In my pursuit of making an authentic British style ESB, I chose this yeast.  It's known for some diacetyl production, which gives the butterscotch, nutty, or even bready quality to some classic british ales (although some of the malt depth is difficult to achieve).  Also, the strain is tolerant to 10% ABV, which is more than enough to handle a strong ESB.  Of course, with the attenuation levels given by Wyeast, you may end up with a touch of sweetness in the brew.  At any rate, here are the specifics for what I experience while using this yeast. Yeast Type: Wyeast 1968 London ESB Yeast. As the usual specifications for Wyeast and White Labs recommend, I allowed the 3-6 hours (I went 5) for the smack pack to expand and start yeast activation. Yeast Uses: Because of its alcohol tolerance, this yeast has a multiplicity of uses.  Wyeast list anything from a Mild to an Old Ale to an IPA and even a Barley-Wine.  I feel this strain is especially conducive to making Barley Wines, ESBs, and IPAs, all of which are very nice with a residual amount of sweetness in their character.  Provided a rest is done at 64 degrees for short ...

White labs makes some very nice yeast strains.  In fact, I just made a starter of WLP 099, a Super High Gravity Ale Yeast.  Can't wait to see what that does.  At any rate, I've used this yeast for four generations of beers, which gives me a decent handle on how the yeast seems to work.  With this yeast, I used it for a Belgian double, trippel, quadruppel and a starting yeast for an extreme imperial stout.  This yeast is a work-horse and can simply handle quite a bit of sugar/ethanol.  Here is my experience with this particular strain. First, let me tell you that I wanted to get four uses out of this strain, so I had high hopes.  Many of you know how expensive yeast can be when it comes to brewing at home.  I figured that after moving to secondary I could put the new wort on top of the same yeast cake.  Another benefit was having higher pitching rates of yeast to start with, which came in handy with some of the bigger beers.  Save money, no starters?  No brainer. As I said, I brewed four beers with this yeast strain.  A dubbel, tripel, quadruppel and a huge ...

Disclaimer:  Even if you are not a homebrewer, this article is still worth reading, as it may improve your knowledge of beer and the flavors within. As Mike has stated before, ascertaining good information on a given yeast strain is hard to find .  Yes, one can search around on homebrewing forums; however, I find such tools difficult to navigate and the information is often faulty. Choosing a yeast is one of the most important steps in the building of a recipe, in my opinion.  The microscopic creatures created chemicals that are often identical to those found in fruits and other natural products and thus have drastic influence on the outcome of beer.  In building the recipe for my recently brewed Sour Belgian Double India Pale Ale, I chose Wyeast's Trappist, 3787.  I have used this beer before and appreciate the flavors it excretes while devouring my sugary wort.  While this yeast comes in a smack pack (there is a little bit of a starter in the package, that when ruptured begins fermentation) I made a liter starter to grow the strain before pitching into my wort. Yeast Uses: This strain is used for classic Belgian beers:  Dubbels, Trippels, Biere De Garde, Belgian Strong Ales, ...

As I've mentioned before, it's sometimes hard to find good information about a given strain of yeast.  I experienced this a great deal with one of the White Lab yeasts that I used (I plan on writing about it when the beer is done).  We've decided to take on this topic by writing an evaluation of particular strains we've used to brew.  Our experience will hopefully be the gateway for more discussion, understanding, and knowledge about yeast usage within the context of homebrewing.  At any rate, I decided to kick off the series with a fairly common yeast with the hopes of hearing some additional input. I'm still working out a "template" for the information that will best answer a range of questions.  Hopefully, this is a good start. Yeast Type: Wyeast 1028 London Ale Yeast. This was one of the so-called "smack packs."  The thing that I really like about these smack packs is that you can see that you have a healthy yeast going by watching the pack swell.  Normally, three to six hours prior to use is a good period of time to activate the pack.  I've personally had great success with this strain using the smack pack; I always ...

Even as I'm writing this, I fully realize that writing a series on yeast is of particular interest to homebrewers. Nevertheless, I'm still hoping that numerous people will find this to be an interesting posting series.  Let me mention briefly how I arrived at the idea for this series, and then, contrary to what might seem to be the more diachronic option, I'll explain what the series is going to be. I've recently grown weary of my attempts to find anything out about some particular yeast strains. For instance, I recently tried to investigate wlp655 (White Lab's Sour Mix).  White Lab basically repeats on their website the information that is on their tube, which is frustrating.  Almost every site that I searched pretty much quoted the White Lab site.  Don't get me wrong, White Labs makes good yeast, but the functionality and resourcefulness of their website stinks.  As for their chart, I know that people might think that looking at it would be helpful.  Yet, even the information on that is fairly limited. The other way to find out about the yeast performance is to search through a Cambridge University student's doctoral dissertation on a particular yeast strain.  Believe me when I ...