Danstar Nottingham

[MadBrewer]

I haven't used this yeast in several years. I think I have only used it one or twice anyway. Today I pitched two packets into a 1.080 Imperial Porter. I pitched around 64* about 11 am. I checked on it a while ago come 4-5 later and it was already taking off and temp was sitting right at 66*. I wasn't expecting that all, I usually do not see activity for somewhere between 12, 18, 24 hrs most of the time.

I know there are posts here and there on the forum, Nottingham is a very popular choice. I have been wanting to use it again for a long time now. What has been some experiences with it around 66* for bigger beers? I know it's a clean, nuetral yeast and can do well at low ale temps but I'm not looking for that. It will be between 64 and 68. I'm trying to keep this one in check being a high abv big beer. Is it going to chew right through this? I can see this becoming a very vigorous fermentation. I know it does attentuate well, I mashed a little warm 154* for the most part. I think I also remember it dropping clear pretty easy?

Can you guys just remind me of this old friend of a yeast, it's been probably 6 yrs since I used it.

[RickBeer]

Notty is always vigorous and quick. Keep it lower than 68. It will be done in 4 days at 66. Go to 62. Datasheet

[MadBrewer]

I had cooled to 60* in about 15 min, but by the time I pitched I was reading 64* and then when I checked on it 4-5 hrs later had climbed to 67*. I had planned on keeping in the lower 60's. It's already on it's way so I don't want to crash it too hard, I'm letting the ambient cool air in the garage bring it down a bit in it's early stage of taking off. I'll settle for keeping it between 62-64 and Ill be happy.

[John Sand]

I've had good results from it up to 68. I tried it in warm weather a couple of times, over 70 I had poor results.

[mashani]

FYI, since I've done it by accident, I can say that even if it gets up to 70-72 it won't do "bad things", it will just start to seem a bit more English instead of the super clean flavor you get at low temps. It's not like S-04 when it gets too warm where it gets really weird tasting.

[Pudge]

No proof, but I firmly believe off flavors rise with activity level as well as temp. A cool, calm fermentation has always produced the best beers for me... especially high gravity brews. Don't let it get too active no matter the temp, Kenny.

[MadBrewer]

Thanks guys, I got it to settle in between 62-64 lastnight and thats where it is sitting this morning. It's sitting in the chest freezer in the garage with the lid cracked and the cool ambient air is keeping it in check. I'll let it ride like that for today since I see that working well. If it dips to 62, I have heat set up and with the cool air I do not see it rising above that.

Thinking back the one time I did use this yeast it did get warm on me, partly because of how active it was unexpectedly. That was back in the day when I was using the MB fermenter and a cooler with water bottles. I got up over 70, at least for a a little while. I do not remember the beer exactly or any effects from it. I'm still impressed how fast this go started, just not used to that with other dry yeasts.

[bpgreen]

Thanks guys, I got it to settle in between 62-64 lastnight and thats where it is sitting this morning. It's sitting in the chest freezer in the garage with the lid cracked and the cool ambient air is keeping it in check. I'll let it ride like that for today since I see that working well. If it dips to 62, I have heat set up and with the cool air I do not see it rising above that.

Thinking back the one time I did use this yeast it did get warm on me, partly because of how active it was unexpectedly. That was back in the day when I was using the MB fermenter and a cooler with water bottles. I got up over 70, at least for a a little while. I do not remember the beer exactly or any effects from it. I'm still impressed how fast this go started, just not used to that with other dry yeasts.

There's no need to warm it if it dips below 62. If I remember correctly, recommended temps for Nottingham go down to 57 and I've fermented below that on a number of occasions (IIRC, I once read on their web site that it's rated down to 55 or so if you overpitch). I use it during winter for that reason (I keep my house fairly cool and ferment in the basement, so I need a yeast that doesn't mind temperatures in the 50s).

[mashani]

I use Nottingham at 57-59 all the time, it is a great yeast for that if you want an ale yeast that works at those temps. But it is more lager like then ale like when that cool. As in it is so clean that it is more crisp / loses some of the ale "softness" - I don't know how to describe the difference better then that... a cool fermented Kolsch yeast is like this too... not saying it's a bad thing, it just depends on what you want. If that's what you want, then your good. Sometimes that's what I want.

No proof, but I firmly believe off flavors rise with activity level as well as temp. A cool, calm fermentation has always produced the best beers for me... especially high gravity brews. Don't let it get too active no matter the temp, Kenny.

