Using The Fresh Yeast Rich Krausen To Start A New Batch

[troopa]

So dr.K... your saying that US-05 would mutate faster if skimmed compared to take it from the cake.. Or mutate just as quickly?

Tom

 

[dr K]

So dr.K... your saying that US-05 would mutate faster if skimmed compared to take it from the cake.. Or mutate just as quickly?

Tom

what i am saying is that you need to be carefull where and when you select your yeast for the next batch. the simple method, and the method that most modern yeasts hane grown accustomed to is from the bottom, after completion of fermentation, or if you will primary fermentation. modern inverted tin-man fermentors make this easy.
if for example you were to rack your beer off at 70% completion or higher , say for a "secondary" if you will, and collect the very clean, non tubby yeast from there what you would be doing over a number of generations is selecting the late flocculating cells and indeed producing a very differently behaved yeast. precisely the same thing happens if you succesively top crop yeasts that are not true top croppers except of course you are favouring the early flocculators.
If i were using 1469 i would top crop (if i got the right window), most others i would not.

K

 

[Kai]

Dr K raises a very good point, top croppers are the exception rather than the norm for ale yeasts these days. US-05/001/1056 is the primo example of this, it's a yeast perfect for fermentation in and bottom-cropping from cylindroconical fermenters; a perfect workhorse and an utterly boring characterless yeast. Great for hops though!

But, there are still a fair few top cropping cultures out there. A quick flick through wyeast and whitelabs sites says the following are genuine top croppers:

WY1007 German Ale
WY1010 American Wheat
WY1318 London Ale III
WY2565 Kolsch
WY3068 Weihenstephan Weizen
WY3638 Bavarian Wheat
WY3787 Trappist High Gravity
WY3944 Belgian Witbier

WLP022 Essex Ale
WLP038 Manchester Ale
WLP039 Nottingham Ale

and this is just from skimming their yeast strain information and pulling out the ones that specifically mention top cropping, I'd speculate, especially after comparing the two sites, that they have a lot more actual top-croppable yeast strains for sale than the ones I have listed. Looks like a pretty good selection to me! Unless you like lagers, of course.

 

[bigbird]

Dang...just top cropped it before reading the further posts. I will ty it and see how it goes on Sunday, compared to previous ones I have harvested from the bottom, of which a couple have been poor attenuators. I dont plan on repeating the process too many times. As a backup I still have a small vial of 1056 that I split before pitching in the fridge..

Thanks for the replies. This site rocks!

 

[///]

Dr K raises a very good point, top croppers are the exception rather than the norm for ale yeasts these days. US-05/001/1056 is the primo example of this, it's a yeast perfect for fermentation in and bottom-cropping from cylindroconical fermenters; a perfect workhorse and an utterly boring characterless yeast. Great for hops though!

But, there are still a fair few top cropping cultures out there.

Ahh mate, no truer words have been spoken. The US05 cone-to-cone is a doer, but pretty low on the esters and other nice profile thingo's.

You did forget;

* Ringwood 1187 - huge billowing head
* 1335 - Brit Ale 2 - more billowing head
* 1332 - Northwest Ale - lesser know but a head so huge it once crawled out of my fermenter and pounced on me as I opened the door!

Scotty

 

[arogers]

so a really big krausen is needed to make top cropping viable. i get that with WLP001 straight up however it seems to diminish repitching with slurry collected from the bottom after racking post-primary.

what exactly are we looking for when we identify a "top cropper"? cheers

 

[dr K]

But, there are still a fair few top cropping cultures out there.

Yes there are, and WLP022 is a perfect (almost too so) example. The really odd one is WLP1010, which whilst I have not used it is possibly the Widmer strain, (the Wyeast strain which I have used escapes my memory) which may have come from Dusseldorf..as may have WLP1007, but via very differnt paths and very different uses over many generations. The Widmer forms an ocean of islands, one cannot help but think of Donne when harvesting.
I guess the intent of my post was that whilst top cropping is romantic, just cause an ale yeast is an ale yeast it does not follow that it is a top cropper.

K

 

[Kai]

Yes there are, and WLP022 is a perfect (almost too so) example. The really odd one is WLP1010, which whilst I have not used it is possibly the Widmer strain, (the Wyeast strain which I have used escapes my memory) which may have come from Dusseldorf..as may have WLP1007, but via very differnt paths and very different uses over many generations. The Widmer forms an ocean of islands, one cannot help but think of Donne when harvesting.
I guess the intent of my post was that whilst top cropping is romantic, just cause an ale yeast is an ale yeast it does not follow that it is a top cropper.

K

Absolutely... In my post I was going to dip my toe into the whole "top fermenting" vs "bottom fermenting" differentiation but decided it wasn't worth the bother.

And yes, in my opinion top-cropping is still decidedly romantic

Scotty, I'm glad you mentioned 1332 as I used it a few years ago, loved what it did but could have sworn it produced a very heavy krauesen. I was surprised not to see it on wyeast's list of top croppers.

regulator, a good top cropping yeast is one where the krausen stays on the top of the ferment once fermentation is complete. It essentially gets stuck there through accumulated CO2 from the ferment binding up big puffy luscious clouds of yeast and trapping them on top.

