[Saccharomyces]

I kegged the batch of Bohemianish Pilsner that brewed a few Sundays ago last night.  To my surprise, two packs of W-34/70 in 5.5 gallons of wort dropped the specific gravity from 1.058 to 1.010.  That is an AA of 82.8%.  I was shooting for an AA between 75 and 77%.  The resulting beer is more like a German Pils than a Bohemian Pilsner with respect to bitterness, lingering is a good description.  I am going to have to stick with lower attenuating liquid cultures for Bohemian Pilsners.  I have always believed that Wyeast 2124 is W-34/70, but if Fermentis W-34/70 is actually W-34/70, then Wyeast 2124 is not.  I was beginning to believe that the old Brewtek CL-660 culture was W-34/70, but I never got over 77% AA with that culture.  AA was almost always guaranteed to be 75%, regardless of pitch number.  My quest to find a replacement for CL-660 continues.

[dannyjed]

I don’t think that WY 2124 and 34/70 are the same as well. I have never gotten much sulfur if any from 34/70 and the last time I used WY 2124 it produced quite a bit of sulfur in the aroma. The sulfur aroma eventually diminished over time and I also got 77% attenuation. Looking back on batches where I used 34/70, I always got 80-82% attenuation.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Descardeci]

This always bug me, ppl saying that 2124 and wlp 830 is the same as 34/70, the 34/70 seem more clean, have a high flocculation and attenuation

[hopfenundmalz]

The yeast genome study showedvthey are not the same.

[Saccharomyces]

What is interesting is that Wyeast 2035 and Wyeast 2112 are closely related.  That pretty much seals the deal on my assumption that the yeast strain Anchor acquired from Wallerstein Labs in the mid-seventies was the Christian Schmidt strain.  Wyeast 2035 is the August Shell strain.  It was originally named Wyeast 2035 New Ulm Lager.  It is an open secret that the Schell strain descends from the Christian Schmidt strain.  Seeing that W-34/70 shares parentage has to mean that the Christian Schmidt strain is related to W-34/70 or is W-34/70, which, by the way, is from the Frohberg Brewery in Grimma, Saxony.  I originally posted this part of a post several years ago:

Original Text:

“Die Hefe Frohberg stammt aus der Brauerei Frohberg in Grimma in Sachsen und ist eine Unterhefe. Die Hefe Saaz, welche in der Betriebshefe einer Saazer Brauerei als Nebenrasse enthalten war und daraus rein gezüchtet wurde, zeigt ebenfalls alle morphologischen Merkmale (einschließlich der Sporenbildung) der Brauerei kulturhefe.  Sie gibt jedoch, im Betriebe verwendet, keine normale Gärung und kann daher eigentlich nicht zu den Kulturhefen gerechnet werden.”

Translated Text:

"The yeast Frohberg comes from the brewery Frohberg in Grimma in Saxony and is a bottom yeast. The yeast Saaz, which was included in the Betriebshefe Saaz a brewery by-race and was bred pure fact also shows all the morphological features (including spores) of the brewery culture yeast. They are, however, used in companies, not a normal fermentation and therefore can not really be classed as culture yeasts. "

[purduekenn]

The last time I used 34/70 was for a 5.5 gallon Helles. Attenuation was 75% but I mashed at 152F.  I don't remember getting sulfur with 34/70 yeast. I brewed the same recipe with Diamond Lager yeast mashing at 152F and got 74% attenuation.

[Drewch]

The last time I used 34/70 was for a 5.5 gallon Helles. Attenuation was 75% but I mashed at 152F.  I don't remember getting sulfur with 34/70 yeast. I brewed the same recipe with Diamond Lager yeast mashing at 152F and got 74% attenuation.

I've only used W-34/70 twice -- both times in a split-batch comparison with US-05 mashed at about 68C -- and even fermenting at ale temps 19C +/- 1C, I found it to taste cleaner than US-05.

