Yeast mutation/ Cry havoc

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Yeast mutation/ Cry havoc

Postby Kevnlis » Tuesday Feb 19, 2008 11:01 am

If you want a very good yeast that is extremely versatile try:

WLP862 Cry Havoc. This signature strain, from Charlie Papazian, has the ability to ferment at both ale and lager temperatures allowing the brewer to produce diverse beer styles. The recipes in both Papazian's books, The Complete Joy of Homebrewing and The Homebrewers Companion, were originally developed and brewed with this yeast. Papazian has had "Cry Havoc" in his yeast stable since 1983. When fermented at ale temperatures, the yeast produces fruity esters reminiscent of berries and apples. Hop character comes through well with hop accented beers. Diacetyl production will be very low when proper fermentation techniques are used. When fermented at lager temperatures, esters are low in high gravity beers and negligible in other beers. Pleasant baked bread-like yeast aroma is often perceived in malt accented lagers. Slightly extended fermentation times may be experienced compared to other lagers. Some fermentation circumstances may produce sulfur aroma compounds, but these will usually dissipate with time. Good yeast for bottle conditioning. Apparent attenuation: 66-70%. Flocculation: medium-low. Optimum temp: 55°-74° F
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Re: Whats Your staple brew?

Postby Chris » Tuesday Feb 19, 2008 11:16 am

Kev, that's a yeast that I knew nothing about. Sounds like quite an interesting one though! I trust Charlie's judgement on beer matters (except for the gladwrap thing :) ).

Is it low diacetyl in lagers as well as ales?
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Re: Whats Your staple brew?

Postby James L » Tuesday Feb 19, 2008 11:52 am

I've been reading about mutation and selection of yeasts as a simple means for strain development. because yeast are single celled, they can spontaneously mutate. These mutations can be bad. or they can be good. Brewers/Microbiologists isolate the mutants, make sure they are stable in their mutation so it wont affect the brew characteristics each brew, and then use the yeast for different brews.

These changes can be as small as the ability to produce less diacetyl or hydrogen sulfide, or can be huge like the the same variety of yeast that has the ability to be either top fermenting or bottom fermenting.

In thing case, it looks as though CP, might've isolated a variety of lager yeast that is quite temperature tolerant that also does not produce many large ammounts of diacetyl associated with brewing at higher temps, but is stil able to produce ale style characteristics.

I thinks its a game of hit and miss... you can grow and isolate yeast your whole life and never experience a large change in the yeast physiology, or you could get lucky and it could happen tomorrow. wierd.(we are talking about single colonies of isolated yeast, so i dont think that you need to worry about your lager yeast turning into ale least).
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Re: Whats Your staple brew?

Postby Chris » Tuesday Feb 19, 2008 12:00 pm

I'm going to get some of this yeast. It sounds like fun!

And Charlie doesn't like gladwrap according to TCJoHB.
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Re: Yeast mutation/ Cry havoc

Postby gregb » Tuesday Feb 19, 2008 12:24 pm

This is a spin off from staple brew, was too good not to have its own thread.

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Re: Yeast mutation/ Cry havoc

Postby Kevnlis » Tuesday Feb 19, 2008 12:38 pm

Unlike most single celled organisms yeast are able to reproduce both sexualy and asexualy by budding. They can do this in the presense of oxygen and without, they can also contain three or more sets of genes meaning mutation is far less common than with other cells. Mostly brewers do not worry about mutation until after the tenth generation or so and in fact the yeast seem to do their job better after 3-4 generations in my experience.
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Re: Yeast mutation/ Cry havoc

Postby James L » Tuesday Feb 19, 2008 1:54 pm

i hear many breweries do use their yeast up to 10 times. I guess if you can continue to maintain extremely good hygiene, you have the option, but i feel for many of us home brewers, there are too many opportunities to introduce contamination into the system to be able to go the 10. 3-4 max...

Going back to mutations, sometimes mating systems to introduce new characteristics to brewing yeast can be bypassed and the use of recombinant DNA techniques can be alternatively used. Pretty much all this means is, some DNA fragments containing the genes for a particular characteristic that you want expressed in the yeast can be cut and removed from one cell and stitched into another usually in the plasmid. The plasmid is an area of the cell that contains alot of DNA that is not needed for cell replciation but for cell function.

These genes can express anything from copper resisance, antibiotic resistance to help in the control of contamination (as copper and antibiotics can kill bacteria in high enough concentrations), to being able to grow yeasts that are able to assimilate a wider variety of carbohydrates by being able to produce enzymes the previously couldn't such as glucoamylase (which can break down dextrins), and B-glucanase which can breakdown the starches that produce chill haze.

I do like the idea of recombinant DNA techniques, but you must ensure that the plasmid is stable within the yeast. otherwise the genes that you are expressing in the yeast might be transfered between bacteria. and other organisms. This could result in the inadvertant production of bacteria that become resistant to antibiotics, thermotolerance, osmotic pressure creating potentially new pathogenic bacteria ... which could effectively make things worse than they originally are....

I think because alot of this work is only lab scale and there are such huge regulations behind genetic engineering, the potential problems are quite minimal...

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Re: Yeast mutation/ Cry havoc

Postby rwh » Tuesday Feb 19, 2008 2:03 pm

Generally a good description of genetic manipulation... just one thing:
James L wrote:The plasmid is an area of the cell that contains alot of DNA that is not needed for cell replciation but for cell function.

