White Labs Yeast Vault

[ba-brewer]

Random, but I've tried brewing Young's Special Bitter with both WLP033 and WY1768 (multiple times), both of which are supposedly the Young's strain, and have not been crazy happy with any of them. Much too clean, no real top cropping ability, and lacks the characteristic ethyl heptanoate note of the real stuff. Fast forward, kegged a bitter made with WLP030 this week and first taste was "holy **** this tastes like Young's!"

The mouthfeel of WLP030 is also terrific, will be interesting to see how it ages, but I definitely plan to use it to brew some Youngs clones.

WLP030 has come across very clean for me and cant seem to get consistent attenuations. Attenuation also in the low to mid 60s not the mid 70s like the webpage suggests, but I did get a 69% attenuation once. What kind of attenuation did you get?

Had to look up ethyl heptanoate, I occasionally get a subtle grape like flavor from my pale lagers and figured it was esters until I seen some people saying it can comes from acid malt. I only use acid malt in my pale lagers so the last one I used lactic acid in the mash instead to see if that was the cause of the grape flavor.
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[ba-brewer]

Made a small 1L starter for a vial of WLP026 premium bitters. It has been almost 2 hour and it still looks like pebbles tumbling around the beaker, and the wort is still very clear. This has to be the most compacted yeast I have used.

 

[kmarkstevens]

WLP026 - no kidding. FYI, that stuff stuck like glue to the Erlenmeyer flask when I tried to decant. Avoid if you can gently pouring out to leave the magnetic stirrer behind. Just dump it all in and remember to get the magnet out later.

 

[Franktalk]

Random, but I've tried brewing Young's Special Bitter with both WLP033 and WY1768 (multiple times), both of which are supposedly the Young's strain, and have not been crazy happy with any of them. Much too clean, no real top cropping ability, and lacks the characteristic ethyl heptanoate note of the real stuff. Fast forward, kegged a bitter made with WLP030 this week and first taste was "holy **** this tastes like Young's!"

The mouthfeel of WLP030 is also terrific, will be interesting to see how it ages, but I definitely plan to use it to brew some Youngs clones.

I have to agree with you about the mouthfeel of 030. I brewed a Courage Director's Bitter clone with it, and it's the most "British" tasting beer I have ever made. Love it!

 

[ba-brewer]

WLP026 - no kidding. FYI, that stuff stuck like glue to the Erlenmeyer flask when I tried to decant. Avoid if you can gently pouring out to leave the magnetic stirrer behind. Just dump it all in and remember to get the magnet out later.

Did your starter stay as little clumps?

It has been like 14hrs now and still little jelly doughnut things bouncing around the bottom. There has been a small amount of foam on top for a while and it does look like there are more than when I started so I think there is growth just weird that the wort never turned milky looking.

 

[bierhaus15]

Other pictures of WLP026 on stir plates look the same, very chunky. A few other UK yeasts are like that out of the tube, although I find it curious that they do not behave the same way after repitching. It could be that White Labs is adding a lot of zinc to the propagation wort and hence the yeast is very thick and chunky at first.

 

[ba-brewer]

Other pictures of WLP026 on stir plates look the same, very chunky. A few other UK yeasts are like that out of the tube, although I find it curious that they do not behave the same way after repitching. It could be that White Labs is adding a lot of zinc to the propagation wort and hence the yeast is very thick and chunky at first.

I did some looking at previous posts a few weeks ago but missed the "ugly yeast thread". I guess I just focused on the comments that wlp026 may need extra time to condition.

The little doughnut thing seemed familiar, and it looks like I had similar round clumps in wlp037 but it also had yeast in suspension with more common egg drop soup stuff. I plan to do another batch with wlp037 when I get done with the latest vault purchases, will be curious to see if makes doughnuts again.

 

[couchsending]

Brewing my third batch with WLp030 today. They’re not “British” beers per se but I’ve been fairly happy with them so far. Only one has been trapped so far. Mouthfeel is nice and doesn’t seem to accentuate malt too much. Hopefully get 5 or 6 beers out of one vial before I have to prop the other one up.

Kolsch I made with wlp072 is tasting really promising. Really cool malt character came through with a touch of fruit.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Did your starter stay as little clumps?

It has been like 14hrs now and still little jelly doughnut things bouncing around the bottom. There has been a small amount of foam on top for a while and it does look like there are more than when I started so I think there is growth just weird that the wort never turned milky looking.

