? I can't wait to give this yeast a try in my own ESB recipe.
I just did it at the same time, one pack each. The yeast was called US Pale Ale, from a new local company. One time I just sprinkled both as it was a fairly weak wort, about 1.046 I think, the second was a stronger beer so I rehydrated them both
you could pitch the second one a bit later than ESB I suppose
19c for both I think
The weaker one was OG 1.040 fg 1.008 so AA of 79%
Stronger one og 1.074 fg 1.016 so AA of 77%
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