[beersk]

I've fermented a bunch of different styles with 34/70, always came out great, clean. It's a reliable and forgiving yeast. I ferment it in the 60's sometimes, and have fermented it at 48F as well. I always thought it was the dry form of wy2124. Interesting to know that it's not the same thing. So it's closer to wy2112? Or did I read Saccharomyces post wrong?

[HopDen]

34/70 is my house lager yeast. I have fermented it @48* without issue and have gone out 10 gens without perceivable changes. Lately though I have been using S-189 and although I don't have anything negative about it other than it will not or would not ferment @48*. I found its sweet spot to be 54* and am on gen 4. I will be going back to 34/70 because I like the influence on my recipes better than S-189.

[Saccharomyces]

I am ready to render my decision on Fermentis W-34/70, and that is, not ready for prime time.  I am used to brewing with cultured yeast, so my threshold for off-flavors is very low.  I put the "A" in anal retentive when it comes to culturing yeast.  There is an off-flavor in this batch that cannot be attributed to anything other than the culture. Granted, the beer is a very naked example, but a quality culture handled correctly would not have this off-flavor.  Additionally, the culture has a significant percentage of non-flocculent cells (i.e., it is powdery). There is little doubt in my mind that W-34/70 is undergoing mutations during aerobic propagation. I will not use it again.  Granted, I am a difficult customer to please. I have brewed mainly from yeast cultures that I isolated and propagated for most of the time that I have brewed.

[erockrph]

34/70 is my house lager yeast. I have fermented it @48* without issue and have gone out 10 gens without perceivable changes. Lately though I have been using S-189 and although I don't have anything negative about it other than it will not or would not ferment @48*. I found its sweet spot to be 54* and am on gen 4. I will be going back to 34/70 because I like the influence on my recipes better than S-189.

Not to take this off on too much of a tangent, but your experience with S-189 is a bit different than mine. I get my best results by pitching at 40F, letting it free rise to 45F and holding it there for a few days before ramping up the temp about 3 F a day from there. I've tried it in the mid 50s a few times and wasn't a huge fan of the results.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[fredthecat]

I am ready to render my decision on Fermentis W-34/70, and that is, not ready for prime time.  I am used to brewing with cultured yeast, so my threshold for off-flavors is very high.  I put the "A" in anal retentive when it comes to culturing yeast.  There is an off-flavor in this batch that cannot be attributed to anything other than the culture. Granted, the beer is a very naked example, but a quality culture handled correctly would not have this off-flavor.  Additionally, the culture has a significant percentage of non-flocculent cells (i.e., it is powdery). There is little doubt in my mind that W-34/70 is undergoing mutations during aerobic propagation. I will not use it again.  Granted, I am a difficult customer to please. I have brewed mainly from yeast cultures that I isolated and propagated for most of the time that I have brewed.

appreciated. yeah i used it last winter and found it adequate in flavour, it definitely cleaned up as it aged, but in a bock that i made it did 90% attenuation unexpectedly (probably a low mash temp :\ ) and it just had a flavour I wouldn't call pleasant. took a few months before it mellowed enough to become sessionable. like a heavy, chunky almost wood flavour if i remember correctly.

trying s-189 right now and ill see how it turned out in a few weeks.

[roger]

There is an off-flavor in this batch that cannot be attributed to anything other than the culture. Granted, the beer is a very naked example, but a quality culture handled correctly would not have this off-flavor.  Additionally, the culture has a significant percentage of non-flocculent cells (i.e., it is powdery). There is little doubt in my mind that W-34/70 is undergoing mutations during aerobic propagation. I will not use it again.

Yikes, this is information that I have not heard before. Thanks for sharing. However, my taste threshold isn't nearly as sensitive.

I recently purchased two sachets of 34/70 and two of Diamond to try them out and compare them for myself. Now I'm thinking I should try a third batch with liquid yeast to compare as well. Surely other homebrewers have performed this hundreds of time, but I learn more from my own experiences.

