Isolated Yeast (Tree House): How to Identify and Characterize?

[pizzorelli]

No offense, but I would question how 'properly' you are pitching if you you're getting off flavors (due to what sounds like a significantly shortened lag/growth phase).
.

I mean what do we know we've only experienced it but that's fine. This was something we had to learn when we moved from plastic ferms to stainless.

PS - not trying to get off topic, just sharing data from my experience

 

[skibb]

I mean what do we know we've only experienced it but that's fine. This was something we had to learn when we moved from plastic ferms to stainless.

Yeah we ran into similar issues in regards to scaling up our Belgian style homebrew recipes to 10 bbl batches in cylindroconicals and aerating with pure 02. Our first batches of Belgian Blonde came out so clean we couldn't market them as Belgian style hah

 

[couchsending]

Yeah we ran into similar issues in regards to scaling up our Belgian style homebrew recipes to 10 bbl batches in cylindroconicals and aerating with pure 02. Our first batches of Belgian Blonde came out so clean we couldn't market them as Belgian style hah

Mind if I ask which Belgian strain you used? So a significant overpitch and maybe too much O2 caused the typical “belgian” characteristics to be really subdued?

 

[skibb]

It was 3787 - we definitely overpitched and that, plus the added pressures of fermenting in a cylindroconical, filling the blow off drum with 4 feet of water (lot of back pressure) and lower/consistent fermentation temperature (kept it low for too long before letting it ramp up) contributed to the clean character. Excessive O2 should promote growth and promote esterification, but with us pitching so many cells they really didn't need to grow much at all.

Sorry off topic!

 

[SanPancho]

the big issue folks dont realize is that in any larger vessel like a CCV in a commercial brewery you dont get uniform temperatures. i'd have to dig up the paper but they found a typical gradient of nearly 10F in a typical 60 degree cone CCV. tank design, especially width, makes a big difference.

lower temps promote esters, so not sure why everyone is so surprised about low temps at TH. makes sense to me. low o2, low temps, low pitch rate are all ways to promote esters.

i really dont understand why folks here keep talking about driving their yeast (1318, conan, so4, etc) into the 70s. seems like the opposite of what i would do, which is keep it cool, underpitch, and low to negligible o2 when using fresh pitch.

to be honest i've always brewed 90% lagers, so all ale yeasts are new to me. but in a lager you get super clean with raising temps to finish, so its seems natural to me to do the opposite and keep things on the cold side.

the few times ive let an ale get too warm i feel like it smelled great, but then finished beer lost all those esters and was pretty clean (compared to the smells from the fermenter)

 

[couchsending]

You raise lager yeast temps to clean up negative off flavors from the yeast created by a colder more stressful fermentation. Has nothing to do with esters really. If you fermented the lager yeast warmer you’d get the esters and they would still be there is you raised it even warmer to finish. The esters are all formed early. I would think underpitching and underaeration you’d risk more significant off flavors along with those esters. Underpitch and warmer ferment seems to be the universal way to get increased fruity esters with English yeast without the other dreaded negative flavors but I would be hesitant to go over 70 during the first 48 with S-04 personally, although I’ve never done it. If they are using the dry version then they’re probably not aerating as they don’t really need to with dry.

 

[ThePaleAleIndian]

You raise lager yeast temps to clean up negative off flavors from the yeast created by a colder more stressful fermentation. Has nothing to do with esters really. If you fermented the lager yeast warmer you’d get the esters and they would still be there is you raised it even warmer to finish. The esters are all formed early. I would think underpitching and underaeration you’d risk more significant off flavors along with those esters. Underpitch and warmer ferment seems to be the universal way to get increased fruity esters with English yeast without the other dreaded negative flavors but I would be hesitant to go over 70 during the first 48 with S-04 personally, although I’ve never done it. If they are using the dry version then they’re probably not aerating as they don’t really need to with dry.

Yeah, agreed. The literature that I'm familiar with all says that higher temps early drive up ester formation. If you pitch at a low temp and then ramp the temp later, you're suppressing ester formation early on and encouraging the yeast to stay in suspension longer to clean up after itself even more.

I pitched my mix on my attempt with 85% S-04 at ~77F and didn't notice any off flavors at kegging time (except for the hef character of course, but I doubt that's from the S-04).

