Temperature Sensitive Yeasts

notown · November 13, 2011, 11:44pm

My daughter is going to be doing a project in school on yeast and how temperature effects yeast health.

Being the good father that I am, I am going to be purchasing fermentation temperature control so that she can run her experiment. I will be brewing three 3 gallon batches of beer using Northern Brewer Extract and she will be fermenting them all with the same yeast but at different temperatures. (High End of the Yeast Range, In The Middle of The Range, Low End of the Yeast Range.)

I am looking for a yeast that will perform very differently depending on the temperature but within the recommended range.

Anyone have any suggestions on a good yeast to use?

Thanks in advance.

Larry

dragonorta · November 14, 2011, 3:42am

I would go with a hefeweizen yeast. Ferment at 62, 68, and then try 75.

a10t2 · November 14, 2011, 5:34am

Any Belgian ale strain should give significantly different results based on temperature.

denny · November 14, 2011, 3:53pm

WY1214 has always seemed extremely temp sensitive to me. Fairly clean around 62, mega banana and bubblegum at 68.

notown · November 15, 2011, 9:54pm

Thanks for the info.
-Larry

560sdl · November 15, 2011, 10:44pm

Just curious how she will verify “health”. Warm temps may cause very rapid growth or fermentation, but is that “healthy”? I don’t know.

shadetree · November 15, 2011, 10:53pm

Just curious - have you cleared this project with her teacher? IME as a parent and as a presenter in schools (engineering week and the like), the whole DARE thing has made it verbotten to mention beer or brewing to school kids these days.

roffenburger · November 16, 2011, 3:53am

I am also curious how you will measure yeast health. The ranges for beer yeast give the best flavor profile, not necessarily the optimum temps for health. They like to be much warmer than we like to ferment our beer.
Industrial strains (etOH production) typically ferment 90-95f.

notown · November 29, 2011, 1:11am

The project is to demonstrate yeast activity and how it is effected by temperature.

One sample will be partially submerged in water at room temperature, one in an ice bath and one in water with an aquarium heater heating the water.

She will be measuring specific gravity over time, she will not be calculating alcohol content. She is working with a “sample solution” and not beer.