My followup question is, does the drying process somehow result in these mutations you detect, or is this lab or even batch specific? Or is this yeast just different from the specific CL-660 culture you remember?

[Saccharomyces]

After conducting a little research, there is something going on with W-34/70 at Fermentis.   TUM lists W-34/70 as having an AA 73%, not 80 to 84% as is claimed by Fermentis for their W-34/70 offering.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjKhs7Vi-TuAhVMHc0KHatKALwQFjAAegQIAxAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.blq-weihenstephan.de%2Ffileadmin%2Fpdf%2FMikroorganismen%2FHefen_En%2FFrisinga___Proles.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0H0jirQzCv70AZnGk37OSz

With this information in hand, we can assume that Fermentis W-34/70 has a mutated seed culture or the seed culture undergoes mutation when propagated under aerobic conditions in a bioreactor.  If Fermentis did not claim such a high AA, then another explanation is contamination.  I do not care what the dry yeast propagators claim, their cultures are still not as pure as liquid cultures, at least not at the 11g package size.   For example, the team at Washington University had to get a slant of the source culture for BRY-97 from Lallemand because they wound up sequencing a contaminant when they attempted to sequence the culture via dry BRY-97.  I will say that dry yeast has come a long way since early nineties, but it has a long way to go before it will be used as anything but backup in my brewery. The true test of the purity of a yeast culture is a pale, delicately-flavored beer.   Any defects in a culture shine through like a sore thumb.  I know that I did not introduce any contaminants.  I wore surgical gloves and wiped both packages of yeast as well as the scissors that I use in propagation with alcohol before cutting off a corner on each package.  All of the dry yeast culture that I have used from Fermentis and Lallemand have all had off-flavors when compared to liquid or cultured yeast.  S-04, US-05, and now W-34/70 from Fermentis have had the most notable off-flavors.  One has to really look for an off-flavor with BRY-97, but one can be found when compared side-by-side with a beer fermented with well-handled Chico-derived culture.

[fredthecat]

After conducting a little research, there is something going with W-34/70 at Fermentis.   TUM list W-34/70 as having an AA 73%, not 80 to 84% as is claimed by Fermentis for their W-34/70 offering.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjKhs7Vi-TuAhVMHc0KHatKALwQFjAAegQIAxAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.blq-weihenstephan.de%2Ffileadmin%2Fpdf%2FMikroorganismen%2FHefen_En%2FFrisinga___Proles.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0H0jirQzCv70AZnGk37OSz

With this information in hand, we can assume that Fermentis W-34/70 has a mutated seed culture or the seed culture undergoes mutation when propagated under aerobic conditions in a bioreactor.  If Fermentis did not claim such a high AA, then another explanation is contamination.  I do not care what the dry yeast propagators claim, their cultures are still not as pure as liquid cultures, at least not at the 11g package size.   For example, the team at Washington University had to get a slant of the source culture for BRY-97 from Lallemand because they wound up sequencing a contaminant when they attempted to sequence the culture via dry BRY-97.  I will say that dry yeast has come a long way since early nineties, but it has a long way to go before it will be used as anything but backup in my brewery. The true test of the purity of a yeast culture is a pale, delicately-flavored beer.   Any defects in a culture shine through like a sore thumb.  I know that I did not introduce any contaminants.  I wore surgical gloves and wiped both packages of yeast as well as the scissors that I use in propagation with alcohol before cutting off a corner on each package.  All of the dry yeast culture that I have used from Fermentis and Lallemand have all had off-flavors when compared to liquid or cultured yeast.  S-04, US-05, and now W-34/70 from Fermentis have had the most notable off-flavors.  One has to really look for an off-flavor with BRY-97, but one can be found when compared side-by-side with a beer fermented with well-handled Chico-derived culture.

i know i keep just acknowledging. but again, read and appreciated. cool stuff.

im trying to work through dry yeasts i never tried to see if any really pique my fancy.

i just bottled it today but NGL: K-97 seems really extremely clean though i dislike the haze that i can not get rid of.