Since WB-06 is in the mix, these articles may be useful. One is a Beer and Wine Journal article about brewing German wheat beers and has a section about striking the balance you want between the esters and phenols by manipulating, among other things, ferment temps. The other is a Brulosophy xBmt where they did exactly that and ended up with significant results (the author said he couldn't really taste the phenols from the higher ferment temp batch).

http://beerandwinejournal.com/german-wheat-beer-iv/

http://brulosophy.com/2017/08/21/fermentation-temperature-pt-9-wlp300-hefeweizen-ale-yeast/

Going to chill my keg down tonight!!

 

[Jmash]

Is it possible to identify and characterize hops this way?

 

[mrodrigues9]

Wow finally reached the end of this took me about a week of reading to make it here, fascinating stuff guys keep it up!

For you guys that have used just s-04 in your NE IPAs what temp did you ferment at? going to try me next brew with s-04 to get a baseline and then will try the blend after that

 

[mrodrigues9]

also I have pictures I took at the brewery a few weeks ago would this be any help to you guys? not sure if it could help identify what they are using but to my knowledge there was nothing strange it did seem that the fermentors they were using seemed a bit small but maybe i just expected too much

 

[NJGeorge]

So here’s a pic of the beer carbonated and in the fridge for two days. It’s an interesting beer. The malt and hop profile is very muted, but still an easy drinking beer. Slight Belgian taste. Very similar to my first try with these yeasts a few months back. How do I get a better malt taste? This one is 2 row, carafoam and a touch of L10 and honey malt. Mashed at 154. Also beer is not oxydized and came out darker than expected.

 

[TheHairyHop]

maybe I'm being overly reactive about this, but I have no idea how any of you are tasting malt in a TH beer. Fresh TH is overly redolent with hop flavor. I really doubt the malt bill is anything more complicated than base malt, something for color and something for body

edit: er, I should clarify that I'm talking about their IPAs. They definitely have plenty of beers where the malt comes through or is otherwise the focus. Unfortunately, I've yet to have their more famous stouts

 

[NJGeorge]

maybe I'm being overly reactive about this, but I have no idea how any of you are tasting malt in a TH beer. Fresh TH is overly redolent with hop flavor. I really doubt the malt bill is anything more complicated than base malt, something for color and something for body

I don't know man. Every tree house beer I have had (and Ive had A LOT and fresh from the source) has a great malt flavor. It tastes honestly like how the wort smells when boiling it (How do I get that flavor?). Its just so well balanced. None of my home brewed beers produce a commercial malt flavor profile. I don't know why and will be experimenting with other malts like Vienna and Munich. Their yeast combo must help bring out the malt flavor as well.

Edit: Just to add, I been drinking Firestone Walker Luptonic Destortion #007, and I taste a malt in that beer that is very similar to tree house. If you haven't tried that beer, I would definitely give it a go.

 

[ThePaleAleIndian]

Yeah, I agree that at least some fresh TH IPAs have a strong malt backbone. I haven't had Julius in forever, but I have had Haze, Green and Sap recently. All three of them gave me a stronger impression of bready malt than any other NEIPAs I've had, certainly more so than the ones I've made with 1318. I perceived the Haze as having less malt than the others.

Actually I kind of thought it must be the S-04. Don't know though.

 

[ThePaleAleIndian]

So here’s a pic of the beer carbonated and in the fridge for two days. It’s an interesting beer. The malt and hop profile is very muted, but still an easy drinking beer. Slight Belgian taste. Very similar to my first try with these yeasts a few months back. How do I get a better malt taste? This one is 2 row, carafoam and a touch of L10 and honey malt. Mashed at 154. Also beer is not oxydized and came out darker than expected.

Looks delicious!

I am just a couple of days behind you. I'm going to chill my kegged CBC-1 conditioned batch starting tonight and pour my first pint of it probably Saturday.

I'll report back on how my malt character comes out and maybe we can compare notes.

 

[Jmash]

So here’s a pic of the beer carbonated and in the fridge for two days. It’s an interesting beer. The malt and hop profile is very muted, but still an easy drinking beer. Slight Belgian taste. Very similar to my first try with these yeasts a few months back. How do I get a better malt taste? This one is 2 row, carafoam and a touch of L10 and honey malt. Mashed at 154. Also beer is not oxydized and came out darker than expected.

I noticed this too with this 3 dry yeast mix. Everything else I used was the same as my normal recipe and it definitely came out darker.

 

[TheHairyHop]

there's another thread that noticed the same beers brewed with Conan vs 1318 came out darker and tasted as if oxidized. It could certainly be a yeast issue. It also can't be ignored that some yeast take much longer to fully flocc, and a yeasty beer tends to be paler. Additionally, hops get oxidized suuuper easily. So, can you be absolutely certain everything was the same? Unless it's the same hops, applied at the same gravity, with the same etc., it can be kind of hard to nail down.

