Anybody ever use this? Label Peelers has 500g for $45. That's less than 1/5 the price of packets of Fermentis lager yeasts.
Never have. But what are you brewing that you need 500g of yeast (assuming it's in one package, as I've seen professional pitches of White Labs' yeast). I scored three free vials of Inland Island yeast at Homebrew Club on Sunday - looks like I'll be doing my first Kveik...
No need for it all at once...would carefully break it up into a dozen or so packets for storage and have the ability to pitch full lager cell count for my big batches at a reasonable price without a big starter.
I was thinking about that too. Think I read somewhere that it is actually an ale yeast the acts like a lager yeast strain.
I'm guessing youd want to have a batch test beforehand? Guess I know why you posted this thread to see others opinions on this yeast...
There's no genetic differentiation between "lager" yeasts and "ale" yeasts. So called lager yeast stains make beer just fine at ale temperatures and may exhibit some of the same traits as "ale" yeast strains. The strains used for lagers are better at fermenting at colder temperatures and when they do, they tend not to produce a lot of the flavor esters that we associate with ales.They usually produce more diacetyl and sulfur at those temps and those are some of the flavors we associate with traditional lager styles. Plenty of ale yeasts can be used at low temperature and ferment clean enough to produce a decent lager.
I always thought there was genetic difference, which is why we define Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a top fermenter (ales) and Saccharomyces Pastorianus as a bottom fermenter (lagers). I might be wrong, though, could be two mutations of the same gene? or something? science?
My phrasing is inaccurate. There are genetic differences, of course. I was thinking of strains rather than species. I stand corrected in substance. Cervasea and Pastoranius are different strains, for sure and in some classification models, separate species. There's a lot of information on the internet and it's hard to figure out which is the latest or most accurate but my (fairly casual) research has led a number of times to statements like: "Today, as a result of recent reclassification of Saccharomyces species, both ale and lager yeast strains are considered to be members of S. cerevisiae." But then there are articles which point to classifying as different species, as you mention. I'll have to leave that one to the scholars, I guess.
So apparently Mangrove Jack just repackages existing yeasts which I never knew until recently. I have read that M54 is repackaged Lager 497 but no idea how accurate that is.
I read it's an ale yeast and somewhere else a lager yeast. Not sure which is true. A lager yeast will also produce some sulfur (and some ale yeast do too), so if it produces a little sulfur, ferments clean and at lower temp, it could be called a lager yeast.
Heard from an Inland Island rep Sunday (and scored some free yeast). According to him, most yeast labs do exactly that. Some may plate the competitors' yeast and select a single colony. Can't say specifically that Mangrove Jack does that but it wouldn't be a surprise.
I was listening to someone talking about whether the lager/ale division was really worth bothering with anymore. The were talking about just listing yeast by their capabilities as there's lagers that are clean at ale temperatures and vice versa. And the same for most of the capabilities that people talk about. I think in the end they decided it would be too hard to do all the education needed. Think it was Drew Beechum and the guy behind The Yeast Bay.
I think the taxonomic distinction is lost at the homebrewing level. "Lager" yeast still krausens robustly even though it's "bottom fermenting and a big pitch of most ale yeasts will make slowly churn out a nice, clean beer at low temperatures. I'd venture that some of the true, classic lager strains are more temperamental and the ones that get used most and with best success by homebrewers are the ones that have mutated to be more useful over a broader range.
There are distinct differences between ale and lager yeasts. Recent genetic findings have found that lager yeast is a hybrid between European ale yeast and a "wild" strain from the Patagonia region of South America. Apparently the yeast was brought over to Europe in imported fruit or something similar, the yeast then got into a brewery where the conditions were right for sexual reproduction, creating a whole new type of yeast. Yeast normally only reproduce asexually and slowly drift genetically, sexual reproduction causes a large genetic shift in the yeast. There is some taxonomic talk among biologist to consider them the same, but this isn't completely accepted. Lager yeast can also metabolize melibiose and raffinose sugars, where ale yeasts cannot. The strains available to homebrewers are the same used by professional lager brewers in Europe and North America and are true lager yeasts. When homebrewers (and some pros) make cold or cooler fermented beer with ale yeast, they sometimes call it a lager. Lagers do have a very distinct sulfur component that is missing in a beer made from ale yeast at colder temperatures (German Pilsner for example), but for the most part they very good beers. It seems pointless and petty to say they are not true lagers, but technically they are ales.
That checks with what I've read about the difference between ale and lager yeast. For simplicity I stick with the German distinction of top and bottom fermentation.
This is what Omega Yeast theorizes about how Kveik came about. They think British and Western Asian yeast hitched a ride back to Norway with Vikings and hybridized into kveik.
I’ll be out of town for work until Friday night(probably), the way it was going, wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was done working by the time I get home. Should be cleaned up nice in a couple weeks.
