Forum | Same Wort - Different yeast

Since we have an extra volunteer, I'll drop out.  It turns out that I had reserved that date several months ago to brew with someone who won a "brew with a brewmaster" for a charity auction (Saline Sister Cities).  I was going to send empty carboys with someone, but this makes more sense.

Bummer, though!  I really wanted to participate.

Brian Petrovich has voluntered and requests using WLP 862

Of course, I am in, and will likely use whatever yeast is available

Hah!  Remembered my password.

I'd like to participate.  I just quickly skimmed the email (leaving in a few for Kyoto), but if we can choose yeast, I'd like to use Essex.

Jeff

OK, so here is the deal. Brad Sancho of Original Gravity made a very generous offer. He expressed a desire to do more with the Ann Arbor Brewers Guild club, and we tossed around a few ideas, and this is what we came up with.

Free beer! OK, now that I have your attention, it isn’t quite just free beer. In the spirit of doing something cool (which this club is all about), and educational (whether you like it or not), this is the outline – details are being made up by Brad and I as I go along, but I think I got most of it.

WHAT: Same wort – different yeasts. For those of you who have been in the club for some time, you will recall that the AABG and FORD club helped me pull off a couple of similar experiments back at the 2003 (Chicago) and 2005 (Baltimore) AHA National Homebrewers Association meetings. We obtained a base wort from Dragonmead and inoculated various carboys (12 in Chicago and 17 in Baltimore) with different strains of yeasts, served them at the conference and discussed the various contributions each strain provided. These were Belgian Ales.

Brad and I discussed possibly doing another Same Wort – Different Hops type of experiment, but the thought of 15 half kegs, burners and the associated chillers and hoses necessary made us both agree that life would be much easier if he brewed a standard sized batch (about 200 gallons), chilled it through his system, and then we all added our own carboys and yeast,

So, Brad has given me creative regain to dig into my recipes and decide on a recipe/style for the group. Because I have been enjoying "session" or lighter beers, I wanted to suggest something middle of the road – about 5%. Additionally, I had to think about what recipes might actually go well with English, American, German, Belgian and whatever selection of yeasts. Initially, I thought about Wits, Kolsch, Blonde and even a plain Jane American Ale.

Then I thought about an Amber I had done in the past where I had used Marris Otter for the base malt, and some crystal, Victory and Munich. I checked with Brad, as I am thinking I would like to replace the Victory with a touch of  Melanoidin Malt to get that awesome cookie, cake-like malt character. I contacted both Ray Daniels and Randy Mosher about this selection, and they agreed that Amber or a Pale Ale would handle the various yeasts strains as well as any style. I am working with Brad later to finalize the recipe, but I am leaning toward this.

WHEN: Saturday, May 8^th – midafternnon some time – let’s shot for 2:00 – Brad should be into the boil by then. Early arrivals encouraged, check out some of Brad’s beers and food.

WHO: AABG members – maximum participation – 20 members. If we have more than 20 volunteers, then we will draw names out of a hat,

 

WHAT DO I NEED TO DO/HAVE TO PARTICIPATE?:  A couple of things. Each participant would need to bring 2 (two) sanitized carboys. Each carboy would need to have the owners name and the yeast strain clearly marked on the carboys (hint – cover any paper completely with packing tape to avoid ink run-offs, or use a luggage tag or something similar). Details/dates for racking to secondary’s need to be determined, but in the end, everyone would get one carboy of wort to take home, and Brad would keg one of each for serving later.

Bradinitially talked about releasing a few at a time, but we discussed the possibility of bringing the AABG club tap systems and maybe doing a release of all of them one day in his beer garden, maybe even getting the smoker/grill going for a yet to be determined release date, where he would make an event out of it and we could come down and check out the variety. Brad likes this idea!

HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT YEAST WE WOULD USE? This took me a little while to think through, but I think I have a solution. In a nutshell, trust me. But a more detailed version running through my mind goes like this. I will select the yeasts and purchase the necessary 20 packs and tubes. We can have a forum discussion surrounding which ones should be selected. Using club funds, I will pre-purchase enough yeasts to cover everyone. Then, during Big Brew, we determine who gets what yeast via a blind draw. This will give everyone one week to smack their pack/dump their tubes (gosh, this sounds dirty!), and build their starters. Folks can re-imburse the club when they get their yeast

Depending on the timing, I would anticipate a few of these might make it to Minnesota for the AHA NHC, while others could come to the AABG Summer Beer-B-Que.

So, if you are interested, please send me an email and indicate the same in the new "Same Wort – Different Yeast" forum at the club website.

Discussions welcome, final execution will be between Brad and me.