 

[TheHairyHop]

Yeah, I agree that at least some fresh TH IPAs have a strong malt backbone. I haven't had Julius in forever, but I have had Haze, Green and Sap recently. All three of them gave me a stronger impression of bready malt than any other NEIPAs I've had, certainly more so than the ones I've made with 1318. I perceived the Haze as having less malt than the others.

Actually I kind of thought it must be the S-04. Don't know though.

everyone's a snowflake, so we'll all perceive things differently. It might not be a coincidence that the group of friends that I drink TH with tends to never mention malt flavor. I'll keep an eye out the next time I'm visiting home. That being said, some yeasts are advertised as bringing out "malt flavor" in beer, so it could be the S-04...

 

[overthebarsbrewing]

what is your S04 to T-58 yeast ratio?

I've done ratios of 75/25 to 86/14 for S-04/T-58 when it's just been the two of them.

 

[ThePaleAleIndian]

everyone's a snowflake, so we'll all perceive things differently. It might not be a coincidence that the group of friends that I drink TH with tends to never mention malt flavor. I'll keep an eye out the next time I'm visiting home. That being said, some yeasts are advertised as bringing out "malt flavor" in beer, so it could be the S-04...

For sure, yeah. Tbh I'm not usually focusing on the malt flavor in IPAs in general (go figure haha). The only reason I picked up on this was probably that I did a side by side with my last 1318 NEIPA, and that malt really surprised me. Also surprised me how much I liked it, because that last 1318 beer that I made was pretty well received by friends and family (and yours truly).

 

[overthebarsbrewing]

Seems far more likely that those are indeed their temps vs a daily routine meant only to troll customers with a zoom lens.

I do agree that it is more likely that they were real. But, IIRC, didn't the person who posted those pics (might have been you?) also indicate that they had the temp displays taped over on another occasion that they visited?

I wouldn't put it past Nate...he can troll w/ the best of them on their twitter account occasionally. And they are notorious for being super-secretive and intentionally vague.

 

[TheHairyHop]

I've really had a hunch that they practice ultra low dissolved oxygen practices all the way through their process. Mash to canning. Whether or not that actually amps up malt flavor is up for some serious debate, but I will say that their darker beers (the ones I've had) tend to have intense roasted/caramel malt flavor that I find a little off putting. This could be a result of low oxygen mashing. I know that the guys at the German beer forums claim this to be a result

 

[NJGeorge]

Next time you guys drink a can of tree house, let the can sit out for a few minutes and then smell the inside of it. One of the best beer aromas EVER. You really smell the malt, yeast and hops of course. Same thing with Trillium. Smells so freaking good once the inside of the can dries up a bit Haha

 

[SanPancho]

You raise lager yeast temps to clean up negative off flavors from the yeast created by a colder more stressful fermentation. Has nothing to do with esters really. .

It does actually. Esterase degrades esters and in our experience is temperature driven. Our assumption is that is cleaning up esters. The other possible path is that more activity drives off volatiles We dont have gas chromatography so no way to know. So while a drest (what i assume you refer to) is focused towards unwanted byproducts that isnt the only reason to raise temps.

Although to be fair i should have given a bit more detail. Timing is the other variable. Our 3-4 house strains of lager get a short (1-3 day) hold at temp, then get to free rise until its time for dry hop. We dont do drest specifically but dry hop is basically at drest temps so i guess you could say that qualifies as a drest.

Very clean and low ester beer. When we want estery character for something like a traditional german stlye we just hold at low temp the whole time, until nearly at FG, then drest. Marked difference in ester levels.

The point of my original post is that in lagers in commercial setting we use higher temps to drop ester levels. But at home, in my few ales ive seemed to get great aromas but lose them in the beer. And higher temps seem to make this worse. Too active of a ferment drives off volatile esters? No head or hydro pressure? I dont know the answer, but i know im not the only one who experiences it. Wish i knew why. The aroma is great, i wish it stayed in the beer.

 

[ThePaleAleIndian]

So here it is. It actually looks a lot lighter in my living room than this, but I felt obligated to do a TH style pic haha.

Overall it certainly reminds me of a TH beer, and I definitely see how this is the yeast combo they are using.

The aroma and flavor of this batch reminds me of Sap. Definitely more clove than Sap, but much, much less than at kegging time on this beer. It has enough hop character that I am reconsidering re-hopping gyle at kegging time. Huge hop aroma and as TH puts it on their website "saturated hop oil finish." The finish has some bready malt in it, kind of like TH but not as much. The esters compliment the hops a lot, although there is still a little too much clove phenol. It's also too tart compared to a TH beer.

