BeerBorg

This weekend I'm heading out to the LHBS on Saturday to pick up ingredients to brew Sunday (and the following Sunday, too).

I realized this morning that, although I usually make a yeast starter for my fivers (which is Sunday's batch), I won't have time if I buy the yeast Saturday afternoon.

Hmmmm.....

I thought about it for a while, and then decided, since it's another batch of 2Daves Irish Red, I can buy dry Nottingham Ale Yeast and work with that. It'll be fine. Maybe not ideal, but definitely fine.

And I'll have some lovely Irish Red Ale in a month or so.

I'm curious Dave that as regular as your brew schedule that you don't just pitch on yeast cakes of previous batches.

Sometimes I do. Well, I've washed batches of yeast, and used that. But the right yeast is important, and yeast health is important, too. So for some styles that I don't brew all that often, I may not wash the yeast or use the previous yeast cake, since it may be inappropriate or may not age well.

I actually prefer S 04 for British style ales. Notty seems like it ferments clean like S 05, plus it attenuates very high leaving the beer a bit dryer. Where 04 tends to leave more of the signature "breadiness" of a British yeast and more of the malt in tact.

Roger, that reaffirms that I need to change the yeast for my brown ale to S-04 from Notty. It was described as being a little too dry in the finish.

Thanks for the heads-up, Roger. I'll look for 04 when I'm there. I'm pretty sure they carry it.

I would agree with Roger. 0-4 is great for Irish ales. I have been using it exclusively for my Irish Red and love how it finishes.

Well, I better do what the doctor orders.

I'm a bit late on this one, but I also enjoy using S-04 for my Rye ale. I also used it in the Deep Ellum IPA that Beer-lord and I collaborated on during last fall's RCE.


Rick