Old Ale yeast

[DesertDog]

Hello all, thanks in advance for any help.

I am making an Old Ale and I need a good yeast. The recipe calls for WY1318 London Ale III but my local shop doesn't carry it. He suggested WLP007 but I'm not sure. Researching possibilities I found WY9097 that sounded very interesting but I can't find it anywhere. I've also found WY1728. Now I don't know what I want. My preferences tend towards Porters , Scottish Ales, and Dry Irish Stouts. Does anyone recommend any of the above or have an even better suggestion? After this all I need is to find a few oz. of Briess Extra Special.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Sounds like you may be working on Weikert's Make Your Best (Amazon) Old Ale? I've got a batch conditioning right now.

If you follow the recipe, you're pitching and fermenting at a rather low temperature. You're not getting much flavor from the yeast. I'd say any British yeast with about the same attenuation would be just fine.

 

[DesertDog]

Sounds like you may be working on Weikert's Make Your Best (Amazon) Old Ale? I've got a batch conditioning right now.

If you follow the recipe, you're pitching and fermenting at a rather low temperature. You're not getting much flavor from the yeast. I'd say any British yeast with about the same attenuation would be just fine.

That is the recipe I'm using.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Yeah, I wouldn't sweat it too much. 1318 is Weikert's default English strain, not really chosen specifically for this recipe. He has you fermenting at 60°F, 4° cooler than Wyeast's listed temp range. At that temp there's really very little flavor contribution.

That said, maybe you can find Lallemand Verdant IPA. It's a dry variant of 1318.

You may have noticed this...

There's the Make Your Best Old Ale article, but also the Amazon Old Ale recipe. Same beer. I think the Amazon recipe has some mistakes (Special Roast vs Extra Special, for example), but it has better detail as far as target OG and ferm temps.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I am making an Old Ale and I need a good yeast. The recipe calls for WY1318 London Ale III

Think like a British brewer - they don't have a particular yeast for the Old Ale, they just use their house yeast. So don't get too hung up on it, just use any good British yeast.

One thing that people tend to get confused by (and the BJCP really doesn't help) is that the idea of an Old Ale varies depending where you are in the UK. In southern England, it's effectively a kind of mild, or what might have happened to the old stock ales after going through the reductions in ABV experienced by other British beers - Harvey's Old Ale is perhaps the benchmark and it's only 3.6% bottled, 4.3% in cask. They tend to have more overt signs of ageing.

Whereas your recipe seems to be more like northern old ales like Old Peculier, which are much stronger and rely more on the flavour of dark sugars. Having said that, a pound of treacle, at least Lyle's treacle, seems way too much. I'd probably dilute it 3:1 with golden syrup, or make my own invert #3 or #4. Proper treacle goes a long way, it's a strong taste.

Also don't get too hung up on speciality ingredients like Extra Special - no British brewer buys from Briess, it's just an approximation to the kind of malts that are available in the UK. Simpsons DRC is great for this kind of thing but a lot of them just use crystal, dark sugar, a bit of black malt for colour and then maybe a bit of roast barley or chocolate, nothing very complicated. So much of British brewing is not captured in a recipe, there's a lot of contribution from the process rather than the ingredients.

So you want a decent contribution from your yeast, so don't ferment too cool and don't let it clean up after itself too much. The British yeasts available from the typical homebrew labs are generally pale shadows of the ones that actually get used in British breweries, but the likes of 1469 or WLP041 (British despite the name) would be reasonable places to start - and don't worry about using Brett in northern old ales.

 

[DBhomebrew]

That pound of Lyle's treacle is another mistake on that Amazon Old Ale recipe. The MYB article calls for a half pound.

[Edit: I reached out to the website for clarification on the amount of treacle. Weikert responded that the Amazon recipe is written as he brews it, a full pound of treacle. When he wrote the MYB article he knocked the treacle down by half to prevent readers from overdoing it, figuring readers could add more if they liked and wanted more of that character. His editor amended the MYB article to call for a half pound, up to 16oz.

He also confirmed that the Special Roast on the Amazon recipe should be Extra Special. That has been fixed on the webpage as well.]

It could be noted that in the MYB article Weikert is quite upfront that his recipe is not traditional. His claim to fame is having medaled in each of the BJCP categories. His recipes are built toward that end.

 

[DesertDog]

Thanks for all the suggestions, I'll definitely keep them in mind as I'm doing this. I have found what I need and I'll make this either this weekend or next. I'm going to stick fairly close to the recipe this time and if I like it I might tweak it a bit for another batch. I'm hoping for something nice and roasty to warm me up on a winter night. This will also be my first attempt at liquid yeast and a starter.