Multiple types of yeast

Was brewing an IPA the other day and didn’t have time for a starter so used some Sa-05 I had and pitched two packs to be sure I made my cell count. I had some Sa-04 for a dry Irish stout sitting next to it and started to wonder what would the flavor profile and clarity of the beer be like if I use a pack of each together? Anyone tried this or know why it is a terrible idea? Can two strands of yeast exist together?

I’ve thrown 04 and 05 in a beer before. I doubt you notice it in an ipa

It’s a good question. Could be that one strain takes over. Could be that the first strain contributes a ton of flavor, and the second completes fermentation to dry the beer out. I think there’s room for experimentation, for sure. White labs did a Frankenstout with an absurd number of yeast strains, all designed to work on different sugars. There’s no good guide on this that I know of, but I’m definitely curious about it.

I definitely think I’ll be exploring this at some point. I think I could use Sa-05 for flavor and Sa-04 for clarity and to offset the subtle peach notes of the other one. Starting to think of much bigger contrasts between yeast profiles and how they would be together. Not sure what type of beer would be the best for this. Ideas?

I used it in a porter because that’s all I had I couldn’t tell the difference from when I brewed the same recipe with all 04. Maybe a pale you could pick out some difference.

Been thinking about this as well . What about a second yeast what is neutral till now i am using to kinds of the same yeast

I blend strains pretty regularly, but it’s hard to tell exactly what you’re going to get. There are lots of commercial blends available, but they’re usually balanced with certain cell counts of each strain. Hard to do that as a homebrewer, as it’s difficult to know if one strain will dominate, and what the appropriate pitch rates for each strain will be.

Sacch/brett is an obvious one, as the sacch will dominate early and the brett will do its work over time. But even sacch/sacch blends are fun to try. English ale yeast for some esters, with a clean ale yeast for attenuation is a good blend, if you want to end up with something drier than a pure English strain would be. Just have a goal in mind with what the strains will bring to the party, and be prepared to experiment with pitch rates, since you may end up with drastically different beers due to growth rates.

I’m not sure how much research there has been on “killer” yeast strains for brewers yeast, but there are quite a few killer wine yeasts. If you know that a wine strain does not exhibit a killer factor, you can get some interesting combinations with something like a saison strain.

I was under the impression all yeasts are a blend/mutated type. Alot of the character though, is because it was from a different region, quite similar to people in the world. Originally, very pure many years ago, once it was moved or something came to a region, the yeast started changing. So would then, blending two hasten the morphic change, a new strain, ifn you will? Sneezles61

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Think kveik or omega yeast a killer strain did order some omega think will try this with kveik . Plan to brew than a high grav beer . 1.070 wich one dont know yet first today the spiced beer . Next week a cherrie beer

That wouldn’t surprise me - it would explain how they could get away with the traditional methods of storing the yeast in unsanitary conditions, and still have it perform well!

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