I've only done one batch and didn't take pictures. As I remember, no, it de-clumpified in the stir plate. When finished and pouring into tubes for refridgeration, the chunks were much smaller than your photo. More like medium sized cottage cheese curds (or about 1/4-1/2 as large as your photo). But they really clung to the Erlenmeyer flask like rats to a sinking ship. I tilted, shook, swirled, etc and left behind a lot more than I wanted to.

anyway, hope your chunks start budding and reproducing

 

[smata67]

You really need to take care of the clumping at the vial stage. The WLP075 (Hansen Ale) I got was also clumping like rock in the vial, would not even pour out. I added some boiled distilled water (at room temperature) and broke this up with a bamboo skewer prior to pitching into the starter.

 

[ba-brewer]

thanks @kmarkstevens. I am pretty sure there is growth as it looks like much more clumps than when I started. Must be a tight knit bunch. Kind of hard to tell the size of the clumps but I think they are the size of small curd cottage cheese. Some actually almost look like cheerios.

I use a more open beaker so I can use something to easily scrap out any cling-ons.

@smata67 normally yeast should naturally de-floc when added to wort. My wlp075 was chunky too but separated on it own then turned into egg drop soup before I took it off the plate.

After reviewing my notes wlp037 did the same thing and according to the DNA map they are on a common branch. I see post of people getting pretty high attenuation with wlp026 too which matches wlp037.

I plan to only use half the yeast so if it has problems I will rebuild the other half and try to get it to de-floc.

 

[kmarkstevens]

thanks @kmarkstevens
After reviewing my notes wlp037 did the same thing and according to the DNA map they are on a common branch. I see post of people getting pretty high attenuation with wlp026 too which matches wlp037.

I find WLP026 and WLP037 to be very different taste wise. The Yorkie Squares had POF seemingly at random all over the place. I did 3-4 batches. One would have POF that would fade in the bottle, another would be clean only to develop POF. I surrendered to that yeast as being beyond my modest brewing abilities. To tame that beast and figure out the right type of aeration would have taken an awful lot of effort for something repeatable and no inkling if the end result would actually be palatable.

 

[ba-brewer]

I find WLP026 and WLP037 to be very different taste wise. The Yorkie Squares had POF seemingly at random all over the place. I did 3-4 batches. One would have POF that would fade in the bottle, another would be clean only to develop POF. I surrendered to that yeast as being beyond my modest brewing abilities. To tame that beast and figure out the right type of aeration would have taken an awful lot of effort for something repeatable and no inkling if the end result would actually be palatable.

From the post I found here on HBT is seem wlp026 makes a good beer but needs some time condition. I see posts saying the beer was a bit hot at first then mellowed. Also seems like it may have attenuated a bit further than the published specs. Does that match your experience?

The little curds started to merge into bigger clumps at about 24hrs so I took the starter off of the stir plate. Did not take long for them to all melt into a single layer.

 

[suregork]

From the post I found here on HBT is seem wlp026 makes a good beer but needs some time condition. I see posts saying the beer was a bit hot at first then mellowed. Also seems like it may have attenuated a bit further than the published specs. Does that match your experience?

The little curds started to merge into bigger clumps at about 24hrs so I took the starter off of the stir plate. Did not take long for them to all melt into a single layer.

I've gotten over 90% attenuation all four times I've used WLP026. Gravity from 1.060 down to around 1.004. Fermentation temperature was twice at 20C, twice at 12C. WLP026 is diastatic (has the STA1 gene), and it has the full STA1 promoter sequence (so the STA1 gene is expressed at 'normal' levels).

 

[ba-brewer]

I've gotten over 90% attenuation all four times I've used WLP026. Gravity from 1.060 down to around 1.004. Fermentation temperature was twice at 20C, twice at 12C. WLP026 is diastatic (has the STA1 gene), and it has the full STA1 promoter sequence (so the STA1 gene is expressed at 'normal' levels).

How was the mouth feel and body?

I got about 90% attenuation the one time I used wlp037, 1044 to 1004.5, but the beer did not seem water or dry. Wondering if the wlp026 yeast behaves similarly.

 

[ba-brewer]

I've gotten over 90% attenuation all four times I've used WLP026. Gravity from 1.060 down to around 1.004. Fermentation temperature was twice at 20C, twice at 12C. WLP026 is diastatic (has the STA1 gene), and it has the full STA1 promoter sequence (so the STA1 gene is expressed at 'normal' levels).

How was the mouth feel and body?

I got about 90% attenuation the one time I used wlp037, 1044 to 1004.5, but the beer did not seem watery or dry. Wondering if the wlp026 yeast behaves similarly.

 

[bierhaus15]

WLP030 has come across very clean for me and cant seem to get consistent attenuations. Attenuation also in the low to mid 60s not the mid 70s like the webpage suggests, but I did get a 69% attenuation once. What kind of attenuation did you get?

