ExMachina
Well-Known Member
I used this yeast a long time ago, in the days before I had a fermentation chamber. I never got a beer that I like from it and now I have a likely explanation. Now that I have a way to control ferment temps, I decide to revisit 1098 since I was brewing a bitter where I really wanted a highly flocculant strain that could also produce a "dry and crisp" ale.
So I made a simple 1.049 wort and once it was cooled into the upper 60s I followed my normal pitching procedure: pitch the slurry of a 1L starter and then aerate for 30 sec w/ pure O2. After that, I let all my English ales sit at ambient temperature (68-70F) to keep the yeast in suspension and to allow the beer to develop some esters; I cool the beer down to the mid 60s after most of the surface is covered with foam (always less than 24 hours post pitch).
Here's the danger with 1098--it can take off like a rocket! Signs of fermentation showed up within two hours of pitching and overnight the ferment went to full throttle. Worse, this morning the ferment was at 77F--holycrapWow! I've seen that much temp elevation in some bigger beers using Belgian strains, but this was a first. Anyway, I immediately threw it into my fermentation chamber but this batch might be lost--time will tell.
So, the TLDR version is that 1098 can ferment extremely vigorously and has the ability to elevate even a mid-gravity beer's temperature by at least 8 degrees. If you use this yeast without temp control you should probalby not ferment it in an environment much warmer than 62-64F or you run the risk of getting a fruity, fusel-ly beer (which is why I stopped using this yeast for a while). And then there's the Catch 22 that if you go too cool in temp, the 1098 might just drop out before they get started or are finished.
I would also be interested in hearing other brewer's tips for dealing with this strain.
So I made a simple 1.049 wort and once it was cooled into the upper 60s I followed my normal pitching procedure: pitch the slurry of a 1L starter and then aerate for 30 sec w/ pure O2. After that, I let all my English ales sit at ambient temperature (68-70F) to keep the yeast in suspension and to allow the beer to develop some esters; I cool the beer down to the mid 60s after most of the surface is covered with foam (always less than 24 hours post pitch).
Here's the danger with 1098--it can take off like a rocket! Signs of fermentation showed up within two hours of pitching and overnight the ferment went to full throttle. Worse, this morning the ferment was at 77F--holycrapWow! I've seen that much temp elevation in some bigger beers using Belgian strains, but this was a first. Anyway, I immediately threw it into my fermentation chamber but this batch might be lost--time will tell.
So, the TLDR version is that 1098 can ferment extremely vigorously and has the ability to elevate even a mid-gravity beer's temperature by at least 8 degrees. If you use this yeast without temp control you should probalby not ferment it in an environment much warmer than 62-64F or you run the risk of getting a fruity, fusel-ly beer (which is why I stopped using this yeast for a while). And then there's the Catch 22 that if you go too cool in temp, the 1098 might just drop out before they get started or are finished.
I would also be interested in hearing other brewer's tips for dealing with this strain.
