Wy1968 - London Esb Ale

[Pumpy]

What way did yorkshire 1469 go? I've got a reasonabley fresh (jan09) smackpack of it here unsmacked.

I'm a little scared of my yeast, it had such a big krausen it popped open the glad wrap lid and overflowed and I didnt notice till just then, it must have happened last night or something.

Mee too

Pumpy

 

[Fourstar]

Talk about working fast! My dry stout (3rd re-pitch) was done and dusted last night. Pitched at 5PM Sunday and done by 5 PM Tuesday. 48 hour ferment @ 20 deg..... Im interested to see what the esters are like once kegged and aged. the other 2 took 5 days in primary. Heres hoping i didnt overpitch!

 

[Hugo]

Loving this post... sat down to start a thread about this yeast tonight and it was already done for me. But I have a question/problem....

I brewed my first ESB with 1968 about 7 weeks ago and it behaved much as has been described on this post. I racked after about 2 weeks and have never seen a beer so clear coming out of the primary. Another 10 days in the secondary, got down to around 1012 and I bottled. Primed each bottle with cane sugar.

A month on.... no carbonation. Very happy with the taste (nice sweetness which is cleaned up by a bitter finish), but not a bubble to be seen. My two theories are:

1) I live in a coldish climate on the tablelands of NSW, so the temp in the brew shed has been too cold to get any activity over the last month (although up until a week ago the temp daytime temp has been low 20's)
2) The beer flocs so hard there's not enough residual yeast after racking and secondary to carbonate the bottles.

There was almost no sediment in the bottom of the bottle I opened tonight, so not sure if that supports theory #2. Is it possible for a beer to be too clear to prime?

Thoughts and comments would be appreciated.

 

[Sammus]

Is it possible for a beer to be too clear to prime?

Cant help much elsewhere, but I think it can be too clear, but isn't likely to be. People filter their beer crystal clear and still have enough yeast to bottle carb.

I did dark esb (im not sure exactly what style it was...) a couple years back for the hag xmas swap that bottle carbed very nicely after a 3 week primary, very clear when bottling, still got some fizz though. Actually hit the nail on the head with that one, it was one of my favourites to date...

anywho, good luck sorting it out, hopefully someone is of more help than I.

 

[RetsamHsam]

Loving this post... sat down to start a thread about this yeast tonight and it was already done for me. But I have a question/problem....

I brewed my first ESB with 1968 about 7 weeks ago and it behaved much as has been described on this post. I racked after about 2 weeks and have never seen a beer so clear coming out of the primary. Another 10 days in the secondary, got down to around 1012 and I bottled. Primed each bottle with cane sugar.

A month on.... no carbonation. Very happy with the taste (nice sweetness which is cleaned up by a bitter finish), but not a bubble to be seen. My two theories are:

1) I live in a coldish climate on the tablelands of NSW, so the temp in the brew shed has been too cold to get any activity over the last month (although up until a week ago the temp daytime temp has been low 20's)
2) The beer flocs so hard there's not enough residual yeast after racking and secondary to carbonate the bottles.

There was almost no sediment in the bottom of the bottle I opened tonight, so not sure if that supports theory #2. Is it possible for a beer to be too clear to prime?

Thoughts and comments would be appreciated.

I have another theory, Maybe you didn't add enough priming sugar.. I tasted a recent batch which hadn't yet carbonated and it was still sweet from the priming sugar, so given that you say the taste is spot on, sounds like the yeast has consumed the priming sugar but there just wasn't enough of it to sufficiently carbonate the beer.

Edit: I just noticed that you say the beer has a 'nice sweetness' could this be from the priming sugar? If so I would be leaning towards the cold theory. I doubt you would not have enough yeast left to carb the bottles.

 

[rich_lamb]

Loving this post... sat down to start a thread about this yeast tonight and it was already done for me. But I have a question/problem....

I brewed my first ESB with 1968 about 7 weeks ago and it behaved much as has been described on this post. I racked after about 2 weeks and have never seen a beer so clear coming out of the primary. Another 10 days in the secondary, got down to around 1012 and I bottled. Primed each bottle with cane sugar.

