Yeast use commercially

Hopefully @honkey will reply to this thread.

Cheers!

 

I would think a fairly neutral and attenuative strain that could be repitched frequently without a lot of mutations...there's a lot of them out there.

 

Yup, the Chico yeast is pretty popular with a lot of commercial breweries.

The 'common' lager yeast in Europe (and the US?) is Weihenstephan 34/70.

Cheers!

 

Hmm, what is the context of the question? It seems very open ended. The most simple answer is that a house strain is dependent on your business plan and that the equipment you decide to use will have a big impact on the availability of yeast strains for your "house" strain. For example, at Tombstone I am not using fermenters that are well suited for top cropping yeast, but the majority of my ales use a true top cropping yeast strain, so I am not re-using yeast from those beers. When we order more tanks, I'm getting top manways and over sizing them by about 30% so that I can top crop.

In short, if you need a house yeast strain, it should be well suited for all of the styles that you want to brew. Keeping in mind equipment constraints, if you are using CCV's, you don't want to use a true top cropping strain. Vice versa, with dish bottomed fermenters, or open top vessels, you don't want to use a bottom cropping strain.

I think in an ideal world, a brewery would have multiple types of fermenters, and a brewhouse that is adaptable to as many techniques as possible. If that is done, than yeast constraints are minimal and with one strain, you can achieve a wide variety of flavor profiles from that one strain.

 

Still thinking about the question, I don't know of any yeast strain that is inherently bad for use as a house strain, just some of them are much easier with the most common types of brewery set ups we see today... Single Infusion brewhouses with jacketed CCV's. If I wanted to specialize in Belgian beers, I wouldn't be using such a set up. Likewise, if all I wanted to brew was American style ales, I wouldn't be using open top fermenters and a decoction brewhouse or a Mash-Kettle set up.

 

Weedy, do you have any examples of commercial breweries that have a number of configurations of fermentors? I have only toured a handful of commercial breweries but by appearance they all seemed to have the same sort of fermentors (e.g., CCVs). I presumed that this is because this commonality provides flexibility from a production perspective.

From my readings I know that Sierra Nevada has differing fermentors (e.g., open fermentors) for brewing some of their beers (e.g., Kellerweis, Bigfoot).

Cheers!

@sierranevadabill

 

I wish it was more common, but no I don't know of any. At Blue Pants I used a dairy tank as an open top fermenter for a while, I don't know if they still do that or not. At Tombstone, we will be using new oak barrels for primary fermentation, we'll get the custom tanks that I mentioned in the above post, and I am hoping for some open square fermenters when we build out a second facility, but that is up in the air. My goal is to eventually have a second, smaller (maybe 7 BBL) brewhouse that is set up for decoctions, coolship, open frame wort chiller, and open top fermenters, but we're a ways off from doing something like that.

Edit to Add:

My thought is that any style worth brewing is only worth brewing if I can create what I believe to be a world class example of that beer. If I am not set up to brew a style that I think I can brew as good as anyone, I won't brew it. As a result, I will not be brewing hefeweizens or saisons until we swap out our insulated mash tun for a steam jacketed mash tun so I can do acid rests. I hope to eliminate any gaps in our ability to do any style by utilizing more types of fermentation vessels and fixing the mash tun with a jacket.

 

A brewery local to me, Tired Hands, in the past year or so purchased a concrete ‘egg’ that they use to ferment some of their Saison beers. I spoke to the owner (Jean Broillet) a few months ago on this. He educated me that this is something that they use in the wine industry and he decided to give it a try for some of his brands.

FWIW, I had a few Sasion brands that were fermented in this ‘egg’ and I really liked them. What exactly this ‘egg’ brings to the party I do not know.

Lots of interesting options out there.

Cheers!

P.S. More information about the ‘egg’ here: http://brookstonbeerbulletin.com/the-incredible-beerable-egg/

 

Actually, Hair of the Dog did have a concrete fermenter when I visited in addition to their CCV's an Wicked Weed had an open top fermenter that I think they dedicated to Saisons or funky beers. Avondale in Birmingham also had open top 15 BBL fermenters and CCV's. I think their open top fermenters were dedicated to Belgian styles.

