Author: Marshall Schott

Subtle malt graininess with the perfect hint of toasty nut combined with rustic aromas of damp wood and even a slight minty character in a beer that’s as crisp and easy drinking as it is full of delicious character: California Common, aka “Steam” beer, one of the only styles America can claim fully as its own. Popularized by San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Company in the mid-19th century, Steam beer was a working man’s swill, intended to quench the thirst of grizzly gold miners and exhausted longshoremen, as well as the average city folk. Refrigeration being expensive and difficult to come by during this period, Anchor Brewing relied on the naturally cool San Francisco environment to control fermentation temps. In fact, it is purported Anchor’s trademarked name for this style stems from the fact that when hot wort was transferred from the boil kettle to shallow cooling vessels, which were housed in rooms open to cool Pacific breezes, it appeared to steam. This somewhat unconventional style of beer is commonly referred to today as a hybrid because it is traditionally fermented with a lager strain at warmer temperatures, which works together to create a very tasty beer that appears to be experiencing a resurgence in the craft beer and homebrewing communities.

To me, California Common is one of the very few styles that doesn’t allow for much leeway in terms of ingredient choice. The grains used should impart a gorgeous copper-amber color that produces a dry yet flavorful beer with just a touch of creaminess in the mouthfeel. The hops absolutely must be Northern Brewer, it’s part of what makes a Cal Common a Cal Common. I get that people like to play with different hop varieties, I actually think it’s really fun myself, and a Cal Common wort with Cascade or Mosaic would probably be great… just don’t call it a Cal Common. Because it’s not. Northern Brewer hops are a quintessential component of this style of beer, without them, you’ve got something else.

Then there’s the yeast.

I’ve made multiple batches of Cal Common over the years, I even honed in on my own recipe I call What’re We Here For. In all of these batches, White Labs’ WLP810 San Francisco Lager yeast was used and it has worked great. While White Labs recommends fermenting a bit warmer, I’ve found I get the best character when I pitch a healthy starter and ferment at 58°F for a few days before bumping temps up to ensure complete attenuation. This is one of those beers where the keg seems to kick well before expected. Good stuff. As I was shopping at MoreBeer.com last month, I threw something in my cart that resulted in a recommendation for Wyeast’s 2112 California Lager yeast, which I’d always known was their WLP810 equivalent. This is when the genius idea for this moderately boring xBmt hit me: compare yeasts manufactured by different companies that are said to be from the same source. Rather than do a more simple beer comparison, I decided to approach this xBmt as I do for most process xBmts by using a triangle test, I figured it was the best way to determine if there really was a difference between these strains with supposed similar ancestry.

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate any potential differences between 2 yeast strains reported to be from the same source, WLP810 and WY2112, when pitched into separate fermentors of the same wort.

| METHOD |

A few days prior to my planned brew day, I readied a couple yeast starters using Homebrew Dad’s yeast calculator to determine the proper size given each yeasts date of manufacturer and the OG of my What’re We Here For recipe. Of course, I used the rad overbuild function to determine how much bigger to make the starter in order to harvest some for future use.

Since this would be a 10 gallon split-batch of wort, I used my batch sparge method, Roz helping out along the way as he so regularly enjoys doing.

Following an hour long mash rest, I began wort collection.

My 14 gallon kettle was full (almost to the brim) and the flame cranked to full blast, I added 6 drops of FermCap-S then cleaned out the MLT while waiting to reach a boil.

A bunch of Northern Brewer hops were added to the boiling wort, then once complete, I used my Hydra IC to chill it to 65°F in about 11 minutes, this was only 4°F warmer than my groundwater temp. The wort was then split between two 6 gallon PET carboys.

Given the results of my pitch temp xBmt, both carboys were placed in the fermentation chamber and yeast was immediately pitched, the chamber was already set to my target ferm temp of 58°F. It wasn’t but about 10 hours post-pitch that I noticed a slight krausen forming on both beers.

A full day after pitching the yeast, both beers were kicking like karate.

I stopped taking pictures of the fermenting beers at this point because both looked exactly the same the entire time. Plus, I sort of forgot. Anyway, I took an initial FG reading 8 days into fermentation, both were looking good at 1.012.

I let the beers sit at about 68˚F for a couple more days, cold crashed for a day, fined with gelatin, then kegged them up.

The beers were crystal clear and ready for evaluation the following weekend.

| RESULTS |

Much of the data for this xBmt was collected during my recent trip to the Bay Area and included some rad people from some rad places. The day after the dudes from Dr. Homebrew participated in the fermentation temp xBmt, my buddies Chris and Matt joined me on a bit of a beer excursion that started at the Concord MoreBeer location, mainly because our hungover asses were up earlier than most breweries are open. This was definitely not a mistake! The staff at MoreBeer were fucking awesome, super accommodating, and they all agreed to participate in a couple triangle tests. A huge thanks to these folks, especially Me(e)gan, Andrea, and Brandon, we had a blast hanging out for the time we did! If you’re ever in the area, you must stop by this badass homebrew shop.

Nine people participated in this xBmt. I know, not very many, and to be honest, I was hoping to get a few more volunteers, but then Super Bowl happened and, well, you can probably guess how that went. At this sample size, 6 people (p<0.05) would have had to choose the different beer in order to imply a significant difference. Each taster was blindly provided 2 samples of the beer fermented with WLP810 and 1 sample of the beer fermented with Wyeast 2112. Perhaps unsurprisingly, only 3 tasters, or precisely 1/3, made an accurate selection, which was the same number of votes each of the other beers received, exactly what we might expect if the tasters were making random guesses. I’m not saying they were, but statistically speaking… Win! That’s right, I consider this significant to the extent the original hypothesis was that both yeasts are similar, originating from the same source, and assuming White Labs and Wyeast propagate and package their product with the utmost care, we shouldn’t expect to see much difference between the two. Cool.

My Impressions: When I first poured and tasted these beers for myself, I thought I could tell a difference– 2112 seemed slightly more malty, 810 had the subtlest bit more hop aroma. Then I had them served to me blind and was stumped. I couldn’t tell a difference at all, both were crisp and flavorful with undeniable Northern Brewer aroma, neither had any distracting off-flavors. In essence, they were the same beer.

| DISCUSSION |

Two yeast strains sold by different companies that are purported to be from the same source produced beers that were, for all intents and purposes, the same. Earth-shattering, I know. I guess there is some benefit to knowing this information, like, for example, when a recipe calls for Wyeast but a person only has access to White Labs, it’s nice to be able to trust that similar strains will likely produce similar results. Also, I’ve noticed one manufacturer tends to charge a pinch less than the other, so this may impact even those who have access to both. Easily the best thing that came from this xBmt though, at least for me, is 2 full kegs of delicious California Common beer taking up residence in my keezer.

I know quite a few folks have compared similar strains offered by different companies, it’s one of the easier ways to get into homebrew experimentation. If you’ve done this, please share your experience in the comments section below.

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| Read More |

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7 Considerations for Making Better Homebrew

List of completed exBEERiments

How-to: Harvest yeast from starters

How-to: Make a lager in less than a month

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