I hate blanket concepts like this.

It depends on what you are calling an off flavor and what kind of beer you are making. In my Belgian and Saison and Wheat and authentic English Real Ale world, I am usually trying to get esters that a person who only likes beers that have no yeast flavor whatsoever would call an off flavor, but they *are most certainly not* if you are brewing authentic beers in those styles. It's ok to not like those styles, but what is not liked is not an off flavor, it's supposed to be there.

So, when brewing those, I'm using a yeast that makes them. Some of those yeasts like to be fermented more on the middle to warm end of their range, some even like it if you don't maintain stable temperatures (a good example would be Westmalle yeast which makes the best flavors when you start moderate, increase to very warm, even above "spec" some days into fermentation, and then cool back down to moderate temps, and then ultimately down to lager temps for a while if you can, and you will be blowing off huge amounts due to crazy fermentation if you do it right). So a more vigorous fermentation in these cases may make the best flavors, vs. being cool and oppressed by some silly 'merican tendency towards creating a more flavorless beer unless the flavor happens to come from hops. An actual off flavor in such beers would come from significantly under pitching, stupidly high fermentation temps, or stupidly low fermentation temps in some cases (WLP500 would be a good example, if you like to drink liquefied dirt, ferment with that so cold it has a super calm fermentation, ferment it too hot and you get nail polish, but somewhere in between you can tweak it towards clove or banana by manipulating temps to the lower to warmer side).

[MadBrewer]

There's no need to warm it if it dips below 62. If I remember correctly, recommended temps for Nottingham go down to 57 and I've fermented below that on a number of occasions (IIRC, I once read on their web site that it's rated down to 55 or so if you overpitch). I use it during winter for that reason (I keep my house fairly cool and ferment in the basement, so I need a yeast that doesn't mind temperatures in the 50s).

I know Notty can work much lower. I still want it to be an Ale and be a Porter, I just wanted to keep the fermentation, esters and fusels (if there was to be any) in check because it's a high gravity beer. The way my temp control is set up I usually have a 2* window. The reason for the heat in this case is to kick on if it got to 62* (because it if it did get that low, then it would just keep getting lower and I don't want that once fermentation started) and it kicks off at 64*. All day today, the times I have checked on it it has been steady at 64* on it's own and I'm good with that. I think that will be a good balance for this beer. I typically ferment my ales at 66*-68* but a little lower seemed like a better idea for this batch just to keep it "restrained" but I'm not necessarily looking for super clean, lagerish character for an Imperial Porter.

I'm really interested in how this batch turns out because of the yeast. Mashani, I know you talk about huge pitches of yeast all the time. I could have gotten away with 1 pack for this beer, my calculators estimated about 1.5 packs. And thinking about it, that's probably on the low end. 1 pack would have been pushing it, but it's what I would have done in the past and called it good enough. But I figured I would give this beer what it wants, a whole lot of fresh, healthy yeast.

[mashani]

Notty is kind of an animal and ferments anything, so I think you should be fine as long as you don't stress it out which it sounds like you aren't gonna.

But FWIW this is the pitch rate calculator I swear by these days, even though it seems "obscene" to what was my old school thinking, or even when compared to Mr. Malty.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitc ... alculator/

I'd normally go with some level of Pro Brewer pitch rates on that calculator for a beer that big, probably at least 1.0 in your case. Honestly I never go below Pro Brewer 0.75 in just about any beer these days, except low gravity beers where I want a lot of fruity esters where I know through experience the yeast won't product them if you pitch that much (mostly wheat beer yeasts).

So basically I would pitch a full pack of Notty in a 3 gallon 1.06ish beer.

So if your batch was 5 gallons, think that calculator is going to tell you more like 2 or 3 packs without a starter for a beer that big depending on if you go with 0.75 or 1.0. Because studies of dry packs the referenced found a big variance on what manufactures said viable cell count was and what was actually there in some cases. You can read all sorts of stuff on that site, it's got a lot of information, it's not just a pitch rate calculator. If you scroll down a bit they explain that Mr. Malty (and other software that uses the same formula) assumes dry yeast has 20 billion cells per gram, but manufacturers own claims and testing of the yeasts do not support this. As in Nottingham is only guaranteed by the manufacturer to have > 5 billion cells per gram. So they base their pitch rates on more detailed analysis (averaged out, but it still turns out a lot less then 20 billion cells per gram) instead of such a big assumption, with the goal of having around 2-3 generations of growth and then active fermentation. I tried this to make sure I was out competing my summer airborne Brett C in beers that I didn't really want it involved in because it's literally impossible for me to be guaranteed to avoid, only thing I can do is out compete it - but liked the results so much I've stuck with it in everything. I don't care if it costs more and/or if I have to make a bigger starter, I just want the best results and like that I can drink lots of stuff much sooner then I ever was able to before.

