Fermenting with 2 different types of yeast

[Cerealkiller]

Has anyone ever done this? I am brewing a Partial mash Hefe for the fall season and I just created a yeast starter with brown sugar, honey, Wyeast WLP 320 and A packet of Dry yeast Munich Wheat beer yeast.

I had read about doing this sort of thing in the book Brew Like a Belgian. I forget the style of beer that was brewed, Rochefort I think.

Thoughts? Tips? Criticisms?

 

[biodarwin]

There is section in Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation. They mixed similar yeasts for a more complex flavor. One example was WLP001 and WLP051. There were others, but this is all I could remember off the top of my head.

 

[smizak]

I add a little dash of Wyeast 3711 to a large pitch of Wyeast 3724 when I do saisons. The bulk of the ferment to 1.020 is the 3724, then the 3711 finishes the job. Works very well for me.

 

[kontrol]

No DME in your starter? Only brown sugar and honey?

 

[DPBISME]

There should not be a problem but it might be hard to replicate... You never know how they will act together and which one will take off first, it might over power the other.

That being said I do it... If my yeast calculation is for three smack packs or vials of live yeast I usually use two and toss in a dry yeast as a "backup".

I have cast yeast all FROM the same batch at the same time and wondered if it was ever going to start.

I would rather still end up with beer rather than lest the "Little Beasties" ruin it...

It is also cheaper... not much but every little bit counts.

DPB

 

[BoBoBenton]

Here in the UK Adnams has a duel strain it uses, can't tell you which two but a bit more from them on it here: https://adnams.co.uk/about/news/beer-news/yeast-is-yeast/

 

[Cerealkiller]

Yea, for the starter, just brown sugar and honey..normally I throw in the DME, but this time I didn't. I don't know why. But, the fermentation has been pretty vigorous for the past 9 days. I had a blow out tube/ bottle setup to capture overflowing kreusen. I have a good feeling about his batch as i have kept the temp on the lower end of the fermentation scale.

 

[Cerealkiller]

Here in the UK Adnams has a duel strain it uses, can't tell you which two but a bit more from them on it here: https://adnams.co.uk/about/news/beer-news/yeast-is-yeast/

Good One!

 

[BoBoBenton]

Good One!

I got some adnams yeast from a mini cask and made a basic bitter recipe with marris otter (85%) and crystal 20l (15%) that I'm bottling today and it is goood! I've made the recipe before with an English ale yeast so I can compare the 2.

 

[kontrol]

Yea, for the starter, just brown sugar and honey..normally I throw in the DME, but this time I didn't. I don't know why. But, the fermentation has been pretty vigorous for the past 9 days. I had a blow out tube/ bottle setup to capture overflowing kreusen. I have a good feeling about his batch as i have kept the temp on the lower end of the fermentation scale.

You should always use DME when making starters... It is possible that your yeast won't be able to process maltose anymore which will make your beer under-attenuate.

 

[lshaner]

Regarding the starter, I would not worry about the yeast losing the ability to metabolize maltose. Your starter is being innoculated with millions of yeast -- 99.9999999% of which would be capable of metabolizing maltose to begin with. Yeast cells do not magically lose the ability to ferment maltose by growing on a simple sugar. Losing the ability to ferment maltose likely requires several mutations in maltose utilization genes owing to the fact that brewing yeast are at least diploid and often polyploid and would thus have multiple copies of the maltose utilization genes. When I was a graduate student with access to lab equipment, I always made my starters using YPD (a common lab media with dextrose as the sole sugar source) and never had problems with attenuation. I would worry more about the lack of a nitrogen source in a honey/brown sugar starter. The yeast will ferment that starter just fine but you probably won't get much yeast reproduction, which is, after all, the point of a starter. Seems like the yeast you added to the starter was already enough for the batch.