Mangrove jack west coast ale m44 yeast lagging

[TheWiggman]

Early sample from the keg at ambient temp 11°C.
Cloudy as ****.
Tastes and smells like a wheat beer.
Little to no hop character.
No idea what happened to this but it's rubbish and I'm inclined to tip it. With Brewbrite, cold crashing, PVPP and a supposedly flocculent yeast this should be clear. You can't even see fingers through it. Wild yeast maybe? One that looks like a normal beer yeast?

 

[pcqypcqy]

Early sample from the keg at ambient temp 11°C.
Cloudy as ****.
Tastes and smells like a wheat beer.
Little to no hop character.
No idea what happened to this but it's rubbish and I'm inclined to tip it. With Brewbrite, cold crashing, PVPP and a supposedly flocculent yeast this should be clear. You can't even see fingers through it. Wild yeast maybe? One that looks like a normal beer yeast?

That sucks. Everything I've made with M44 I've had to dump. Similar flavours/symptoms to what you've described, though I'm not expert enough with my tasting to offer anything more specific.

My experience is that it will not come good, so after tasting to try to pin down the off flavours, I'd tip it all.

 

[fraser_john]

That sucks. Everything I've made with M44 I've had to dump. Similar flavours/symptoms to what you've described, though I'm not expert enough with my tasting to offer anything more specific.

My experience is that it will not come good, so after tasting to try to pin down the off flavours, I'd tip it all.

Odd, I have an American Brown that is just about to finish fermentation using M44 and when I tasted it yesterday it was just what I would expect from the yeast, neutral yeast flavour/aroma, leaves the hops nice and bright.

 

[TheWiggman]

Interesting pcqyx2. Anyone here with judging skills that would like one of my bottles so they might be able to ***** what's wrong? You can even keep the bottle (P.E.T, first use) which I argue is a great deal. Might even throw in a bottle of something to prove I can make a decent beer.

 

[pcqypcqy]

Odd, I have an American Brown that is just about to finish fermentation using M44 and when I tasted it yesterday it was just what I would expect from the yeast, neutral yeast flavour/aroma, leaves the hops nice and bright.

From what I've read, others have had good experience with this yeast. I try to preface all my opinions on it by saying YMMV, but I've personally had nothing but troubles.

My theory is that the long lag time exposes other flaws in my process that allow infections or off flavours to take hold, then no matter how vigorous the ferment or how heavy the dry hop, I can never make it good.

As I'm new to the hobby and still learning, I'm trying to eliminate factors that I know contribute to my failure. For some reason, I've had good results with other brands so I'm sticking with those yeasts for now. If I get into making starters and rehydrating properly, I may give M44 a go, but not until then.

 

[TheWiggman]

Thought I'd follow up on this - I walked past my bottles tonight and had a feel of the Bright Ale clone I brewed as mentioned above. TIGHT. I opened the glass bottles first and couldn't even pour a glass, it was 99% foam. I tasted it after it settled and it was dry, lost some of the phenolic character but still had an unusual fruity smell. It tasted better than it did 3 months ago but still a sub-par beer with little hop character to speak of.
Due to the dry taste I measured the gravity - 1.005, down from 1.011 when bottling. There was no visual evidence of it but I'm thinking this one got infected.

 

[Benn]

I've had this yeast fermenting for 8 days at 17.5 degrees with a mangrove jacks IPA pouch kit, tasted a hydro sample tonight and got a very strong clove taste. I re cultured some washed trub from a previous brew so it could be a mistake in that process or I under pitched etc.
It's still a little way off finishing (1:026 ish atm) I'll be interested to see how it progresses

 

[Thrilhau5]

First post...

I did my first brew on Sunday since my Uni kit days (it's been 5 years). Extract APA with Cascade, pitched 2 x packets of M44. Lag time was between 48 and 60 hours, had me scared. but is going bonkers as of this morning.

Gave the fermenter a shake last night as I read that sometimes this can help - not sure if it did, but seems good now.

 

[TheWiggman]

Realised the bright ale keg mentioned above was still sitting next to the fridge. I went to put the gas on it today to check the pressure and PSSSSH!!!! It jumped over 300kPa and the coupling blew off before I pushed it all the way on. So another keg to the lawn, and based on the foam I think it's pretty fair to assume this one was infected.
(a minute's silence please)

 

[TheWiggman]

I'm a persistent ******* who hates life so I did another brew using a single pack of M44 and broke a few of the rules. I've had 2 batches go to the lawn after rehydrating so I decided to remove one variable and sprinkled dry h34r:
I brewed an all-Summer hop ale with a basic grain bill of pale and Redback malt. OG of 1.050 so kept the volume down to 20 litres.

24h later, coagulation of solids at the top of the wort. 48h later and there was plenty of activity. Took about 8 days to hit FG which was quite low at 1.010, making it a 5.2% beer. Taste was quite pleasant, I think the Summer and Reback marry well and I'm keen to have this one on tap. So far a completely different experience with this yeast and looking positive. Dry hopped, cold crashed and dropped out clear unlike the last attempt.

 

[Doctormcbrewdle]

I think these problems come from very old packets. Problem with this yeast is: there's no use by or packaging date on the packet

 

[Yuz]

Slightly OT, but with overly long lag times, wouldn't the wort be almost oxygen-free by the time ferment starts?

 

[Let's Brew Beer]

I have a 3rd gen. M44 on the go fermenting a MJ's Brown Ale, took about 4 hours to kick off. ambient temp around 22C. Try washing it and using it again. seems to work for me.

 

[Bobski]

Spookus, it tends to do it's best work with an ambient temp around 18-19 degrees, so that makes the liquid temp about 20 during the more vigorous primary stage. I commonly bump it to 20 deg ambient at around day 7 or 8. Have certainly had some great results from it. Clean as a whistle, low ester profile.

Hi there, just curious as I am using this yeast at the moment, what effect does rasising the temp to 20C?

 

[bcavan]

Well Brewbrite has PVPP in it so if it was effective at removing them on the mash side of things then I should be directing my attention to the ferment. Assuming polyphenols are the issue.
Actually, during the whirlpool there was a clump of white gunk around 2/3 the size of a marble. I thought it might have been coagulated Brewbrite (added at 5 mins) but it wouldn't break up when pressed against the side of the fermenter with the spoon. I threw it on the lawn but it was dark so didn't go back to check it.

The other unknown is 4 and 5 year old children trying to help with hop additions and inadvertently adding playdough or similar foreign matter.

I realise your post is from a long time ago but I thought I'd follow up with a few questions.
Have you had this vinyl-like flavour problem with many of your brews as it could be caused by chlorine in your brewing water and not the things that you were trouble-shooting above.
Essentially the chlorine that your water authority adds reacts with the hop-phenols during fermentation which results in Chloro-phenol off-flavour, tastes a little clove-like but more so like bandaids.
I've had this happen with a few intermittent brews as the levels of chlorine in my water would vary, making it a difficult problem to nail down.
To solve it I bought some Potassium-Metabisulphate powder (aka Camden Tablets) and sprinkle 2 smallish pinches into my 30L of brewing water the night before brewing.

 

[sittingaround]

I have had the same issue. It lags to start then lags to finish.
I just went back to using US05

 

[Barry]

I have used this yeast quite a few times in different types of IPA’s with no problems. I like it because ADA is always 80 to 86%, better than I get with WLP001 or US05.