Interesting tidbit about yeast strains from the NHC

[DrPaulsen]

I was able to sit in on Greg Doss' (a QC manager from Wyeast) presentation on "Exploring Yeast" at the NHC. I took a pile of notes (which, of course, I do not have in front of me), but the one thing that stood out in my mind was his experiment on attenuation.

Greg recently conducted a series of controlled experiments on the relative attenuation abilities of various yeast strains. He used identical worts, identical pitching rates, and identical fermentation temperatures for every beer strain Wyeast sells. He found that every ale yeast had the same attenuation. Every lager yeast had the same attenuation, which was 1-2% below the ale yeasts.

In short, he told us to completely ignore those attenuation numbers provided by all the yeast vendors. He said the published numbers were generated in a series of old, completely uncontrolled experiments and have zero relevance.

His advice when choosing a yeast was to look at the flavor profile only. He also recommended that the best way to control attenuation was via the grist composition (i.e. % base malt).

I highly recommend checking out his presentation once all of the NHC presentations are posted on the website:
http://www.ahaconference.org/speakerspresentation.html

[carrisr]

Thanks Lee! Good info. I'm reading the efficiency slides now and will look at this presentation when they get it online.

[tompb]

Wow, that's gonna throw a lot of presumed data out the window. It seems to be the common thought that English strains are lower attenuating.

[carrisr]

Just as a follow up, the presentations are now online at:
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/p ... sentations