Raisiny flavor from Safale US-05?

Yeast & Fermentation
1

I wonder if anyone has had this experience or has some thoughts. I made a honey wheat ale a few weeks back with a fairly usual grain bill, 4 lbs of pale, 4 wheat, pound of honey. I added 8 oz of briess caramel (40) to mix things up a bit, and I used some stored safale US-05 from a batch a couple months before. I made up a 1l starter on a stir plate since I wanted to be sure the few tablespoons of yeast cake had enough viable cells.

Anyway, it fermented at about 70 degrees. Bottled, two weeks conditioning, and it tastes nice, but slightly raisiny. On brew day I discovered I didn’t have rahr pale so I used Maris Otter. I don’t think that could be the source, but my experience with it is limited to recipes using other yeasts.

Anyone else get slight fruit from this yeast? Or could it be the otter and caramel combo? The hops were my usual for this, Willamette and cascade…

2

It’s not the US-05. It’s the Crystal 40. And are you sure it was Crystal 40? Not Crystal 120 on accident or something like that?

3

That would be my guess. Some darker mark. Raisin is a very typical description of dark crystal or special B or something.

4

I also wondered if I didn’t grab the wrong bag. I don’t think so, but of course I can’t really know for sure. Didn’t seem likely I would get that flavor from the yeast.