This was a 5 gal batch, 6 gal to primary:
67% pils malt
12% red wheat malt
8% toasted unmalted wheat berries
4% homemade crystal wheat malt
4% toasted Marris Otter (10 min @ 350F)
4% acidulated malt

O.G. 1.062
F.G. 1.018 (at kegging time)

85.5% S-04, 7.5% WB-06, 7% T-58
11.5 g S-04, math for the percentages

Pitched at 77F, no temp control at 68-72 F ambient.

2 g CBC-1 for conditioning.

Intensified double decoction mash (pull two thirds, then one third).

Sacch. rest pH 5.2.

I think for next time I will make the following changes:

1) No wheat, 100% barley, probably do a golden promise base with some carafoam and some Munich.
2) No acidification of the mash. I have heard S-04 is a big acid producer, I can definitely believe that.
3) Go to like 2.5% WB-06 and 5% T-58.
4) Drop my pitch rate by a third or so.
5) Still on the fence about re-hopping my gyle/speise.
6) Cut my gyle quantity by a third or so.

View attachment 1508619559814.jpg

 

[The_Dirty_Spring]

@ThePaleAleIndian that looks beautiful.

What are y'all's methods to reduce oxidation introduced through dry hopping, if not pitched with fermentables? I fear this is a weakness in my process, and I sometimes try to purge my pellets with CO2 before pitching, but it seems less than effective.

 

[ThePaleAleIndian]

@ThePaleAleIndian that looks beautiful.

What are y'all's methods to reduce oxidation introduced through dry hopping, if not pitched with fermentables? I fear this is a weakness in my process, and I sometimes try to purge my pellets with CO2 before pitching, but it seems less than effective.

Thanks!

In my case, I dry hop my NEIPAs in primary with some fermentation left to go. I figure the active yeast will scavenge any O2 I introduce with the hops. With this dry yeast blend, that ended up being ~24 hours post pitch (IME it was more like 48 hours with liquid 1318). Also, for this one I naturally carbonated in the keg and threw in some more dry hops there, although I guess that technically qualifies as pitching with fermentables. Didn't transfer to a serving keg on this one, I want to see if I can get away with it.

 

[Jwin]

I saw something on Instagram that got me thinking. I can't find the pic now, but it was a brewer adding a dry hop to a NEIPA. He had a 1L or so PET bottle with tape on it that said MAXHAZE. Inside, was Green hop liquid funk stuff. Looked pretty thick.
Got me thinking as to what was happening there. Gave me the idea (not sure if this is what was happening) to maybe steep dryhops in boiled wort. Maybe in that 160° range, or even a bit lower. But, add the warm wort to the hops inside a sealed container, like said PET bottle. Squeeze out all air.
Seems like you could accomplish a few things in doing so.
1)added fermentation with dryhop to help drive off o2
2)much better release of Hop oils into solution, and better utilization
3)by sealing them up, you could potentially keep aroma in tact better
4)this could also be inoculated with a secondary yeast strain(t58?) And brought just to fermentation within the bottle, -or- the warm wort could also be used to rehydrate the secondary yeast. By letting a yeast like t58 work for a few hours at higher temps, it should have some ester production fairly quickly. Adding it to an active fermentation won't cause much reproduction as it will be greatly outnumbered by the primary strain already.

This kinda echos back to my previous idea of blending wort, not yeast.
I'm sure one could also toy with the bottled wort components to aid in haze formation.
Also, I see no reason that, for the sake of ease, why this couldn't be a stovetop, no boil, 15-20 minute mash. Doing so could possibly contribute some extra proteins for the Hop oils to cling too.

Just some thoughts.

 

[quijiba]

Obviously I can't see the pic, but it may just be a hop slurry of sorts. I know I like to make a hop slurry for cryo specifically because it's hard to get that crap into solution (but boy does it taste great once you do), and I find it gives much better extraction that way. Just another thought

I saw something on Instagram that got me thinking. I can't find the pic now, but it was a brewer adding a dry hop to a NEIPA. He had a 1L or so PET bottle with tape on it that said MAXHAZE. Inside, was Green hop liquid funk stuff. Looked pretty thick.
Got me thinking as to what was happening there. Gave me the idea (not sure if this is what was happening) to maybe steep dryhops in boiled wort. Maybe in that 160° range, or even a bit lower. But, add the warm wort to the hops inside a sealed container, like said PET bottle. Squeeze out all air.
Seems like you could accomplish a few things in doing so.
1)added fermentation with dryhop to help drive off o2
2)much better release of Hop oils into solution, and better utilization
3)by sealing them up, you could potentially keep aroma in tact better
4)this could also be inoculated with a secondary yeast strain(t58?) And brought just to fermentation within the bottle, -or- the warm wort could also be used to rehydrate the secondary yeast. By letting a yeast like t58 work for a few hours at higher temps, it should have some ester production fairly quickly. Adding it to an active fermentation won't cause much reproduction as it will be greatly outnumbered by the primary strain already.