Actually, a plasmid is a small DNA molecule that is not integrated into the cell's chromosome. They float around in the cytoplasm, and any number of copies may be present. They're transferred to daughter cells when the cytoplasm is partitioned off during budding. You're right, they can be (and frequently are) transferred between organisms, even when they're completely different species. They're useful when working with prokaryotes because they're relatively small and easy to introduce into the cells, but their stability is lower than chromosomally integrated DNA; they're not frequently found in eukaryotes.
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Re: Yeast mutation/ Cry havoc

Postby James L » Tuesday Feb 19, 2008 2:28 pm

yeh.. you got me...

I was trying to explain it to the layman, but i might've simplified too much and missed a big chunk.. thanks for the clearing it up..
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Re: Yeast mutation/ Cry havoc

Postby drsmurto » Tuesday Feb 19, 2008 3:07 pm

If you dump onto the yeast cake continually then hygiene is easy. No washing, harvesting just dump and stir. At the most i halve the yeast cake.

I think we need to keep this all in context or we risk scaring away new brewers from using liquid yeasts - it really isnt that hard.

As for only using it 3-4 times i believe there are many breweries around the world who use their yeast well over 10 times and as Kev said, believe that it takes 3-4 cycles before its hitting its straps.

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Re: Yeast mutation/ Cry havoc

Postby Kevnlis » Tuesday Feb 19, 2008 3:18 pm

James L wrote:i hear many breweries do use their yeast up to 10 times. I guess if you can continue to maintain extremely good hygiene, you have the option, but i feel for many of us home brewers, there are too many opportunities to introduce contamination into the system to be able to go the 10. 3-4 max...


I fear this may scare people off from reusing, and perhaps even starting to use liquid yeast. So i must object to this statement.

In all of the reading I have done, not once has anyone suggested reusing the yeast less than 10 times, some suggest more. As for risk of infection, as long as you follow standard cleaning and sanatising procedures (which is not at all hard to do) there should be no worries!

Liquid yeast may cost a bit more than dry saf yeasts, but if you reuse them you do save money and come out with a far superior product. The amount of work involved in reusing yeast can be as easy as pitching the cooled wort back to the trub, or as hard as having to boil a couple jars for 10 minutes and pouring the yeast back and forth between them a few times before leaving them in the fridge for up to a year if you use a stir plate, or a month if you plan to pitch it as is.

EDIT: Doc posted while was typing sorry for the repeated info :P
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Re: Yeast mutation/ Cry havoc

Postby James L » Tuesday Feb 19, 2008 4:55 pm

Ohhh dear i have opened pandoras box...

I maybe should've stated that i (personally) wouldnt use my yeast for 10 brews back to back.. as that is what i meant. Breweries tend to replace their yeast cultures every 8-10 fermentations (generations), as the performance of brewery yeast will decline with repeated use.

Maybe i should also state that this decline in performance has nothing to do with contamination.

I just wanted you to be aware that re-use of yeast often represents the major source of contaminating micro-organisms in brewing, so just be thorough with your aseptic techniques.

Sorry guys... i'll shut up now...
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Re: Yeast mutation/ Cry havoc

Postby lethaldog » Tuesday Feb 19, 2008 5:03 pm

Kevnlis wrote:If you want a very good yeast that is extremely versatile try:

WLP862 Cry Havoc. This signature strain, from Charlie Papazian, has the ability to ferment at both ale and lager temperatures allowing the brewer to produce diverse beer styles. The recipes in both Papazian's books, The Complete Joy of Homebrewing and The Homebrewers Companion, were originally developed and brewed with this yeast. Papazian has had "Cry Havoc" in his yeast stable since 1983. When fermented at ale temperatures, the yeast produces fruity esters reminiscent of berries and apples. Hop character comes through well with hop accented beers. Diacetyl production will be very low when proper fermentation techniques are used. When fermented at lager temperatures, esters are low in high gravity beers and negligible in other beers. Pleasant baked bread-like yeast aroma is often perceived in malt accented lagers. Slightly extended fermentation times may be experienced compared to other lagers. Some fermentation circumstances may produce sulfur aroma compounds, but these will usually dissipate with time. Good yeast for bottle conditioning. Apparent attenuation: 66-70%. Flocculation: medium-low. Optimum temp: 55°-74° F

Sounds alot like a Kolsch yeast to me or at least has pretty much the same characteristics :wink:
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Re: Yeast mutation/ Cry havoc

Postby Kevnlis » Tuesday Feb 19, 2008 5:52 pm

Your alright James, I just did not want people to get the wrong idea.

I agree you would not want to pitch to trub 10 times in a row without tapping a portion of the yeast cake off and disposing of it, or storing it for reuse. Also you need to have a bit of experience under your belt to know how to avoid contaminating the yeast even when pitching to trub, and of course this risk increases greatly if you harvest. But all in all I think the risk is fairly low for the average person who actually puts a bit of effort into it.

I have harvested quite a bit of yeast, and have only ever had one infected starter, but I believe that was caused by ants getting into it :shock:

It was good information and I actually learned a couple things. Hopefully it doesn't scare anyone off liquid yeasts because I believe this was the greatest improvement I made in my brewing process (along with temperature control).
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