M31 Belgian Tripel Yeast from Mangrove Jacks

[Cain Harland]

Anyone used / have an opinion on this stuff

[Cain Harland]

Na nothing like that, no bananas, cloves, pepper, bubble gum, citrus, spice. Which is really disappointing when your brewing a beer that has very little else going for it flavor wise and really is about the yeast.

The eartyness is defiantly from the yeast its more subtle but a bit like the taste I would associate with an under pitch (probably over pitched) that is usually almost non existent at first and worsens over time or what I don't like about saison (yes at least 1 beer geek doesn't like saison).

I have been surprised before at how the flavors we notice in a beer change with carbonation so I put 100g of dextrose into each of the 2 corney kegs and have them sitting at 15c. Will try and age for a little while before I tip a keg to make way for something better.

[Cain Harland]

"Provides a fantastic complex marriage of spice, fruity esters, phenolics and alcohol" according to mangrove jacks, sounds awesome but thats not what I got.

[Crusader-Rob]

keep an eye on them, these beers can really change overtime.

to avoid tipping out some of the beer, you could always keep 10-20 litres, and throw a vial or two of brettanomyces at it, sdo it can change and eat away at some ofthe longerchains.

brett hasthe uncanny ability to create some really interesting flavours out ofthe existing phenols in the beer.As the beer is as you say, ok, your just disappointed in the yeast, there could be some interesting flavours to be had out of it, if you add some critters?

[Cain Harland]

Good suggestion. Would you add a bit more priming sugar for them to eat and to make up for the pressure lost opening the keg? I have a spunding valve so can release any excess CO2 from time to time as it ages. A bit of iodophore and beer line cleaner should kill any brett in the keg and lines eh? I probably wouldn't want it in the PAs I usually brew.

[Crusader-Rob]

I don't normally. but it depends where your FG finished.

My Belgian Blonde finished at 1.012, and I bottled up at 1.004 after aging.

In most cases a good clean of the lines, should do the trick, but these days I'm paranoid, and use a separate line for my non-clean beers.

I actually use a picnic tap to keep it completely separate (Iuse it as my bottling gun for these beer aswell.) I like to be on the safe side.

for brett additions at you OG/ABV you'll want 4-5 months of ageing.

I'd suggest a moderate Brett strain like WLP645 Brett Claussenaii

[Cain Harland]

Interestingly after 3 days naturally carbonating it was up to 8psi so I gave each keg a quick burp to purge any remaining O2 (shouldn't have been much any way as I pushed the sanitiser out with C02 and left a blanket) and what came out smelled very yeast funky, sweet and estery. So maybe there is hope for it yet.

[Crusader-Rob]

Sweet, keep us posted.

you've got 40 litres of brew, so theres no reason you can't add brett to a portion of it at some stage.

[Cain Harland]

So 2.5 weeks later and I tapped a keg to sample a glass and its very different, there is a yeasty funk that I would expect in a tripel.

I ignored the good advice to pitch fresh yeast with my dextrose for natural carbonation thinking its worked for me every time I've bottle conditioned with out extra yeast but this fermentation has defiantly stalled. It was pretty dry going into the keg and only got 100g of sugar in each now its sickly sweet and under carbonated. Suppressing how much this little sugar effects perceived sweetness. I guess these yeast had just worked too hard and were worn out. Nice thing about being in kegs rather than bottles is I just opened the top and pitched 1/2 a pack of US-05 in each, I have been told the pitching rate to carbonate is much lower than for primary fermentation. So hopefully this fresh yeast will chew through the dextrose.

I'm pretty sure the sweetness had a big effect on how I perceived the yeasts flavor contribution so will have to wait a couple more weeks (at least) for a final verdict but might not be a total disaster.

[Cain Harland]

Thought I should follow up on this one for anyone interested in the yeast. I was drinking a La Trappe Quad and the esters, phenol's etc reminded me a lot of what I got from the yeast, only the Quad was good and my Tripel was horrible enough to tip 1 of 2 kegs in the garden and I don't have much hope for the other. So I think the yeast has great potential, just a series of cock ups (low efficiency, to high fermentation temp, not pitching extra yeast to naturally carbonate etc) on my part left me with a beer that in the end had too much yeasty funk (funny after I didn't think there was enough at kegging) and nothing else to back it up with.

[Crusader-Rob]

cheers for the update - what was your yeast pitching rate?

Personally I dont think you needed the extra yeast. but im not sure why it wouldn't carb with sugar. that why im suggesting a pitch rate issue, which would explai nthe yeast crapping out on you.

[Cain Harland]

4 packs straight into 40l if I remember correctly

[Crusader-Rob]

Interesting.

We've been having some discussions down here regarding the MJ dry yeasts.

the packets are actuall1.5g smaller than Fermentis and Danstar packs. (10g)

Couple with that, the sometimes slower start times for these MJ yeast.

and a higher pitch rate seems to be the consensus Essentially 1 additional pack into your 40L of wort, probably would've helped considerably. Couldthat explain things?