Brown Porter - Windsor / Nottingham / S-04?

[Nizmoose]

Im brewing a Brown Porter (my first attempt at the style) on Sunday and it has just dawned on me that I cant get the yeast strain I wanted in a days time (bad planning on my part) I have had a good search on all three yeast strains in the topic heading and it seems that if I search any US forum they have pretty much the opposite to say about a particular strain when comparing to us. I was originally going to go with S-04 for no particular reason before reading on ahb about people getting annoyed at it stalling. Then went to some US forums and they all love it. I've never used any of the three strains (Nottingham, Windsor or S-04) and would really like some advice! My recipe is a 10L batch with chocolate malt, brown malt, caraaroma and ale malt. I want to get a big chocolate/coffee thing going on more so than roasty bitterness. Fuggle and EKG are the hops and I was orignally going to use a dry english ale yeast WLP007 or equivilent.

From research so far all I know is that S-04 seems to be quite estery and flocs really well but can stall and aparently produce a weird flavour at the back end of the palate?

Windsor I havent heard much about, may have read it doesnt floc at all well?

Nottingham I've heard a fair bit about, ferments fast as hell but don't know what it lends to the beer.

SO im basically after some reccomendations on what yeast people think is the best option for a brown porter focussing on the malt flavours and not adding too many weird notes, I want it to be about the malt more than anything Cheers and sorry for the novel of a post!

EDIT: I should also mention my temp control goes as far as a foam chamber with ice bottles, I know its not perfect but I can hold 18C with a swing of 1C either way for the whole fermentation, happy to watch the chamber like a hawk if I need to baby a temp sensitive yeast through the process.

 

[Lecterfan]

You'll get lots of good straight-forward, pragmatic and enthusiastic advice...so I'll give you something different to think about from my experience (and, of course, I have no idea what equipment you have, how confident you are etc).

10L batches can be a blessing at times. I would pitch the windsor into about 6 litres and nottingham into the rest...BUT... at the end of the first 24-36 hours I would mix the batches together and let it ferment out. Get some of the good flavours of windsor with the vigour of notto. I've done this with notto before using windsor as well as some of the MJ dry yeast strains. Of course you can just blend them back after fermentation, but this method is easier and gives the yeast a good shake up at a vigorous time in their activity.

If it had to be just one, I'd use notto for my preference.

 

[Bribie G]

Flame suit on but Coopers Kit yeast, if you have a local source, actually does a good job on malty dark beers. That and S-04.

 

[RobB]

I have fermented the Brown Porter from Brewing Classic Styles with Notto and it worked well. It had a list of grains similar to yours.

Nottingham will work quickly and cleanly and will flocculate well. It will be the most attenuative yeast of the three you have listed.

Windsor will be the least attenuative of the three and also the most estery, although nothing over the top. You may only get 60% attenuation out of it which will certainly leave your porter malty, but you might need to tweak your hops or roasted grains to balance any residual sweetness.

S-04 will be somewhere in the middle, but I haven't used it for years. It certainly divides opinion.

 

[Nizmoose]

Thanks for the responses guys!

You'll get lots of good straight-forward, pragmatic and enthusiastic advice...so I'll give you something different to think about from my experience (and, of course, I have no idea what equipment you have, how confident you are etc).
10L batches can be a blessing at times. I would pitch the windsor into about 6 litres and nottingham into the rest...BUT... at the end of the first 24-36 hours I would mix the batches together and let it ferment out. Get some of the good flavours of windsor with the vigour of notto. I've done this with notto before using windsor as well as some of the MJ dry yeast strains. Of course you can just blend them back after fermentation, but this method is easier and gives the yeast a good shake up at a vigorous time in their activity.
If it had to be just one, I'd use notto for my preference.

I do like the mixing idea but have only one vessel left for fermenting at the moment due to other brews but its something I think would be cool to try on a later version!

Flame suit on but Coopers Kit yeast, if you have a local source, actually does a good job on malty dark beers. That and S-04.

Interesting never heard of using the coopers yeast but I like the idea, If I had some spare sachets I'd probably give it a crack!

I have fermented the Brown Porter from Brewing Classic Styles with Notto and it worked well. It had a list of grains similar to yours.

Nottingham will work quickly and cleanly and will flocculate well. It will be the most attenuative yeast of the three you have listed.

Windsor will be the least attenuative of the three and also the most estery, although nothing over the top. You may only get 60% attenuation out of it which will certainly leave your porter malty, but you might need to tweak your hops or roasted grains to balance any residual sweetness.

S-04 will be somewhere in the middle, but I haven't used it for years. It certainly divides opinion.

Considering I was originally going to the dry english ale yeast (as in dry attentuation not dry vs liquid yeast) it seems as though maybe notto is the best choice, seems to be the best clean version, windsor so far seems like a bit unattenuative for my purposes and S-04 as said above seems to have some lovers and some haters :/ Never heard a bad word about nottingham tbh

 

[manticle]

Not interested in trying a liquid? 1469 is superb in a porter.

