Determining Yeasts for a House Flavor

[zmanzorro]

I am currently in the process of starting up a brewpub and was wondering how professional brewers determine what yeast(s) will be their "house flavor." Do yeast labs like White Labs and Wyeast offer services where they help create a unique strain or create a new blend strains for you? Or is there some kind of method to start off with a common strain and "mutate" it until it creates the flavors and profile you want?

I would also like to get a sense if "house flavors" are mostly for larger breweries and most smaller guys just use common strains straight from the yeast labs.

[swright83]

From my experience, most breweries choose a "house strain" by selecting a strain that works well with many of the styles they wish to produce. I can't speak for yeast labs, but my guess is that, especially for a small brewery, they wouldn't offer to tailor a strain or blend for you. They could probably help direct you if you had a desire for certain characteristics or flavor attributes, but it would take a lot of effort, with minimal return, for them to design a strain/blend for a customer. I would recommend determining what type of strain will work best for your main brands (British, German, Belgian, American, etc.), and try a variety of strains from that family. For example, if you plan on focusing on British styles, get a variety of British ale strains, and select one that you like and performs well with multiple styles.

"House flavor" tends to come from a variety of variables, not just yeast. Water profile, brewhouse design, and various processes can all contribute to "house flavor." Yeast certainly contributes, but not entirely. If it did, half of the craft beer in the US would all taste like Sierra Nevada.

Hope this helps.

[zmanzorro]

I've already identified 3 general types of yeast that we want to use, I just wasn't sure what the next step was from there; if there was some kind of yeast bank that brewers had access to, as opposed to the strains homebrewers had access to.

This definitely helped. Thanks.

[swright83]

Check out Brewing Science Institute. Most of their strains are also offered by White Labs and Wyeast, but they only deal with microbreweries. Ask around your local breweries for their input on preferred strains that work well for them, (I assume your water profile will be similar) and which labs are the best to work with (or not work with). You could probably also get started by asking your other local breweries for pitchable yeast. It's not a great long term solution to depend on, but if you're in a pinch, most brewers will share yeast if they have it ready. We've helped out several local breweries when they need yeast, we just ask that they bring us tacos. Just make sure it's a brewery you believe has their sanitation in order.

[BrewinLou]

Zman, you can order custom blends all you want from White Labs probably others too, or order small pitches of multiple strains and mix them yourself. One issue to keep in mind if you are planning to harvest and repitch is, over time one of the strains will inevitably dominate the other. Most brewers I know use a straight single strain for their regular lineup and get funky with the seasonals and one offs. You can definitely do it with a multistrain pitch but you need to budget for the yeast not lasting long or deal with the flavor change over time. Cheers.

[zmanzorro]

Thanks everyone for the help!

I also came across a chapter in the book Yeast by Christ White (of White Labs) and Jamil Zainasheff that covers exactly what I was asking, for anyone who comes across this topic in the future.