So for future, if you find that you can't drink that beer relatively youngish due to any sort of hot/peppery alcoholic vibe, and it needs a lot of time to age to smooth out - pitching more next time will likely solve that. And also maybe cold steeping the dark grains for 24 hours instead of a hot steep. I was drinking my 1.08 Belgians at 4 weeks this summer, they had no need whatsoever to age to be drinkable (of course age doesn't hurt them and they change in interesting ways with age, but they were good right away). And cold steeped dark beers / stouts, etc. I was drinking at 3 weeks in the bottle when they were done with a cold steep and bigger pitch rates. And they honestly haven't changed much at all with age, they started off smooth and still are. Which to my old way of thinking about stouts and dark beers as a whole is kind of radical. So I'm pretty much a convert of both things.

[Pudge]

No proof, but I firmly believe off flavors rise with activity level as well as temp. A cool, calm fermentation has always produced the best beers for me... especially high gravity brews. Don't let it get too active no matter the temp, Kenny.

I hate blanket concepts like this.

It depends on what you are calling an off flavor and what kind of beer you are making...

We're talking Imperial Porter, correct?

If you want something boozier with more yeast character and something you might want to lay down and age for awhile, let the yeast have at it. If you want something cleaner, possibly drinkable sooner, and with the alcohol in the background, a slow calm ferment will do you better. You can still have an overactive ferment at cooler temps.

[mashani]

That may be true if your dealing with less then happy yeast.

But my experience over the past 18 months or so tells me that if you pitch enough yeast so that you get 2-3 generations of very fresh and happy daughter cells ready to rip into it, it won't be boozier, it won't have fusels or hot alcohol, even though it's going to be vigorous and get done fast. I am quite confident of this from that experience. I could probably make an Imperial Porter this big that I could drink at 3-4 weeks in the bottle using the processes I've settled on. I don't see why not, if it works for huge Belgians and huge Scotch ales and Stouts, then it's got to work for that too. There hasn't been a beer I've made this year that I couldn't drink at 3-4 weeks, regardless of gravity. Pretty much all of my beers, even the biggest ones, *taste good right out of the fermenter* these days. I could have force carbed my strong winter ale, my strong Scotch ales and my big Belgians and Saisons and drank them on the spot if I had kegs. Sure all of those are still good for aging / keeping but it was also good young. Hot alcohol comes from stressed out yeast as opposed to happy yeast. If your vigorous fermentation is caused by high spiking temperatures causing crazy activity levels and red lining your yeast, then sure it's a problem, but if you are blowing off huge amounts and having vigorous activity with a fermentation at an appropriate temperature for the type of yeast characteristic you are looking for, then you just have a bunch of happy healthy yeast doing their thing.

[MadBrewer]

This is the first time in a long time I have let a beer go 3 weeks in the fermenter, but with this beer I figured it would do it some good. To talk about what has been mentioned in the last couple posts, although this batch took off quickly, much faster than I am use to I was kind of surprized it wasn't more vigorous. Im bottling some bombers of this on Sunday where I am going to add some coffee to some bottles and vanilla to the others while I keg the rest and I'm looking forward to a taste of it.

[MadBrewer]

Well, the Imperial Porter came out great with Nottingham. I was very pleased all the way around. It got to work quick, got the job done and cleared really nice. For a dark beer, it was crystal clear allowing the ruby highlights to come through. Flavor impact was nuetral, as expected allowing the specialty malts to shine though with clean hop bitterness and slight hop flavor. I liked everything enough to use Notty again. Today I pitched it into my hoppy wheat, I came up short on OG, so it will be a bit more sessionable but everything else went well. I never used Notty in a hoppy beer but I have been wanting to. If it works well in this I will use if for the next batch which is going to be a Red IPA. I just wanted something a little different, I'm a dry yeast user and US-05 has been hit and miss lately. I do like Bry-97 but the lag time is a bit much and it takes outs some IBU's and hop character.

So all in all, Notty was a success. I feel like I have been missing out since US-05 has been a go to for me, it's early to tell but Notty might take it's spot for some of those beers I use it for.