Sorry - I'm guessing from the first line you need to use something you already have.
Only used 04 and not often so no input. 04 was fine in stout when I used it, as was 05.

 

[Blind Dog]

Any particular reason why you can't get the yeast strain you actually want? Personally I'd prefer to put off the brew day or no chilli into a cube and pitch later rather than compromise on the yeast.

That said, if I had to choose between the 3, I'd go for the Nottingham as the closest to wlp007.

 

[going down a hill]

Flame suit on but Coopers Kit yeast, if you have a local source, actually does a good job on malty dark beers. That and S-04.

Going to disagree with you on this one Bribie, but no need to get dressed into anything fancy. I did a side by side of Windsor vs Coopers can yeast in a porter years ago and the windsor bottles got drunk before the kit yeast. It gave the beer a much more estery profile and suited the porter giving it an "English" beer taste. The kit yeast was neutral and bland.

 

[Nizmoose]

Not interested in trying a liquid? 1469 is superb in a porter.
Sorry - I'm guessing from the first line you need to use something you already have.
Only used 04 and not often so no input. 04 was fine in stout when I used it, as was 05.

Yeah my original plan was liquid WLP007 or equiv, but brewcraft only have dried stuff and theres no HBS (where I normally get my stuff from) that is close enough for me to want to grab some tomorrow. Brewadelaide can only do liquid yeast like bi-monthly at a time or something and beerbelly are pretty far from me, theyre the two I frequent the most but always online. Not keen on spending 7 bucks (more than my entire grain bill lol) on yeast at brewcraft but there it is haha.

Any particular reason why you can't get the yeast strain you actually want? Personally I'd prefer to put off the brew day or no chilli into a cube and pitch later rather than compromise on the yeast.
That said, if I had to choose between the 3, I'd go for the Nottingham as the closest to wlp007.

Yeah normally I'd put the brew day off for a day but I'm walking a mate through a brew day and its been a hard day to tee up so Sunday is the day!

 

[stewy]

I've used both S04 & Notty in Porters. I prefer the Notty hands down. The S04 floccs better than any yeast I have seen, but it loves to stall & I didn't really care for the taste. Notty floccs quite well also & is very neutral as long as you keep it at 18c

 

[mr_wibble]

There was a question on this topic about 9 months ago - What yeast for porter?

There was about as many different replies as posts. I don't think it makes such a huge difference as it would in say, a wheat beer.

 

[burrster]

Nottingham is very reliable and clean as far as a esters go. I've recent bottle my first dark ale for the winter to come with the second waiting to be bottled and both used Nottingham. It's my go to yeast until I actually want to experiment with a yeast strain. I've got no experience with the other 2 ( actually did use SO4 once when i was far less experienced, but have no info from the result) but they're on my list for this winter's brewing. The mixing yeast idea sounds like a good idea.


If your after chocolate flavours, Cacao nibs is was what I went with. 50g at the start of the boil in 23L batch . Added a nice subtle flavour in the hydrometer sample. Hopefully it stays around in the bottle. I can always add more next batch. Other options are to "dry hop' with them, using closer to 100g. If you over do the chocolate malts at added roasty flavour rather than chocolate( so I've read)

 

[Nizmoose]

If your after chocolate flavours, Cacao nibs is was what I went with. 50g at the start of the boil in 23L batch . Added a nice subtle flavour in the hydrometer sample. Hopefully it stays around in the bottle. I can always add more next batch. Other options are to "dry hop' with them, using closer to 100g. If you over do the chocolate malts at added roasty flavour rather than chocolate( so I've read)

Ended up settling on Nottingham, brewing this afternoon when it cools a bit, I'm just shooting for a base porter recipe at the moment so after I taste that I'm definitely going to look at chocolate and maybe coffee additions as well so cheers for the cacao nibs tip!

 

[kevo]

late idea - if you can or maybe for next time...

Looks like you're brewing 10L?

If you have containers that might be helpful, maybe brew a touch more and split into multiple vessels - try each of the yeasts.

I like Nottingham - but you might not, especially if you have the same worth fermented with S04 next to it...

Apologes if already suggested, just skimmed the posts...

 

[Nizmoose]

late idea - if you can or maybe for next time...

Looks like you're brewing 10L?

If you have containers that might be helpful, maybe brew a touch more and split into multiple vessels - try each of the yeasts.

I like Nottingham - but you might not, especially if you have the same worth fermented with S04 next to it...

Apologes if already suggested, just skimmed the posts...

Cheers Kev yeah it was mentioned in a post above and is a good idea! Unfortunately I'm AG'ing in a 20L pot so my 10L batch mash almost fills my pot when using 2kg of grain and 13L of water but I might do a side by side and do a concentrated boil or something in the future. As you said 10L batches make it easy to handle, I have plenty of fermenters at that size and I think side by sides are a great way to find out what differences something brings to the table, will do it in the future I'm sure!

EDIT: PS the brew day went well today! Cool change came in a blew my everything everywhere but all went without issue. pitched the notto about 40 minutes ago so judging by peoples experiences with notto I should be ready for secondary conditioning before bed time