Yeasts and Hop Flavor

Salyangoz

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I wonder if we can utilize hop flavors using specific kinds of yeasts.

For example, say ı'm going to use Cascade in my Pale Ale. Cascade has some spicy citrusy grapefruity flavor. Is it possible to manipulate these flavors to push spicyness and supress grapefruitiness, or vice versa, using specific yeasts?

Here I'm excluding dry hopping as I suppose the yeast will be done with the process already, I want to manipulate the flavor/aroma hops that are used in boil.
 
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There are some yeasts that definitely bring flavor to the table, while others are meant to be clean and not leave much of a flavor profile. The yeast family I would investigate if you're looking for a spiciness is the Saison yeasts. I brew a lot of Saisons and the key feature is a spiciness and a tangy-ness (sp.) from the yeast. My favorite is actually a dry yeast (Danstar Belle Saison), but there are some other good yeasts that might work, particularly from the Belgian strains. Give it a try and let us know what you find.
 
There are two things at play with yeast/hop interaction. One is the particular flavors that the yeast will bring to the brew (which will be there no matter whether you dry hop or not) the other is the bio-transformation that can take place as yeast metabolism interacts with hops added at the beginning of or early in the process of fermentation.
I don't think there's any doubt that one could bring out different qualities of a certain hop with different yeast choices but it's probably just way easier to use various hop combinations to manipulate the exact flavor of the hops in the beer. If you want more spice and less grapefruit, for instance, use some Willamette in place of some of it.
Also, it should be noted that the "spice" flavors brought by the yeast tend to be herbal in nature - think sage, thyme, etc - while the flavors in yeast lean toward more aromatic notes like clove, cinnamon, coriander, peppercorn.
Along these lines, though, an interesting experiment might be to split a batch of a Cascade smash with Chico yeast and WLP810. Those would be very different in the notes that they push forward...much more fruit from the Chico yeast and more interesting spice from the WLP810.
 
The opposite way of thinking also has a bit of information on the googles. That is, some yeast strains dulling the contribution of hops. The little I remember was around English yeast strains, but other posters have mentioned Belgian strains as well.
 
BRY-97 seems to mute hops in my experience. So yeah it could go that way too.
 
I wonder if we can utilize hop flavors using specific kinds of yeasts.

For example, say ı'm going to use Cascade in my Pale Ale. Cascade has some spicy citrusy grapefruity flavor. Is it possible to manipulate these flavors to push spicyness and supress grapefruitiness, or vice versa, using specific yeasts?

Here I'm excluding dry hopping as I suppose the yeast will be done with the process already, I want to manipulate the flavor/aroma hops that are used in boil.
This is actually a very good question to be posted in the beginers forum. Yes yeast can change the results of hops. Can you control individual traits of hops with specific yeasts? How they interact to this level is probably beyond most of us at a home brewers level. Some hops supress bittering and some exploit bittering. As far as yeast helping out specific traits of hops that needs some exbeeriments!
 

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