Good yeast choice for a braggot?

[Simdop]

Hi Guys,

I'm looking at doing my own braggot. Had one by Red Duck and it was well tasty. I believe that they used a Belgium yeast strain.

I've been doing some research on yeasts and I've seen a whole list of different yeasts being used and mixed. Such as:

• 1 sachet Champagne Yeast, 1 sachet Safale T58 Yeast
• Wyeast Sweet Mead 4184
• Wyeast 1084 Irish ale
• Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale
• Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale

Now I guess this comes down to whether you want to have it sweeter, drier or Belgium funky.

Soooo, can people offer some advice on what success they've had with yeasts? And good recipes if you have any.

Cheers.

 

[TimT]

Be interested what others say. But my method has been to make some wort according to a recipe, in reduced quantities so I can add honey at peak krausen. I just use an ale yeast, varying it depending on what type of brew I'm doing (wheat beer, brown ale, Porter, Saison) and letting it adapt as best it can to the honey when I pitch that.

So basically - treat it as a beer rather than a mead/wine. (If I was doing that I'd be pitching a mead or a champagne yeast).

 

[Simdop]

Any reason why you wait to add the honey? You can make a yeast starter to grow your yeast population if you're worried about the yeast?

I like to add everything up front so I can accurately measure my OG & FG.

 

[Airgead]

I usually make mine with a pretty standard English ale yeast (Wyeast... forgotten the number). I have also uses white labs 001 and 005. I made a belgian braggot once as well and that came out pretty good. I chucked some rosalaire blend into it as well and soured it up. Lovely.

Cheers
Dave

 

[TimT]

I'm not sure why one waits to add the honey actually. Though the advice on brewing forums is most often to wait until peak krausen and add then. Dave/Airgead - able to shed some light on this? (It's probably been explained to me before but I've forgotten).

I try to avoid the problem with measuring gravity by just making a honey-water solution to the same gravity of the base malted barley wort.

Oh, of course some brewers add honey during the boil which I avoid as it just ruins the honey character and turns it into a denatured sugar.

 

[Dunkelbrau]

I've used 1728, came out good, needed champagne yeast to bottle condition though as the OG was 1.123

 

[Simdop]

I've used 1728, came out good, needed champagne yeast to bottle condition though as the OG was 1.123

What did 1728 finish at? And you didn't find the champagne was too aggressive for conditioning?

 

[Dunkelbrau]

What did 1728 finish at? And you didn't find the champagne was too aggressive for conditioning?

it fermented down to 1.024, so around 13ish, I was aiming for 14 in the bottle.

The champagne yeast works up to 18, I wanted to be sure it would carb up. It worked fine, I did a test and I was well and truly done fermenting so it was just eating up the priming sugar, which won't have much of a flavour effect.

I'm currently aging it till winter (trying one here and there to see how it's going).

It's rich, complex, not hot, but definitely strong.

It's malty, but winey.. The special b I added is shining through with the honey notes left over a bit more, but I think I'd add more hops next time as it's dying off a bit with age.

 

[Simdop]

it fermented down to 1.024, so around 13ish, I was aiming for 14 in the bottle.

The champagne yeast works up to 18, I wanted to be sure it would carb up. It worked fine, I did a test and I was well and truly done fermenting so it was just eating up the priming sugar, which won't have much of a flavour effect.

I'm currently aging it till winter (trying one here and there to see how it's going).

It's rich, complex, not hot, but definitely strong.

It's malty, but winey.. The special b I added is shining through with the honey notes left over a bit more, but I think I'd add more hops next time as it's dying off a bit with age.

Interesting, would you mind sharing your recipe?

And how did you add the champagne yeast?

 

[Dunkelbrau]

Added the champagne yeast while priming.

I'm away on hols for a week, will PM it when I get home.

It was 6kg of honey though, so pretty expensive!

 

[Simdop]

Added the champagne yeast while priming.

I'm away on hols for a week, will PM it when I get home.

It was 6kg of honey though, so pretty expensive!

That'd be great mate.

So you just racked, mixed in yeast and then bottled? How do you ensure even distribution?

 

[TimT]

Oh yeah. The other thing is you make a honey water solution by dissolving the honey in the water. You'd do this even if making a mead, of course - honey in its natural state won't ferment at all (bacteria and yeast live on it but can't get at the sugars; that way bees can keep it in their hives for ages as a reserve food). Once the honey is dissolved in water (and you're happy with the gravity reading) you can just dilute it in the braggot wort. If you just added the honey straight you'd have to stir for some time to make sure it was all dissolved. I wasn't clear about that step before.

I checked around on other forums; high krausen is recommended just because yeast is most active then and will get to work on the sugar straight away. Also, the wort will be churning around with heaps of currents and the added honey-water solution will mix in easily.

 

[HBHB]

I mostly just use whatever ale yeast i'd use for the base beer and pitch big. Ie 2 packs of yeast into a 15L batch. I've used a bunch of Wyeasts from slurry, BRY97, US05, SO4 etc. if i need to bottle condition, then a pack of EC1118 into 50 mls of water for rehydration and 0.5ml of that into the bottles gets it there.

For recipes, take some wort from a favourite beer, then add a honey and boiled water mix to double your wort's gravity up around 1.110+

Dry hop as you would for that style

Winner! Experimenting with the styles you already know you like is a good way to start playing with these.

One tip: if you're going to let it sit for any period of time on dry hops and have racked it/exposed to oxygen etc. don't hesitate to drop in a campden tablet per 5L to prevent oxidation.

Martin

 

[Spiesy]

Hi Guys,

I'm looking at doing my own braggot. Had one by Red Duck and it was well tasty. I believe that they used a Belgium yeast strain.

So maybe use a Belgian yeast? You liked the results.

 

[TimT]

Just bottled a honey saison today. Another one of my non-hopped varieties. A little yarrow and hazel leaf provided bitter and tannins during the boil; some lemon verbena and lavender added late during fermentation. It works: the saison yeast provides beautiful sour-estery flavours, a very slight lemoniness from the lemon verbena, slight lavender taste and a wineiness from the honey. I think the combo of honey and saison yeast is a winner.

 

[Airgead]

I'm not sure why one waits to add the honey actually. Though the advice on brewing forums is most often to wait until peak krausen and add then. Dave/Airgead - able to shed some light on this? (It's probably been explained to me before but I've forgotten).

Umm yeah... Peak karusn would be best but I'm usually at work when it gets there so I usually just chuck it into the wort before I pitch the yeast. I usually chuck it in while the chiller is running and the wort is at 25-30 so it dissolves nicely.

Cheers
Dave