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Wyeast London 1028 giving me fits....

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  • Wyeast London 1028 giving me fits....

    I've been using Wyeast's London 1028 for over five years in our 7bbl brewhouse and have had outstanding results - usually two-day fermentations with amazing flocculation and resulting clarity. This stuff was so aggressive, I produced 1120 bbls last year with two fermenters and three bright tanks.

    Now, however, all has gone awry. I've tried culturing up three different charges (from smack-packs) and had the same result: Decent attenuation, really poor flocculation, leading to under-harvesting and thus underpitching the next batch....vicious cycle. Cloudy, yeasty beers are no fun either.

    I've torn down and cleaned or replaced all yeast-handling eqpt in the brewhouse to no avail. I finally broke down and got a pitchable quantity directly from Wyeast and it's doing the exact same thing.

    I'm confident it's not anything funky going on in the berwhouse, as I'm using the 1098 "British" yeast concurrently and it's performing beautifully.

    I'm tired of banging my head on the wall on this, thought someone might have had a similar experience or be able to provide a bit of wisdom.

    Thanks!

  • #2
    If your water chemistry has been bouncing around in alkalinity your yeast will do funny things like you are describing. First know your source, ground water (well), surface (lake, river?) ..any recent storms, changes in sourcing...ask your water provider where the water has been coming from on the days you were using water that had funny things going on. Monitor the alkalinity in some way. Easiest way is with aqua test strips that have alkalinity and Ca test areas, although you could get full analyses from a local lab or do it yourself for each ion, etc.

    Next are your raw materials. Sometimes a new nutrient profile from a different malt/crop year could send your yeast a left hook.

    Dont use smack packs, buy a real culture each time you will thank yourself in the long run.

    Dont use your yeast more than 7-10 generations. Many people will disagree with this, but if you want consistent results re-culture that often.

    There isnt alot of information in your post to give specifics, but these are general answers to most yeast performance problems.

    Know your water, its the most important ingredient in your beer.

    Good luck

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    • #3
      More info needed but what is your yeast harvesting routine? You might be selecting early or late flocs...proper selective harvesting is everything. just a thought, improper harvesting can cause similar problems. Also, for Pro brewing, slap packs are not the way to go. I would assume that you will not get the same level of consistency from a "consumer" product, but I could be wrong. (mostly because the slap packs might sit on a shelf for ?????, vs the lab pitch to a brewer will be shipped overnight).

      Just my thoughts,
      -Beaux

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