Re: yeast equivalent

I would have to argue, that if you seem to be getting better results with the White Labs strains in your brewery, then they are NOT equivalent and a parallel cannot be drawn. There are some style groups, such as the English ales, where similar sounding but slightly different strains can be found to produce beer with radically different flavor profiles. Check Zymurgy back issues for the "Bitter Men" series of articles by Steve Hamburg and Tony Babinec where among other things they (with my help) brewed several split batches, fermenting the same wort with a variety of yeast strains. The flavor differences in the finished beer were remarkable. Take a recipe calling for Wyeast London Ale and make it with something that sounds similar from White Labs, and it WILL be different from the recipe - as different as Youngs and Fullers. (And I don't know which is which.) In this group, it's not about brand preference, it's about which of the many strains from all yeast vendors produces beer that you like - in your brewery. With different beer styles, you should expect to prefer different yeast vendors and strains for each style. So watch out about substituting different yeast strains. If you want to make beer like the recipe, then use that yeast. The results WILL be different! Roger Deschner rogerd(a)uic.edu "I didn't know you could pay for beer." --Michael Jackson, on National Public Radio, May 13, 2005 On Thu, 1 Jun 2006, Mike Behrendt wrote: