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Author Topic: Fermentis W-34/70 is a monster  (Read 10147 times)

Offline MDL

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Re: Fermentis W-34/70 is a monster
« Reply #45 on: February 14, 2021, 05:48:27 pm »
Municipal water systems DO in fact use chlorine gas for establishing a free residual for distribution.  Some use hypochlorite. More commonly now to use hypochlorite because of the dangers of large volumes of chlorine gas on site. But chlorine gas is still being used.

Offline fredthecat

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Re: Fermentis W-34/70 is a monster
« Reply #46 on: February 14, 2021, 07:48:04 pm »

The plate shown below was streaked from a culture I grew from the dregs of a bottle of Southern Tier bottle-conditioned pale ale.  We can assume that all of the well-isolated white dots on that plate are all the offspring is a single yeast cell; hence, the term single-cell pure culture or isolate.   What we do not know is if all of the well-isolated colonies are from a single strain of yeast.  The only way to know for certain is to transfer different colonies to different slants and use each slant to step-propagate a starter to use in brewing.  If the slants we create all produce the same fermentation characteristics, we know that we are dealing with a brewery that a) uses a single strain and b) has good biological quality control.  Now, the only way that the scientists who sequenced BRY-97 from the package could both come to the conclusion that the culture was not in the American family is if there were yeast colonies on the plate that were not BRY-97.  If Chris and Kristoffer are like me, they probably selected the largest well-isolated colony on the plate.  It could have been that the culture was infected with another yeast culture that grows faster and more robustly than BRY-97.  I have seen that occur in my own yeast travels.

i understand what youre saying. ive tried reading your posts carefully and respectfully, i think sometimes due in part to the complexity of quickly reducing this stuff into a few sentences for a wider audience than you are used to it can be confusing. but the paragraph above explains what you believe could be happening pretty clearly. the chance of "randomly" (well, not exactly) selecting the unwanted yeast is potentially higher than selecting the labelled yeast, however that doesnt change the fact that it is still there in the product.

Until I began pitching at Lallemand recommended rates I was very unhappy with the fermentation profile in terms of flavor. The final gravity was not an issue with lower pitch rates.

i don't know why i so frequently hear people say to potentially underpitch and ignore the recommended rates. i wouldnt say there is a concensus online to do this. it makes very little effort and price difference to pitch the correct amount of yeast for a batch of beer. and my focusing on that, i believe has definitely improved my beer.

I was never satisfied with lagers I attempted with liquid cultures. I assumed pitching rate was the cause. Never wanted to buy enough yeast or plan ahead to grow up enough.

same, i have been doing 2 or 3 lagers each winter now and considered liquid, but to get a correct pitch rate would require multiple steps up. the greater difference in ease between liquid lager yeast starters and oxygenation required vs just adding 2 or 3 sachets of dry yeas vs ale yeast makes discussing dry lager yeast all the more important.


Respectfully, you're simply wrong about this. Have you actually tried it and tested it? And yes, I know chemistry, you're not the only scientist on this forum. You bring a lot of great knowledge to this forum but you should consider taking your own advice: "Hopefully, this forum will remain a little more open minded...Opportunity comes to those whose minds are prepared and still open to new knowledge."

this topic is sort of unrelated but in my experience removing chlorine is pretty important for brewing. i used to have bandaidy tastes in my early beers before i started trying to treat my water before use. city water can vary drastically and even be different from the official reports. tbh i have not correctly nailed down my city's water qualities yet even after reading multiple reports the city publishes on it.
i currently just measure out the water required, add half a campden tablet (its usually in total about 6 to 8 gallons of water) and let it sit for 24 hours. not that much work and no filter required.



Nope. I know exactly what it takes like. Come on man. Do you think you're the only one on this forum with good sensory skills? I'm sure yours are great, but there's no need to knock others' sensory skills. Your dogmatism is actually a bit insulting. It's unfortunate, because again, you have a lot of knowledge to share and I appreciate (most of) your posts. You remind me of that LODO guy...

i dont want to seem like im whiteknighting here, but i think hes not personally insulting you, but saying different people have different perceptual abilities. tbh i havent ever noticed diacetyl in my beers that i can remember, though i have used yeasts that dont produce much of it usually, but i wonder now if i have a very high threshold for noticing it.

Offline Saccharomyces

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Re: Fermentis W-34/70 is a monster
« Reply #47 on: February 16, 2021, 12:05:37 pm »
Respectfully, you're simply wrong about this. Have you actually tried it and tested it? And yes, I know chemistry, you're not the only scientist on this forum. You bring a lot of great knowledge to this forum but you should consider taking your own advice: "Hopefully, this forum will remain a little more open minded...Opportunity comes to those whose minds are prepared and still open to new knowledge."

Yes, I have brewed using a chlorinated municipal water supply without a chlorine filter.  I started brewing at time where it was still like being part of mad monk squad. To say that brewing knowledge was sparse is an understatement.   I too thought that removing chlorine from water was an unnecessary expense, but I was wrong.  The difference between before and after moving to a chlorine filter was like the difference between night and day with the water supply I had at that time.  That county still uses sodium hypochlorite as their disinfectant.  The dosing can get so high in the summer that the water coming out of the tap smells like pool water.  Hypochlorous acid and hypochloric acid may be unstable, but they do not off-gas in the time it takes to heat strike water to strike temperature unless they were at undetectable levels coming out of the tap.   Is a chlorine filter an absolute necessity? Well, not if one is willing to pre-boil one's water or at least allow it to sit long enough at a temperature for dissolved hypochlorous acid and hypochloric acid to off-gas.  However, taking water from a chlorinated tap, heating it to strike temperature, and immediately mashing-in is living life in the fast lane with respect to chlorophenol production. Chlorine pretty much starts to produce chlorophenols on contact with barley husks.  Chlorophenols are detectable at the ppb level.