 

Now that you mention it I do recall that Jean mentioned that he got the idea of fermenting in an 'egg' from his conversations with Alan Sprints.

Every brewer learns from another.

Cheers!

 

Alan is one of the best to learn some tricks from IMO! Adam was the beer that basically reintroduced the world to the Adambier style. I drank several of his versions before brewing my own which went on to win Silver at GABF and Bronze at World Beer Cup. I was lucky to get to share a few of our bottles with him and talk about the style. It was a hell of an afternoon!

 

Have you brewed a Grodziskie yet?

Cheers!

 

Not yet. That style is actually funny to me. It seems like it went from obscurity to insane hype overnight.

 

But yet it is not an easy beer style to track down/buy. I live in the Philly area where we have excellent beer distribution but my local beer stores do not have Grodziskie beers on their shelves. Every once in a while I see the Professor Fritz Briem Grodziskie pouring at beer festivals but this beer is just OK for my palate.

A local brewpub (Manayunk Brewpub) made a couple of batches of Grodziskie a few years ago but the head brewer (Doug Marchakitus) left a couple of years ago and they have not brewed it since.

I am starting to think that if I ever want to drink this style again I will have to brew another batch.

Cheers!

 

Well, that means the Grodziskie style is 'on hold' for you as well since that style needs an acid rest.

Cheers!

 

aka smoked wheat beer...you can almost look at the BJCP new/historical "styles" and anticipate what man-bun brewers/fans will latch on to next...first it was Berlinerweisse and Gose, now Grodziskie...soon it will be Kentucky Common, Lichtenhainer, Tropical Stouts, English Golden Ales, and maybe even Sahti and Kvass. Most need to be brilliantly clear and non-offensive...as long as it isn't another variation of an IPA

 

Victory makes a tasty Lichenhainer.

Unfortunately it is only available on draft (and rotating at that).

Cheers!

Alla Spina Arso

Lichtenhainer

Working with famed chef, Marc Vetri, we designed this recipe to be one that is tart and complex. In Italian, Alla Spina means “from the tap,” and that’s how we expect you to enjoy this golden delight.

Composition

Malt: Vienna, Wheat, Rauch, Acidulated

Hops: Tettnang Hallertauer

ABV: 5.3%

Flavor

Smoky aromas of beech wood blend with a hint of tartness in this unique, golden blonde ale. Mildly smoky and malty flavors precede a cracker like saltiness, which melds with tart and inviting sour notes for a pleasingly complex beer.

Availability

Occasionally on draft

 

I guess if I had to say what our "house strain" is, it would be the Weihenstephan strain (what is variously known as German Lager yeast, or 34/70, etc). We also use another German strain for one or two of our beers, but generally German Lager is our most versatile and widely used.

It also imparts the specific character we are going for in the styles we brew: primarily Franconian-style lagers such as Kellerbier, Rauchbier, Dunkles, Festbier, Heller Bock, etc.

Homebrewers have said this yeast can be temperamental or "fussy." Complaints range from the relatively high amount of sulfur production to the longer lagering times necessary for the beers to truly round out.

In our beers, we prize these characteristics. We don't rush fermentation and perform secondary fermentation in horizontal tanks we brought over from Germany. We feel the proper amount of lagering time and conditioning, the resultant malt character and balance are exactly what we are going for and most closely approximate the "originals" of the styles we brew.

Finally, it's a yeast that is easy to find when time- and other constraints arise. Good to know you can get some fresh yeast on short(ish) notice from a number of sources if things take an unexpected turn.

Hope this helps.

 

Will add that we tried other yeasts -- including the purported Ayinger and Augustiner strains -- and ultimately didn't find they created that signature character we recognized in the originals we modeled our beers on. Perhaps interesting to you as well, OP, is that the large majority of German breweries use the Weihenstephan strain as their "house" yeast as well.