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3522 Belgian Ardennes Yeast

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  • 3522 Belgian Ardennes Yeast

    This yeast has been problematic for me during fermentation and filtering.

    Ferm: This is a high alcohol tolerant yeast strain used in Special Ales of Belgium. The yeast can handle higher temperatures from about 68-80 F. It seems to go for several days very vigorously after pitching, and then it shuts down almost entirely with lots of sugar still available. I pulled some of the flocculant yeast off the bottom of the ferm tank and fed it with new wort, then repitched it the next day. That seemed to work last time I used it inspite of a month long fermentation time. This time it hasn't taken off after doing this.

    Filtering: The clarity on the intial batch was not good. I used 7 micron and then 3 micron filter sheets. Neither of these microns was able to strip the yeast from the beer. I looked at it in a microscope and there was still several million cells/mL.

    If anyone has used this yeast with similar problems I would love to here from you. It may be a situation of propogation techniques and or bad yeast bank supply. I do outsource my yeast propogation.

    Thanks,

    Todd

    From: Todd Malloy (tmalloy25@hotmail.com)

  • #2
    I haven't used this particular yeast but.... Sounds like the yeast requires a higher oxygen level at pitching than you are giving it. If you are brewing a high gravity, say over 1060 SG, then you are likely to have to rouse it with sterile air or oxygen, or use the traditional British solution of rousing so the fermenting wort is run over a spreader plate, creating a fan of wort, which then picks up oxygen from the air. You will probably need to rouse a couple of times for say an hour (depends how vigorous the rousing is, and the volume of wort you are fermenting) with a gap of a few hours. You may only need to rouse once. If the rate of gravity drop slows, then start rousing pronto.

    A less likely cause may be the lack of yeast nutrient, most likely zinc, which acts as a co enzyme in the fermentation cycle. Traditionally this was obrained from the impure copper used to make brewing equipment, but many breweries, particularly when using stainless plant now find they need to add zinc as zinc sulphate, typically at 0.15 ppm.

    Try the rousing first, but monitor the gravity drop like a hawk, and if it doesn't resolve the problem completely, then consisder adding yeast food (you may not consider this possible if you are brewing organic beers)

    Give me a shout if this doesn't work.

    ps If the beer is high gravity (> 1060 sg), then do not use this for repitching further brews - it will generally prove to be useless.

    Cheers

    Dick

    From: Dick Murton

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    • #3
      Thanks for the reply.

      I used a product call Servomyces in the beer, similar to a zink nutrient only better. The Oxygenation rate at knock out was 3 LPM much higher than any of my other beers. Typically this works for my Barley Wine, however this is proving otherwise. Plus there was no lag phase and there was several days of vigorous fermentation before it pooped out. I could try this rousing method, however I run the risk of unwanted oxygenation.

      Thanks for the feedback,

      Todd

      From: Todd Malloy (tmalloy25@hotmail.com)

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      • #4
        Todd, just curious if your problematic yeast was straight from propogation or was it used several generations into its life? Sounds like aeration and nutrient levels are good, so I'm assuming it simply can't tolerate the alcohol. A problem I've experienced is that when making specials I use different yeasts and don't have the time to grow them up to 3rd or 4th generation. Hope this helps.

        Jeff Nickel

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        • #5
          Yeast Changes

          If you have used this yeast from previous batches the yeast might have changed. One of the first signs of mutations is a change in flocculation state/rate and a lower attenuation.

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