Yeast Bay updates

This guy recently posted a similar comment on my blog the other day, its a shame he has had poor results with Wallonian myself and everyone else who have used it has raved about it.

I tried fermenting it cool, ~65f, and its still attenuated well but was pretty clean. Every other time I have used it in the mid 70's and its super expressive and perfect for my Saisons, its been my house Saison strain since Nick release it last year. I've used it 10-12 times and am very familiar with its profile. Love the strain, the dude above should give it another try.

 

Maybe he works for one of the other new-ish yeast companies? I honestly have yet to hear anything negative about ANY of The Yeast Bay's strains. And the few that I have used have all performed as expected and produced great results for me.

 

I retract my previous comment concerning The Yeast Bay. I did not get good results with this yeast but it was probably due to my process since it seems others have had success with it. I was frustrated and lashed out. I wasn't thinking that I could be hurting a small business. I apologize to The Yeast Bay and look forward to trying their other products.

 

Like I mentioned in our email exchange, I have no problem with people posting openly and honestly about a bad experience they themselves have. But when you do, please post with detailed explanation of your brewing and fermentation process. While there's nothing worse than one of my customers being unhappy, there's nothing better than helping them through the issues they're having and at the same time gaining invaluable information regarding the use of our products. Troubleshooting these kinds of issues helps all my future customers by giving me further perspective on my products.

My offer still stands. If you want to provide some details regarding your brew day and fermentation profile, I (and I assume the entire BA homebrewing community) will gladly go over it with you and try to pinpoint issues that might result in a blander profile of the beer. Nothing would make me happier, and if we find something you can change that seems like it will likely improve your beer, I'll even send a free vial of Wallonian your way so you can give it another shot.

 

Have to report on the yeast bay saison/brett blend. After 2 months my saison is showing tons of nice brett funk and still has a nice moderate-low saison spiciness. Super happy with it and sad I wasnt able to harvest any. Will def be buying again, could even be house blend for brett saisons.

Compared to wlp670 which had almost no brett character after the same amount of time..

 

Thought I'd revive this thread to see if anyone has any more updates. I'm particularly curious about people's experience with the farmhouse sour and brett/saison blends. Thinking about doing a split batch saison with those two.

 

One, I'm gonna add to the pile-on and state that I LOVE the Wallonian Saison strain. I think its my fave of all the Saisons put there . . . not too clovey, more like a white-pepper spice, faint bit of lemon. Ferments like crazy. I've even used it in an IPA, which was fun.
The YB's Conan/Vermont perplexes me like all the others I've tried (Omega, one other that I forget right now) . . . under-attenuation problems (couldn't get any of them to get below 22). Didn't get any clove, however.
--t

 

I've got a 2L starter of YB Amalgamation (6 strains of brett brux?) going on a stir plate right now for a 100% brett rye saison that I'm brewing up this weekend. It's showing some serious krausen at the moment, and smells amazing – fruit-forward and tart, with hints of funk. I'll try to remember to report back in a few weeks with some tasting notes. It's being pitched along with a healthy amount of Brett C.

Everyone I've talked to at the local brewery/HBS that I go to has been raving about the Wallonian farmhouse strain. I was surprised to see so many people on this thread that were disappointed with it. This makes me want to try it out even more!

 

I just brewed a split batch saison on Sunday. One is fermenting with the wallonian and the other with their saison blend and am pretty excited to compare the two.

I also have gone through a couple of iterations of the funktown pale. First batch is kegged and tasting great - an explosion of pineapple with just a slight hint of barnyard funk which matches the description on their website.

Looking forward to trying their other strains going forward.

 

I ordered a few yeasts from them last Wednesday, and they still have yet to ship. Is there typically a long wait time for shipments to get allocated? Not complaining, just genuinely curious.

I really want to try that Funktown Pale Ale!

 

IIRC, they generally watch the weather based on where they are shipping so yeast doesn't freeze in the winter nor burn up in the summer. They also try to ship during the first of the week so yeast isn't sitting in a warehouse or truck over the weekend.

 

That makes sense. They are in San Leandro and I'm in LA (give or take) it's a few hundred miles so I was just curious is all.

 

This is the sour I brewed in Feb using Yeast Bay Melange blend in the Rare Barrel's blonde base. I used my new-fangled carb cap on a small Sprite Zero bottle that way I could carb a small sample for tasting. At 7 months old I get a super clean lactic tartness and some brett fruitiness starting to peak through. I'll taste again at 12 months. I am carbing a sample of the Amalgamation brett blend half of this 10 gal batch right now. The amalgamation still needs some time. It was fruity funky as a lighter more complex version of a Brett C. would be.

 

Anyone else have a update on a Melange or Amalgamation with some age on it or blended?

 

I've had Melange going on a batch of extract lambic recipe for over a year now. I need to check it out. Barely a pellicle bubble to be found, although it looked to get thick and ropey at one point so I think stuff is doing its thing.

Hoping to throw half the batch on cherries at some point this fall/winter. Not sure how long I should let it go.

 

I posted this in another thread, but I brewed a 10 gal batch of blonde ale fermented with 2 different caught wild yeasts. After 2 weeks, both seemed about finished (1.048 down to 1.009) so I racked both to secondary on Amalgamation slurry that I had saved. It's only been 5 weeks and both are down to around 1.004 now. Will probably wait til 1.001 or 1.000 before I bottle them and let the brett funk it up some more there.



It's interesting to compare. The characteristics from this batch are more of the classic barnyard, horsey brett flavors when used in secondary. When I fermented a rye saison with Amalgamation as the primary yeast, I got a lot of fruit-forward flavors, pineapple, with a bit of tart funk.

 

Currently brewing a Flanders Red inspired batch that I will be splitting two ways. One with Roselare and the other with Melange. Both will be pitched directly into primary and will be the only yeast blends provided, meaning no bottle dregs later in time, so I can get a direct comparison of the two. Now the waiting begins!

 

Approximately 12 hours after pitching (I pitched at 75F) both are going pretty strong. The krausen on the Melange is about finger width and the Roselare is maybe 2mm. Ambient temp is 64/65 degrees.

 

I loved the results that I had with Saison Blend II, so I decided to give the Sour Farmhouse blend a shot, as I believe it's the same sacch strains with some lacto added.

Trying something a bit unique for this beer though, I actually brewed the same recipe twice, once without hops; recipe details below. The unhopped version has been fermenting in a keg for roughly two months now - the intent being that the absence of hops will allow the lacto to work its magic.

Brewed the hopped version last week and that's still happily fermenting away. Since this batch has roughly 30 IBU, I expect only the sacch strains will contribute.

In about two weeks, I plan to take a small sample of both in order to determine the optimal ratio for blending. I'll then combine the two beers into a third keg and dry hop with amarillo and mosiac.

Since I'll have some wort left over from the two batches, I also plan to do some 1 gallon experiments with the remaining beer. I'm thinking about a gallon on peaches, another one on some orange zest, and will likely have another gallon left over - any recommendations for experimental additions would be welcomed!

Recipe:
OG: 1.050
Mash Temp: 152

50% 2-row
25% Vienna
12.5% Flaked Wheat
12.5% Orange Blossom Honey (added during peak fermentation)

~25 IBU Amarillo @15 min
~5 IBU Amarillo @ 2 min

Targeting 4.5 gallons into the keg to be dry hopped with 1.5oz ea. of both Amarillo and Mosiac.

 

@Lukass that pellicle is gnarly.