Cellar Temperature Lager Strain

[EarlyAmateurZymurgist]

Purchasing a yeast culture from a culture collection is huge leap of faith in that cultures start at $70.00 and go up to $300.00+. That's a lot of money for a yeast culture. Unlike the cultures that are available via the home brew trade, very little fermentation data is available for most of the yeast cultures that are stored in the major culture collections. Usually, the only data that one has to work with is the species to which a culture belongs, a date of deposit, and the name of the depositor. Sometimes, the origin of the culture is included in a data base entry.

Why would an amateur brewer risk spending $70.00+ dollars on a culture from a culture collection? Maybe, it's because I am looking for the ultimate house yeast. Maybe, it's because I like wasting time and good wort. In reality, the reason why I do it is because pitching an unknown yeast strain brings back that feeling that I had when I first started to brew. There is that "How is this batch going to turn out?" mystery that goes away after one masters the basics of consistent brewing.

With that said, I have been working my way through several yeast cultures that I acquired from a research-oriented culture collection. Thus far, I have found a Saccharomyces cerevisiae (ale) yeast strain from an old European brewery that I really like. It has a complex candy-like ester/flavor profile. However, the true surprise has been a Saccharomyces pastorianus (lager) yeast strain from a defunct American brewery that has been in the collection from which I acquired it for a very long time. This yeast strain produces a beautiful beer at 15C (59F). I made single decoction-mashed Pre-Pro Pils that has the malt backbone of a continental lager with just enough esters to be interesting. I am rarely satisfied with a yeast strain, but this culture may be a first that completely blows my socks off. At this point, I am considering it to be the BRY 96 of lager yeast strains.

 

[boydster]

Interesting... Is it in the ATCC? I just started looking over their site recent and haven't actually placed an order with them yet, but it looks like they have a substantial yeast collection.

How would your average joe go about finding this strain?

 

[EarlyAmateurZymurgist]

Interesting... Is it in the ATCC? I just started looking over their site recent and haven't actually placed an order with them yet, but it looks like they have a substantial yeast collection.

How would your average joe go about finding this strain?

I did not get this particular strain from the ATCC (the average amateur brewer cannot order from the collection from which I obtained the lager stain mentioned in the original positing); however, I did have a strain in my old bank that was from the ATCC. It wasn't the best investment. I seriously doubt that I will purchase another strain from the ATCC because their prices are high.

If I were to recommend a readily obtainable lager culture that is not available from Wyeast or White Labs, it would have to be NCYC 679 from the National Collection of Yeast Cultures (NCYC) in the UK. NCYC 679 is my all-time favorite true lager strain. I had NCYC 679 in my old bank, and I am planning to eventually add it to my new bank. NCYC 679 produces beautiful pale lagers. I am fairly sure that NCYC 679 is the yeast strain that was used at the old Stein Brewery in Bratislava, Czech Republic. NCYC 679 is a forgiving lager strain that was clearly in use before the advent of mechanical refrigeration.

One thing that you need to about the NCYC is that their standard distribution method is glass ampule packaged lyophilized yeast. One can order live cultures on agar slants, but the cost is 104 UK pounds (currently $171.00) per culture. I am too cheap to pay for live cultures, so I order lyophilized cultures.

Two other highly regarded culture collections/yeast banks are CBS in the Netherlands (research oriented) and Hefebank Weihenstephan in Germany. Unlike CBS, Hefebank Weihenstephan is a brewing-specific culture collection. Many of the Wyeast cultures were originally obtained Hefebank Weihenstephan. For example, Wyeast 2565 is Weihenstephan W165. Wyeast offers only a tiny fraction of the cultures that are stored in the Weihenstephan culture collection.

http://www.hefebank-weihenstephan.d...eihenstephan-liste-stammsammlung-englisch.pdf