A month on.... no carbonation. Very happy with the taste (nice sweetness which is cleaned up by a bitter finish), but not a bubble to be seen. My two theories are:

1) I live in a coldish climate on the tablelands of NSW, so the temp in the brew shed has been too cold to get any activity over the last month (although up until a week ago the temp daytime temp has been low 20's)
2) The beer flocs so hard there's not enough residual yeast after racking and secondary to carbonate the bottles.

There was almost no sediment in the bottom of the bottle I opened tonight, so not sure if that supports theory #2. Is it possible for a beer to be too clear to prime?

Thoughts and comments would be appreciated.

In my experience there's a few things that typically cause this (and a lot of other factors influence it), but your suspicions are pretty good.

1) The lower temperatures will slow things down. I've noticed this myself in my latest brew, as Melbourne's just got pretty cold

2) The yeast actually added to the bottles is a controlling factor - IMHO one of the most significant ones. When I rack to my bottling bucket I judiciously suck up a few puffs of yeast with the siphon which gets well mixed in. More difficult with this yeast but still possible. In general, the fact that it's floculated so well means less will be available in suspension at bottling, which slows down carbonation.

The cure for any and all of this is just patience. If you can manage some trick at bottling to get some reliable way of adding a small amount of yeast, great. Otherwise just wait. You will find after a while they just magically prime almost overnight - though it may take months for it to happen!
I wouldn't advise on opening the bottles and messin around with more sugar or yeast or anything. But you could give them all a bit of agitation and put them in a warmer place for a few days to help it along.

 

[Sammus]

Well, I chilled that starter, decanted some clear beer, topped it up with 1.5L of boiled/cooled wort from the kettle and it had a nice krausen on it by pitching time. Chill and pitch, a bit to cold at 16C, but it was bubbling nicely with 10min B) Hope I didn't over pitch, there was barely a cm of slurry at the bottom of that flask when it settled though. Should bet set up nicely to take next weeks application for the 1100 club

 

[warra48]

Brewed an English Old today, and dumped it onto the yeast cake of WY 1968 from a Brown Ale, which was fermented with a jar of slurry from a Best Bitter.
Even at 18C, it was bubbling at 3 or 4 blips a second through the blowoff tube within about 2 hours. I've never had a beer take off that quickly before.

 

[///]

Mee too

Pumpy

Is that a ferment in your fermenter or are you just happy to see us??!!!

Scotty

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Loving this post... sat down to start a thread about this yeast tonight and it was already done for me. But I have a question/problem....

I brewed my first ESB with 1968 about 7 weeks ago and it behaved much as has been described on this post. I racked after about 2 weeks and have never seen a beer so clear coming out of the primary. Another 10 days in the secondary, got down to around 1012 and I bottled. Primed each bottle with cane sugar.

A month on.... no carbonation. Very happy with the taste (nice sweetness which is cleaned up by a bitter finish), but not a bubble to be seen. My two theories are:

1) I live in a coldish climate on the tablelands of NSW, so the temp in the brew shed has been too cold to get any activity over the last month (although up until a week ago the temp daytime temp has been low 20's)
2) The beer flocs so hard there's not enough residual yeast after racking and secondary to carbonate the bottles.

There was almost no sediment in the bottom of the bottle I opened tonight, so not sure if that supports theory #2. Is it possible for a beer to be too clear to prime?

Thoughts and comments would be appreciated.

I cant address your issue specifically, but I can comment on the behavior of the 1968 in my brewery.

It will go off like a rocket, but if it doesn't get everything it wants - it pulls up stumps at roughly 1.020 and buggers off for a nap. And once it has stopped fermenting it is a bitch to wake up again. You need to rouse it and up the temps - and repeat.

If you keep it happy - it will finish out OK but not at a very high AA% - you can get it to go a little further by increasing the fermentation temp as it starts to slow down. It will never be "dry" though.

I have had a little acetylaldehyde in some beers with this yeast just because I think they weren't fully done when the yeast packed it in - and so I packaged it. Too much haste and the beer never got rid of its slight "green" taste. Just because it looks good in 6 days doesn't mean it is good.

In your case - there probably isn't much yeast in there because it drops so clear - and its dormant as hell. The only thing I can think of is for you to get it nice and warm - mid 20s and see how it goes. Get it warm, then give each bottle a nice shake to get any yeast well and truly in suspension and then keep it warm for a week or so. It might help, or it might do nothing

TB