Wyeast Octoberfest 2633

[seajellie]

Hey all, I ended up coming home after a blind date to the LHBS where the only fresh liquid lager yeast they had was 2633. This yeast is a blend of lager yeasts, and is supposedly a low sulfur producer. I've never used it, don't know much about it, and had been hoping to do a run of lagers off of one yeast. Not sure if all of the beer styles I wanted to do will work well with this, however.

So, any guesses what yeasts are in the blend?

Has anyone used this for a run of lagers, and noticed any drift over time in taste, performance, malt/bitterness ratio, etc?

I was planning to do a Festbier and a Vienna, which should be perfect.

I wanted to start with a leichtbier - which should be fine as this blend should boost the malt in this light beer.

It's the pilsner(s) and the schwarz that have me curious about results with this yeast. Perhaps I'll have to push the pilsner into helles territory, or "export", and push the schwarz closer to a baltic porter.

Usually I get a yeast that does all of these styles at least moderately well, and can get what I want with mashing, pitch rate, and recipe.

Flavor drift over generations is of particular interest with this blend. It's supposed to attenuate well, so it seems that a pilsner and schwarz would be doable, if not perfect.

Thanks!

 

[dustinstriplin]

Yeast blends will not yield consistent results over multiple generations. You could make a large starter with it and repitch part of the starter in each beer, or build up the starter for each beer. Rebuilding a starter is a better practice than reusing a yeast cake because the yeast has usually been used and abused in the yeast cake. That won't get you out of the woods completely for predicability, but you aren't making the same beer 3 times anyway.

Your intuition seems correct about what styles this will work with. A schwarz and pils (german?) will benefit from a different yeast strain, unless you get lucky and a cleaner strain prevails in the yeast pitch.

 

[seajellie]

I've made five lagers with this yeast, and can update with some results.

First and foremost, I suggest sticking to Wyeast's recommended beers for 2633. If you want a versatile lager strain, go for 2124, 2206, etc. Of course I knew this going into this experiment, but those choices weren't available to me at the time. I made a couple beers outside the list, and while decent, I'm sure if I'd brewed what they suggested rather than what I wanted to, I would've been happier with the end result.

Secondly, one of the strains in this blend seems to be a very low flocculator. If you're planning to repitch many generations, you will likely experience some flavor drift if you can't get all the yeast to floc out together.

I've seen many suggestions that one of the yeasts in this blend is the Ayinger strain, which is apparently 2487. 2487 is medium flocculator. Assuming there are two yeasts in this blend, that I'm correct that the other yeast is a low flocculator, and that the other yeast is also listed in their Fest beer yeasts...... well that points to either 2124 or 2575... which incredibly enough, is called a Kolsch yeast!

Lots of assumptions there, I know. But I've used 2124 in probably 50+ beers. It is incredibly versatile, and I'm familiar with its flavor profile. The results I got, and the flavors I got, do not suggest to me that 2124 is the other yeast in this blend.

Of course I could be wrong.

I started of with a Helles, it was quite good, but there was a unique flavor note that I've not had in dozens of helles I've made, but was an interesting change.

Next a pils, with a recipe that would've been a slam dunk with 2124. It was a decent beer but I wanted better; tasted like it was having an identity crisis.

Next a "Vienna" in that it fits the specs, and the base was nearly 100% vienna, with carared and carafa. It's damn good and was damn good right at the start. It's like the darker grain bill cut through some of the yeast flavors I wasn't 100% on board with.

Then a Fest. By this time, with my continual bottom harvesting techniques, I probably got significant population drift. The Fest is OK, not nearly as good as many I have made, but I blame that on my yeast management, not 2633. Also, it's only been in keg and bottle for four weeks so there is still time to improve.

And I say that I can't blame the yeast, because I just tapped into the final beer I made with this, a dunkel based on the supposed recipe for Ayinger. It's pretty darn good at this young age! Of course, if 2487/Ayinger is in this blend, I've been selecting for it through this run of beers, and well. Ayinger Dunkel is one damn fine beer imo.