This kinda echos back to my previous idea of blending wort, not yeast.
I'm sure one could also toy with the bottled wort components to aid in haze formation.
Also, I see no reason that, for the sake of ease, why this couldn't be a stovetop, no boil, 15-20 minute mash. Doing so could possibly contribute some extra proteins for the Hop oils to cling too.

Just some thoughts.

 

[skibb]

Yeah sounds like CryoHops to me - you have to mix them fairly thoroughly before adding them to the FV (dumping them on top like a normal DH will not adequately mix them into solution).

 

[couchsending]

The pic you saw was on either Trillium or one of the Other Half guys Instagram stories I believe so it’s not there anymore. Pretty sure it was a joke but I could be wrong. I have heard that some guys are now using a centrifuge to inject hop oils into beer. I’m not sure exactly how it’s done but supposedly filling the fuge with a large slurry and spinning off the oils then injecting it into FV or Brite. Maybe it’s just a way to get Lupulin powder into suspension? I don’t know. I know Trillium has one not sure if TH does on their new system. Aren’t they like $250k? Heard the quote once, can’t remeber.

 

[-Matteo-]

I know Trillium has one not sure if TH does on their new system. Aren’t they like $250k? Heard the quote once, can’t remeber.

Trillium: https://www.instagram.com/p/BLQ6uVMjRNS/
Dryhopnik:

 

[Jwin]

Didn't think about it being cryo hops...

 

[NJGeorge]

I'm going to try the slurry method when I keg a recent IPA this week. Just going to mix well 2oz of hops into my priming sugar and yeast and pitch into a purged keg, perge again and close transfer beer in. Also going to test my home made Clear Beer Draught System so I don't suck up any hops. First time carbonating with dry hops in the keg (warm).

 

[NJGeorge]

Any new updates on any of your guys beers?

 

[couchsending]

That system is just a dry hop torpedo of sorts... I'm talking about a full on centrifuge, that's way different.

I don't know about the pellets but with the powder you have to create some sort of slurry, it's really hard to get it into solution at all. I've only used it in powder form but have some of the cryo pellets to try at some time although I'm not a big fan of the beers that I've tried that use a lot of the cry personally.

 

[TheHairyHop]

@ThePaleAleIndian that looks beautiful.

What are y'all's methods to reduce oxidation introduced through dry hopping, if not pitched with fermentables?

there's nothing you can really do other than have fermentables. If you don't want to do a remaining gravity method, you could either add some DME wort, grain wort or sugar. There is SMB, but that will produce sulfur

 

[melville]

Any new updates on any of your guys beers?

View attachment ppetmp.jpg

Galaxy, El Dorado, Simcoe. Very tasty and my softest effort yet. Went with 225 on the Chloride.

 

[Sbe2]

View attachment 418327

Galaxy, El Dorado, Simcoe. Very tasty and my softest effort yet. Went with 225 on the Chloride.

Rahr 2 row and carafoam?

 

[melville]

More random thoughts.
1. Maybe (amongst other reasons) they ferment at low temps in an effort to reduce the twang/tart thing that S-04 brings.
2. Use of a "money" hop — a hop they use throughout their core beers that helps add signature flavor that we might confuse with esters. Was listening to a podcast where the brewer of (greenpoint, LIC, or Equilibrium couldn't tell whom) said they use Cascade in just about every beer. (We know Nate is partial to Warrior extract for bittering and flavor additions on the hots side for example).
3. Julius: "mango, peach, passionfruit, and a melange of citrus juice" Mango, peach, and passionfruit are consistent with other Tree House descriptions that include Citra and Amarillo. Cascade=citrus. (Used to have an all Cascade IPA. Julius was All Citra IPA. Amarillo is one of Nate's faves.)
4. Speaking of extract, started using that like 7 beers ago — huge improvement to the bitterness profile of my beers, wish I could find other hop varieties though.