Yeast strains vs spirits type ?

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cede
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Yeast strains vs spirits type ?

Post by cede »

I had an idea or maybe a brain fart...

I was looking for a table of yeast strains / type of spirit. There are a few guidelines on the base site here, some informations from the different yeast providers, but I could find nothing like a true and tried combination.
I did a forum search and might not have the good wording.
My stilling experience is small, it's more about beer here. I know a bit about yeast strains for beer and which one to pick for a particular style, recipe ingredients, and what I want to achieve.
Is there such a comparable pairing that can be done for spirits ?
Antler24
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Re: Yeast strains vs spirits type ?

Post by Antler24 »

Not sure such a thing has been done. I don't think there's a given guideline of yeast strain for type of spirit, other than an ale yeast is good for whiskey and a clean fermenting champagne yeast good for nuetral. I will say I like a good floral fruit buttery flavour in a bourbon. So I plan to use a beer yeast soon that's known for being a floral yeast, that's also loved by few and hated by most for being very high in diacytel (butter) flavours. Doing the opposite of most beer Brewers, I plan to manipulate the fermenting conditions in my bourbon ferments to create a....
:twisted: butter-bomb :twisted:

Will post my findings but I need some yeast starters equipment that are out of the budget right now so it's a ways off lol
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get a brix reading on said ball bearings and then you can find out how much fermentables are in there
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cede
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Re: Yeast strains vs spirits type ?

Post by cede »

Ahaha butter bomb :)

I do my starters with a flask and a magnet bar that I bought at the brew shop.
I put it on a plastic box with (inside ) a computer fan with 2 magnets glued on it. I got all for for free, this is the magnetic stirrer :)
Works well as far as I can tell !
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Re: Yeast strains vs spirits type ?

Post by durty_dunderpants »

Antler24 wrote: I plan to use a beer yeast soon that's known for being a floral yeast, that's also loved by few and hated by most for being very high in diacytel (butter) flavours.
can i ask which one?

i use ale yeasts for most everything. not least 'cause it's easy to brew up a load of slurry (the best yeast starter for a 40L ferment is 10L of ale!) ! but mainly i much prefer the results of using ale yeasts for rum over champagne or bread yeast. trying out for a butterbomb myself, just for rum instead. wlp005 will eventually be the obvious contender but i rarely brew with it these days.
cede wrote:There are a few guidelines on the base site here, some informations from the different yeast providers, but I could find nothing like a true and tried combination.
I did a forum search and might not have the good wording.
aside from the information given in tried and true, there are a few threads on yeast trials i've seen, but really it's gonna be the same as for making your beer (albeit ale yeasts might throw slightly different flavours in an all sugar wash than all grain). what flavours do you want (or not) in the mash - maybe split a batch up and use bread yeast vs ale yeast. if you can't tell a difference go with what's easier or cheaper. etc. :D
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Re: Yeast strains vs spirits type ?

Post by jonnys_spirit »

I'm going through a process with six stripping batches of HBB and using different yeast for each batch - just o blend the low wines and new make and average the benefits of a range of yeasties across my batch. Last two that I stripped this weekend were fermented with a lager yeast (it's cold in my basement!) and a beer / bottle / cask priming yeast... I've got a selection in the fridge including another lager and some ale yeasts plus several wine yeasts. Didn't have any issues with either of those two leading up to this weekend - They fermented fairly fast and the trub compacted nicely.

SafLager - S23
http://www.fermentis.com/wp-content/upl ... -S-233.pdf

CBC-1
http://www.lallemandbrewing.com/wp-cont ... 2817-1.pdf

I'll comment that in my wine and mead making experience some yeasts (good ones too!) can be prone to H2S production and a good staggered nutrient protocol will help prevent the dreaded H2S bomb. Fermaid K or O is generally the preferred nutrient in that case and GoFerm select during rehydration.

A rather good nutrient is to save some of your yeast slurry and boil it up. Make some ice dead-yeast-cubes and save it in the freezer. Add a good amount of that into the must or wort for nutrient.

I think that if you follow some best practices you can use most any yeast to it's potential.

Cheers!
-johann
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i prefer my mash shaken, not stirred
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cede
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Re: Yeast strains vs spirits type ?