Updates: Well a few weeks later and the flavor of the first bitter with WLP030 is very clean and pleasantly dry. Served on C02. The lovely, full mouthfeel has also mostly dissipated and the result is a clean/neutral flavored bitter. Brilliant clarity, good malt/hop definition, and no diacetyl. Overall nice beer, but no Young's flavor.

Tapped the second keg of WLP030 bitter (second gen yeast) on Friday and served on the beer engine. Flavor is much more British, some fruity esters, clean, dry, good flocculation-brilliant clarity. Not as much lollipop fruitiness but the mouthfeel is smooth. Reduced pitching rate- 02 and cask conditioning helped. Still cleaner than I would like.

Now on to WLP026...

 

[ba-brewer]

I've gotten over 90% attenuation all four times I've used WLP026. Gravity from 1.060 down to around 1.004. Fermentation temperature was twice at 20C, twice at 12C. WLP026 is diastatic (has the STA1 gene), and it has the full STA1 promoter sequence (so the STA1 gene is expressed at 'normal' levels).

Since reading your comments I keep wondering how this yeast could be used or tamed in a commercial brewery. I know @Northern_Brewer says north English ales are a bit drier but 1060 to 1004 seems a bit low. Also 12C being in the cellar temp range seems problematic. Being used in a multi yeast culture also seems problematic. Curious what other think.


I have my first attempt with wlp029 brewing now, 2.5days and only 60% attenuation. I mashed at 156 and had 10% crystal malt, hoping that will slows it down a little so I can cold crash to stop the yeast when it reaches a gravity I like. I had a diastaticus contamination once and that yeast did not continue to attenuate when I kegged the beer at 45F, hopefully wlp026 behaves the same.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I find WLP026 and WLP037 to be very different taste wise. The Yorkie Squares had POF seemingly at random all over the place.

We know WLP037 and WLP038 are POF+ "saisons", whereas WLP026 is a POF- member of the same family. Annoyingly I've had my hands full lately and haven't had a chance to try and grab any of the Vault releases, I may have to see what's left but at least if there are some left, the temperatures are more suitable for shipping. WLP026 seems particularly intriguing.

Since reading your comments I keep wondering how this yeast could be used or tamed in a commercial brewery. I know @Northern_Brewer says north English ales are a bit drier but 1060 to 1004 seems a bit low.

It's hard to compare as not much in the UK gets brewed at 1.060, but eg 1971 Boddies went from 1.0355 to 1.003 for an apparent attenuation of 91.6%, and the 1987 version went from 1.034 to 1.006. From WWII to the late 1970s they were routinely getting diastatic-type attenuations of 88-92%, a lot of breweries cleaned up their yeast and reduced them down to just 1-2 strains as they moved to conicals in the late 1970s.

I guess you could do tricks to reduce fermentability, playing with mash temperatures/pH etc?

 

[ba-brewer]

It's hard to compare as not much in the UK gets brewed at 1.060, but eg 1971 Boddies went from 1.0355 to 1.003 for an apparent attenuation of 91.6%, and the 1987 version went from 1.034 to 1.006. From WWII to the late 1970s they were routinely getting diastatic-type attenuations of 88-92%, a lot of breweries cleaned up their yeast and reduced them down to just 1-2 strains as they moved to conicals in the late 1970s.

I guess you could do tricks to reduce fermentability, playing with mash temperatures/pH etc?

I did recall there was a time that Boddingtons had a higher attenuation but thought it was for a shorter period of time, thanks for clarifing.

I am under the impression given enough time (and favorable conditions) diastaticus yeast would make its way through all of the normally unfermentable sugars. I am most likely over simplifying how yeast function but it seems like yeast work on sugars in a particular order so I am hoping they don't start on the dextrin and starches until after all of the easy stuff is gone. The high mash temp was mostly wishful thinking to hopefully get a little time to pick a favorable FG. 3.5 days post pitch and only 66% attenuation I might have gotten lucky.

MrMalty has WLP026 associated with marstons, I found a comments from 2011 that marstons still uses a "cleansing" step to help separate yeast from the beer. Maybe getting the beer off the yeast early helps control the attenuation as well as the clearing of the beer.
https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2011/05/messrs-salt-and-co-part-three.html

 

[Northern_Brewer]

MrMalty has WLP026 associated with marstons, I found a comments from 2011 that marstons still uses a "cleansing" step to help separate yeast from the beer. Maybe getting the beer off the yeast early helps control the attenuation as well as the clearing of the beer.

You have to remember that Burton was all about exporting beer via the tropics, which means they were obsessed with fully attenuating beer in the brewery so that there was no sugar left for infections to take hold in the warmth of the journey and cause gushers en route. In order to achieve these high attenuations, they were prepared to put up with yeast that kept working rather than floccing out, which meant that they wanted a very different kind of yeast to the usual kind of British yeast which is designed to drop cleanly in cask. But then they had the problem of how to separate out these poor-floccing-but-high-attenuating yeasts, and hence the Burton Union was born, it's primarily a yeast management system to help clean up the beer.