 

[arogers]

are you talking about something like this: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f37/krausen-not-falling-32033/

they seems to call it "braun hefe" or "brown yeast". i was worried after it happened to my most recent brew which i had pitched with us-05 (actually ross's american ale yeast). it was also the first brew that i used 5.2 on and all i can put it down to is the the better ph in my mash helped drop a lot more proteins etc out of the wort during the boil. i guess this caused it to gum-up and stay on top of the beer, it looked exactly like the pic in the link above.

 

[dr K]

a long call to my prodigal daughter punctuated my post
a big krausen (a german word describing the cabbage like flowering of a fermenting beer or an Erazorhead-like hairstyle) and often seen in lagers, does not denote a top cropping yeast.
In the simplest of terms a (top) top-cropping yeast is one were, if you get the right window, you can easily harvest "the whole" yeast direct from the top. If you open ferment (I guess a bit of a if not requirement but a helpfull aid to top croppers) you will know when...in a 25litre drum homebrew sense it is after the initial flush of krausen, during which time most of the crappy sticky trub and hop matter conveniently sticks to the wall, but before it starts to break up and descend.

K

 

[arogers]

ok, so its not krausen we are looking to skim but the actual yeast "scum". sweet.

 

[Kai]

In the simplest of terms a (top) top-cropping yeast is one were, if you get the right window, you can easily harvest "the whole" yeast direct from the top. If you open ferment (I guess a bit of a if not requirement but a helpfull aid to top croppers) you will know when...in a 25litre drum homebrew sense it is after the initial flush of krausen, during which time most of the crappy sticky trub and hop matter conveniently sticks to the wall, but before it starts to break up and descend.

K

Yes, the yeast that parties at the top after everyone else has left early or passed out on the bottom. I'd go with that as a good definition.

 

[///]

Good ale yeast should have a rough skin (aka Farrah Fawcitt bits) where the co2 in solution gets caught in those bits and takes the good yeast to the top. Lager yeast for comparison, has a smooth skin, hence falling to the bottom.

Apart from that, what Kai said!

Scotty

 

[dr K]

Yes, the yeast that parties at the top after everyone else has left early or passed out on the bottom. I'd go with that as a good definition.

there is something about that screams .."kurtz"... and makes so much more sense than byron's spume or donne's clods.

K

 

[///]

Or Farrahs' bits ...

 

[kabooby]

I remember a Brewing network episode with Chris White where he mentioned that WLP001 was a top cropping yeast. He did also mention that not all ale strains are true top cropping yeast, but I am pretty sure WLP001 was.

Kabooby

 

[dr K]

I remember a Brewing network episode with Chris White where he mentioned that WLP001 was a top cropping yeast. He did also mention that not all ale strains are true top cropping yeast, but I am pretty sure WLP001 was.

Kabooby

now whilst i do not for even a second doubt the veracity of your memory, as indeed, it has been mentioned earlier an ale yeast is not by definition a top cropper, i must, even just to ebb the disinformation flow that occours from forums and blogs, point out that WLP001/1056/US05 is NOT a top cropper. One of the reasons that WLP001/1056/US05 is the biggest selling yeast in the world is that is NOT a top crpper, the yeast stays in suspension (rather like a "true" lager yeast) and is not all that flocculent, that is of course, until you chill it..voila...G2B...

K

 

[manticle]

Question from someone who doesn't pretend to know nor who feels he has the expertise to disagree with many others who've posted here but: in order to reculture yeast, you essentially need some live cells. These may be found at the bottom of a bottle or the bottom of a fermenter so why not at the top of the brew? What distinguishes a true top cropper from a non true one in terms of being able to reculture?

 

[buttersd70]

What distinguishes a true top cropper from a non true one in terms of being able to reculture?

As was mentioned previously, the best sign is a yeast where the yeast sits on top, even after terminal gravity is reached.....as an example, take uso5, and 1469. Talking in general terms (and there are always the odd-brews-out), us05 will have a big healthy head, but when it reaches FG (or very shortly thereafter), this will sink down and drop out. 1469, on the other hand, will hold it's big yeasty head in place, even after FG is reached, and the only thing that can dislodge it is to either crop it off, or crash chill it and force it to drop through.

I normally finish off my brews in a timely fashion.....Muckey, on the other hand, (sorry for calling you out on this, mate, but it illustrates a point) is a lazy bugger, and will often just leave his brews to sit, long beyond the time required to reach terminal gravity. (long in a relative sense, like a week longer than minimum).....when using 1469 (or to a lesser extent 1187), even after extended time in the fermenter, the big head of yeast is still there, available to crop.

 

[arogers]

My most recent fermentation with US-05 looked just like this. Stayed there like that for days after FG was achieved so I just racked from underneath.

EDIT: Well I assume it is US-05, according to Ross's website his "American Ale Yeast" is 1056 or US-05.