Post by cede »

Well, the idea was to concentrate knowledge in a table because the sum of all users knowledge is way beyond what one could achieve :)
For sure I will experiment when I'll have my new still up and running.
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Re: Yeast strains vs spirits type ?

Post by Big Stogie »

White Labs has a full line of the proper yeast, your home brew shop can get them https://www.whitelabs.com/yeast-bank?sh ... ng&tid=197" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
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Re: Yeast strains vs spirits type ?

Post by Antler24 »

durty_dunderpants wrote:
Antler24 wrote: I plan to use a beer yeast soon that's known for being a floral yeast, that's also loved by few and hated by most for being very high in diacytel (butter) flavours.
can i ask which one?

i use ale yeasts for most everything. not least 'cause it's easy to brew up a load of slurry (the best yeast starter for a 40L ferment is 10L of ale!) ! but mainly i much prefer the results of using ale yeasts for rum over champagne or bread yeast. trying out for a butterbomb myself, just for rum instead. wlp005 will eventually be the obvious contender but i rarely brew with it these days.
That would be Ringwood (Wyeast 1187). There are a bunch of threads on the popular beer brewing forums about it. Keep in mind if you leave your batches to sit a while before distilling you might not be getting all the fruity/buttery out of it. For beer it's recommended to leave it in primary for a few weeks, to give the yeast a chance to clean up all that diacytel flavour. As distillers we'd want to do the opposite. Ferment it warm and then cold crash it and rack it, before the yeast starts cleaning up after itself.
jonnys_spirit wrote:I'm going through a process with six stripping batches of HBB and using different yeast for each batch - just o blend the low wines and new make and average the benefits of a range of yeasties across my batch. Last two that I stripped this weekend were fermented with a lager yeast (it's cold in my basement!) and a beer / bottle / cask priming yeast... I've got a selection in the fridge including another lager and some ale yeasts plus several wine yeasts. Didn't have any issues with either of those two leading up to this weekend - They fermented fairly fast and the trub compacted nicely.

SafLager - S23
http://www.fermentis.com/wp-content/upl ... -S-233.pdf

CBC-1
http://www.lallemandbrewing.com/wp-cont ... 2817-1.pdf

I'll comment that in my wine and mead making experience some yeasts (good ones too!) can be prone to H2S production and a good staggered nutrient protocol will help prevent the dreaded H2S bomb. Fermaid K or O is generally the preferred nutrient in that case and GoFerm select during rehydration.

A rather good nutrient is to save some of your yeast slurry and boil it up. Make some ice dead-yeast-cubes and save it in the freezer. Add a good amount of that into the must or wort for nutrient.

I think that if you follow some best practices you can use most any yeast to it's potential.

Cheers!
-johann

How'd that lager yeast ferment for ya? I was using bakers for the longest time but my basement sits at about 15* Celsius so ferments we're a little slow. I switched to Nottingham Ale yeast this season and it ferments much better for the conditions, and I like the flavour a little more. I was thinking about lager yeast but figured it would also ferment slower, and maybe even be more neutral compared to bakers or ale yeast
Swedish Pride wrote:
get a brix reading on said ball bearings and then you can find out how much fermentables are in there
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Re: Yeast strains vs spirits type ?

Post by jonnys_spirit »

The Lager worked well. It was a little slower than the cask conditioner but I let it sit and clear for a week so it finished a day or so later. I’m not really sure how much caries over into the doubke distilled oaked and aged product but feel like it’s going to be subtle. The two ferments certainly smelled and tasted different which is what I was after.

Cheers!
-j
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i prefer my mash shaken, not stirred
————
durty_dunderpants
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Re: Yeast strains vs spirits type ?

Post by durty_dunderpants »

Antler24 wrote: Ringwood (Wyeast 1187)
:D yeah that's the one! ringwood and 005 are meant to be very similar in that respect (even related perhaps). one of my favourites so a good excuse to get some ale brewed with it. i plan to run it as soon as it hits FG for that very reason, conveniently it drops out like anything too. be interesting to see if it creates much diacetyl in just a sucrose medium. here's hoping..
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