Choosing a House Yeast
Over the past few months I’ve been inching closer and closer to using one yeast for most everything I brew. I fell in love with WLP007 early last year, and I’ve been looking for just about every excuse to use it since. I’ve used it for Blonde Ales, IPAs, Double IPAs, English Pales and American Pales. It has a very clean ester profile for an English strain, attenuates extremely well, and it flocculates like peanut butter. In the low 60* range it’s nice and clean, and in the upper 60* range it makes some nice esters. What’s not to like?
I had been using the chico strain for just about everything, but I’m finding that 007 gives beers a malty, softer edge than the sharp, bright flavors of chico. So I’m jumping in the deep end with 007. I washed the yeast from my Special Bitter, and then pitched it in the Honey Blonde. I’m going to re-pitch this culture for my next 6 batches (outlined here), and see how they turn out. This is a good mix of styles, and will serve as a good test to see if it 007 can replace chico as my go-to house yeast.
If you haven’t tried WLP007, I strongly encourage you to. It’s an excellent all around yeast.
Interesting. I used 002 for a special bitter recently, and I think 007 is very similar. Thinking about using 002 for all of my pales and IPAs as well. Great idea.
Ya, 007 is a little cleaner, and a little more attenuative. They both flocculate like a ton of bricks. Firestone Walker uses something similar to 002 for their pales and IPAs, and last time I checked their beers were pretty good 😉
Great blog Scott! Spent the past weekend paging through it, picking up some great tips. Have you ever put together a post about your yeast "process" (i.e. how you reuse it, how much you reuse, if you wash it, if so how, etc.)? I have never seen a simple and reliable how to that someone has had great success with. Thanks for all of the great info.
It's on my to-do list, but no, I haven't done one yet.