 

[ba-brewer]

Keg my wlp026 Best bitter yesterday, got just under 80% attenuation, 1044 to 1009.
5 days at 67F, 2 days at 62F then dropped temp to 40F and kegged 3 days later.
Sampled the cold beer before kegging, getting a light banana like flavor. Fermentor smelled more like apple and pear, yeast very compacted.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Hey, I checked with the very helpful White Labs email guy Russell when any of vault strains left over from the purge might be available. His feedback was:

"Not yet, but very soon actually, we plan on unveiling the new vault preorder system. It'll all be on yeastman.com, so if you don't have an account there yet, you can do so. I don't have a go live date for when the preorders will reopen, but should be this month"
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@ba-brewer how is your Best Bitter coming along or is it all gone by now?

 

[ba-brewer]

It is still conditioning, will give it another week or so before I tap it.

I have been using a minimalist approach to brewing my british beers lately, mostly base malt and not much late addition hops. Been doing a slightly longer conditioning time too. The longer conditioning time is helping me pick up more of the yeast character.

 

[ba-brewer]

Hey, I checked with the very helpful White Labs email guy Russell when any of vault strains left over from the purge might be available. His feedback was:

"Not yet, but very soon actually, we plan on unveiling the new vault preorder system. It'll all be on yeastman.com, so if you don't have an account there yet, you can do so. I don't have a go live date for when the preorders will reopen, but should be this month"
​

@ba-brewer how is your Best Bitter coming along or is it all gone by now?

Finally tapped that keg of beer that was fermented with wlp026. Getting some fruity esters, kind of banana-ish in aroma and flavor. It has a cream soda like flavor too, not sure what the generic flavor would be, maybe vanilla. There could be some vanilla in the aroma as well. First couple glasses seem to have some diacetyl but I don't notice it now. It only has 28IBU but the bitterness seems a bit higher. The beer seems a bit thin, 1044 to 1009 which is not too dry. Seems like wlp026 might do well with a beer you want the hops to come through.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Not surprising that one gets banana from a saison-type yeast. As an aside, the Brewlab Devon-1 is notorious for giving banana, it's supposedly from Hanlons - they certainly have a bit of a reputation for banana in their beers - so I suspect it must be a similar yeast.

The vanilla is perhaps not so surprising either - vanillin is made from coumaric acid via the phenylpropanoid pathway, like ferulic acid. So if a yeast is POF- and so lacks the enzymes to convert ferulic acid and similar compounds into 4-VG and similar compounds, it's perhaps not surprising that some of that pathway gets funnelled into vanillin.

BU:GU of 0.63 is kinda low for a best, even down south, so a bit more bitterness is no bad thing... 80% apparent attenuation is on the high-ish side though, and would suit BU:GU more in the 80+% range IMO.

 

[ba-brewer]

Thanks for the explanation of the vanilla flavor @Northern_Brewer . This is the first time I have ever picked that up in a beer, then when I look up vanilla I noticed the artificial stuff was made with phenolic compounds which got me nervous of another contamination.

I normally shoot for mid 30s IBU for my best bitters, but after seeing the report of super attenuation I did reduce it some to account for lack of residual sugar to balance it out.

Normally not a fan of banana but the flavor is not that intense so I actually don't mind it. In general I am pleased with the beer and yeast and will give it another try with more late hops. ​

 

[Franktalk]

I love the vanilla ester? flavor in beers. I just finished a saison that I made with BE-134 and it had a very subtle vanilla along with clove, cinnamon and pepper--delicious. I also get vanilla from Spencer Trappist ale which is very popular around here. Also, I'll be making more beers with the BE-134.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I love the vanilla ester? flavor in beers.

As above - it's not an ester, technically it's 2-Methoxy-4-formylphenol in old money, a phenolic aldehyde. Hence it's linked to the phenol pathways typical of saison yeast, except WLP026 is apparently unique among the homebrew yeasts in being a saison-type yeast that has a POF- mutation in the phenolic genes, so you'd expect its phenol metabolism to be a bit weird. Hence vanilla.

Esters tend to give you the non-citrus fruit flavours - banana, pear drops etc

 

[Franktalk]

Ah, I see. Thank you for the clarification.

 

[ba-brewer]

I was on the white labs site and found they are packaging extra yeast from commercial vault orders into home brew packages. Takes some poking around to find if they actually have homebrew packages. Think I only found one, WLP521 Hornindal Kveik Ale Yeast but it seems like a better approach then the old way.