To determine the different flavor impact of different yeasts, I designed an experiment to determine these impacts. I did the experiment in the summer of 2011. I posted the experimental design in a separate post and split the results into two posts. The more interesting post (with the tasting notes) can be found in the second part. The discussion and summary of the whole experiment are included below.
Experimental design (all about how the experiment was conducted)
First part of results (includes yeast performance)
Second part of results (includes tasting results)
Overall discussion
The descriptions from the suppliers were very similar to the taste panels opinion. Sometimes, the beers had less or none phenolic notes although stated by the suppliers. This difference could be due to a different fermentation temperature or different pitching rates. In fact, at the same time as I was writing this post I came along an interview with an employee from Wyeast. The interview can be found here. In my opinion one of the best and most educational interview ever. Check it out. Owen Lingley mentions that underpitching of wheat yeasts can lead to a more prominent banana character. Overpitching leading to a more phenol driven beer. And I guess this is the answer to the lacking phenolic notes in the beers because I intentionally underpitched all of the beers. And the results kind of confirm Owen’s statement. One message to take home: if you want huge banana character, underpitch. If you want phenolic notes in your wheat beer, then overpitch. Increasing the temperature will lead to an increasing ester production. Maybe underpitching and raising the temperature will further increase the banana character?
Another flavor was determined several times: strawberry. I already mentioned that I detected such a flavor in a previous wheat beer which was fermented with the #3056 Bavarian Wheat Blend. But we could detect strawberry notes in the #3333 German Wheat and the isolated Burgdorfer Weizenhefe as well. I have no idea about the background how this flavor got in there.
What about my favorite strains? Well, my favorite strain before this experiment was the #3068 Weihenstephan strain. The #3068 Weihenstephan is still my favorite strain but there are some other strains which are really interesting. There is the #3942 Belgian Wheat and the #1010 American Wheat strain that fascinated me the most. And there is the #3638 Bavarian Wheat which I will use in another wheat beer soon.
Summary
The goal is achieved, the different yeast strains are described. And the WB-06 seems to be a different yeast strain than Wyeast’s #3068 Weihenstephan yeast strain. Another thing the effect of pitching rates and fermentation temperatures. After a yeast strain is selected, the character of the particular yeast strain can further be influenced by the pitching rate and the fermentation temperature.
Eureka Brewing 