Yeast: Liquid vs Dry

[fakr]

I receive newsletters from "theelectricbrewery.com" and below is a good write up and experiment on liquid vs dry yeast.
Thought I'd share the contents with the group.

Fakr


"""Liquid vs dry: The battle of the clean fermenting American yeasts

 Safale US-05 dry yeast is my go to yeast for Blonde Ales, American style Pale Ales, IPAs, and anything else that requires a clean fermentation. It's a yeast I know well and I use it a lot.

I like the convenience of dry yeast as it keeps for years when kept in the freezer making it so much easier to use than liquid. It is also considerably less expensive.

Some brewers have indicated that they prefer the liquid versions (Wyeast 1056 or White Labs WLP001 California Ale) because they produce better tasting beer so I thought I'd do a series of tests, starting with an Organic Blonde Ale that is a light coloured 5.3% ABV (1.048 -> 1.007) made with 85% Organic Pilsner malt, 5% CaraFoam, 10% table sugar, hopped to 15 IBU with Crystal hops. It's meant to be a light tasting, "everybody likes it" beer.

It was brewed on Feb 17, 2013.

The wort was cooled to 66F and split into two ~5.5 gallon fermenters. Into one was pitched 12 grams of hydrated US-05 dry yeast, while the other received two WY1056 smack packs.

On Feb 25 (8 days later) both were at 1.008 / 68F. The WY1056 beer tasted crisper/brighter. The US-05 was more grainy tasting, more astringent.

On March 3 (14 days later) I racked to my 5 gallon 'brite' tanks and added gelatine to clear the beer. The beers tasted much more similar at this point.

On March 8 (19 days later) I kegged both and placed them in my conditioning fridge at 33-34F on C02 gas to carbonate them.

On March 23, 15 days after putting them on C02, they had carbonated to approximated 5-6 PSI. Fairly low, but I've always liked my beers less carbonated than the usual 12 PSI you read about. There's less carbonic bite this way and I find I enjoy the flavour more, even with a lighter beer like this that doesn't have a ton of flavour.

At this point I did a 3 way test where you try and point out which beer is the different one: Two glasses were filled with the WY1056 beer, one with the US-05 beer. Labels were added to the bottom of the glasses so that I couldn't see them. My wife mixed them up and I tasted with my eyes closed. I tasted them all a few times and thought one of them was the different one (the US-05) so I pointed that one out. I was wrong.

My wife reshuffled them and I tried again, tasting each multiple times, jumping back and forth, trying to find a difference. I realized I couldn't tell them apart at all. I tasted again and ended up taking my best guess. I was wrong again.

My wife then tried twice, guessed twice, and was wrong both times.

Conclusion: Maybe others can tell the difference, but to our taste buds US-05 and WY1056 taste identical on lighter beers so I'll be sticking with using US-05 for these types of beers as dry yeast is (in my humble opinion) so much easier to use.

I'm also trying the same two yeasts on an APA that I brewed recently with a massive hop stand to see if the hoppiness makes any difference.

Note: US-05, WY1056, and WLP001 are all based on the same Chico strain, so they are expected to taste similar. I was surprised in this case that I didn't notice any difference at all once the beer had been conditioned and carbonated.

I have a couple of vials of fresh WLP001 so next time I brew this I'll do the same experiment with US-05 and WLP001. Stay tuned!

Have you tried this experiment or similar ones yourself? Post your experiences in our forum thread on the subject.




Cheers,

Kal Wallner
 Founder, TheElectricBrewery.com"""

[fakr]

BTW, I didn't know you can freeze dry yeast packs, but according to this article you can....that's good to know.

[jeffsmith]

BTW, I didn't know you can freeze dry yeast packs, but according to this article you can....that's good to know.

I wonder if that's something that Fermentis recommends? Given the long expiry times for dry yeast, I don't see much reason to freeze instead of keeping them cool in the fridge. Perhaps it would be different if I was buying in 500g bricks though.

[Richard]

No water should mean no lysing of cells, so yeah - freezing should be fine so long as they're sealed packages. I just keep them in the crisper in the fridge though, since I rarely keep any more than a few months.

[Chris Craig]

I seem to remember Ian Grant saying he preferred 1056 or US-05.  Is this still the case Ian? If so, what are the differences you perceive?

[chrismccull]

This is good news, I did know that they were the same strain.  

12 hrs. after I pitched US-05 on my wort, fermentation started on my IPA that was stalled.  I hope it will be able to finish, I'd hate to dump 10 gal. of beer.  If it does taste off, I'll just tell people that it is a macro beer.

[Ian Grant]

I mostly use 1056 I find it taste cleaner, but S05 with some aging just like the first post said taste just as good.  I prefer to age my beer a month in the fridge.  Also  the last few I made I've been direct pitching with no noticeable off flavors. ( with packs no more than a month old)

[HappyHax0r]

Weird, I've had some off packets of S04 and S05 that were in my fridge right up next to my freezer that I've had _long_ lag times on and had to double pitch to get reasonable lag times out of them. I've never had that with yeast that has sat around at room temp... is there a particular reason for storing it in the fridge at all?

[ Corrected, that was meant to say "Freezer" not "Keezer"... ]

[Chris Craig]

Funny you should mention this.  Fhilo got a packet of S-04 from me on Sunday, and it never took off.  He had to re-pitch a packet he got from Noble Grape.  I guess the lesson is to always have a backup plan!

[HappyHax0r]

Yeah, not sure _what_ happened really. But the last few batches I've had to double pitch and still had lag times that are slightly longer than normal ... the beers turned out fine so I'm not complaining but ugh, the longer it sits the more chance of infection and I don't like infections .

I've been aerating my wort fairly well too... never had these issues before, so i'm blaming the yeast, and specifically this is yeast I bought a while back and _never_ had a problem with until recently so either it's a.) just old (but I thought it kept a long time in a fridge in dry form), or b.) I'm blaming the really cold temps of the freezer.

Anyway, it's sitting out at room temperature now in a room that's about ~60f'ish... should be good... might store it in the keezer though, just to be sure.

[Richard]

Just wondering... you guys aren't pitching onto starsan foam are you?

[chrismccull]

I have in the past, not sure if I did this time.

[brew]

While I have no actual data, I believe yeast does better if I take it out of the fridge a few days or even a week before I use it.

[Chris Craig]

I've always pitched with yeast that's been out of the fridge for a couple of hours. Never had this problem.

[Richard]

+1 to what CC said.