Fermentation Friday, aka the Homebrewers blogging day, is back with Rooftop Brew hosting and the topic is Yeast. Ah yeast the misunderstood little engines of beer, notice your local brewery has a distinctive flavor yeah that would be the yeast. Whenever I convince myself a brewery uses a special malt or process to get a character I invariably learn later it goes back to the yeast. I am not really surprised anymore by it. For example I thought for a while that Fat Tire was using some particular roast malt to get a certain character out of their beer until I had their Sunshine Wheat at which point I realized that this beer had no roast malt and it was a yeast derived character that was giving me the flavor.

So yeast is in short the major flavor component. Over the years helping at homebrew shops I have had the chance to try their products on varying degree. White Labs was the regular yeast Homebrewers Outpost carried until the last year or more. Eventually they added Wyeast, which is the primary company you will find at American Brewmaster. They both make a fine liquid yeast product, Wyeast with the smackpack and White Labs with the tube. I know some people have trouble breaking the smackpack, I have myself even, but it does give a clear indication that the yeast is awake and ready to go as the pouch expands. Regardless of which you use there is quite often that they both stock the same base strain but under different name. This chart I have found to be very useful for comparing to find what you need to find a certain yeast, but are dealing with a shop that carries only one of the companies products.

On to the specific yeasts that I prefer...

Weihenstephan Hefeweizen - WLP300 or 3068 which ever you prefer it is the Hefeweizen yeast. There is no other, if you want to make that style of beer this is the ultimate and for good reason.

London ale or Worthington White Shield - WLP013 or 1028 I use it for my Brown ale and like the malt dominate character it brings out.

McEwans aka Edinburgh ale or Scottish ale - WLP028 or 1728 I like it in my Scottish of course but also the Mild ales I have experimented with like my Oat Mild and Heather ale, it has a great flavor.

Czech Budejovice aka Budvar - WLP802 or 2000 I use it for my Black Lager and would consider it for any Pilsner.

Then of course American ale WLP001 or 1056 - Solid performer, great character.

Beyond that I play with a lot of different strains all the time working at the shop, I have a dry German ale strain working on an Alt beer right now, so I really try to use them all as appropriate. The above though are my favorites. I would like to try my luck with a wild strain fermentation this Spring to see what the Raleigh area will yield me, but that will take some time for the fermentation look for a post on it perhaps this time next year. Happy New Year and new brews to all the Fermentation Friday community.