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?
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.
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.