Matching yeast strains

The people that I am getting my fruit from suggested a "matched" yeast strain to their clone. How important is it to use this yeast, or is it just a suggestion and I should research other types. Also, how can you "match" yeast with a particular plant clone, just curious.

Thanks again to all the experts here, I've been researching the archives on how to treat my new French barrel that is being delivered today. I know it's old hat to many of you, but I'm really excited about having my first barrel in the cellar.

Reply to
EnoNut
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In my opinion, a lot of the hype about how the yeast affects the flavor is pure bunk. It IS very important, however, to select the wine yeast that will work best for you at the temperature you will be fermenting. For example, if you are fermenting outside with the temperature in the 40s 50's then a Pasteur Red will not work very well. Look at charts for the operating range of the various strains.

Reply to
Paul E. Lehmann

That's pretty much how I feel too, it may matter on a very young drinking wine (as in 3 months) but I just can't see this mattering in winemaking. I know beer makers are very selective but you are drinking that in 3 weeks at times.

Enjoy that barrel, I almost bought another this year.

Joe

Reply to
Joe Sallustio

Paul and Joe make good points. Other than personal opinion, there seems to be little reason to believe that yeast strain makes significant contributions to the flavor of _aged_ wine. Here is a quote from Principles and Practices of Winemaking, page 181. "........until evidence is presented involving verified replicate fermentations and stringent sensory analysis, any effect of wine yeast strain on flavor is disputable." Lum Del Mar, California, USA

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Reply to
Lum Eisenman

In thinking on this subject in more detail, I think that certain strains can indirectly affect the flavor. The flavor comes from the fruit, not the yeast. Some yeast manufactures would lead you to believe that the yeast itself yields a "blackberry" or "chocolate" or whatever descriptor you want to use but I find this unreasonable.

What I do find reasonable is that the different strains of yeast have their own range of temperature, pH, and nutrient needs under which they do best just as individual plant species plants have their unique soil types, temperature and soil chemistries under which they do best.

Different varieties of grapes have their own acid levels, pH, chemical composition etc. Different strains of yeast could work best if the yeasts needs are closely matched to the particular grapes chemistry and the flavor compounds in the grapes are allowed to come through.

I have seen temperature ranges for various yeast strains but I have not seen data on the other paramaters such as acidity, pH, certain needed nutrients etc. If anyone knows of such a chart, please pass along the information.

I believe this would allow us to better choose which yeast to use for certain musts characteristics. As we know, Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, can vary in its chemistry depending on where it is grown and the particular season. I think it is perhaps inadequate and perhaps misleading to state that "Brand X" yeast is best for Cabernet Sauvignon because it gives it this or that descriptor without knowing more about the chemistry of your musts and the needs of a particular yeast.

Just my opinion

Reply to
Paul E. Lehmann

I have a doc file that describes the yeast strains temp etc and a pdf file that matches yeast for types of grapes. If you want it send me an email and I would be happy to send it you anyone interested.

Reply to
Walter Venables

Hmmm... tried to email you to get these docs on yeast Walter, but the email bounced. Would you be so kind as to send it to page.rick@"removethis"arpageone.net?

Thanks a bunch,

Rick

Reply to
EnoNut

I'm not so sure about this. Can't say that I've experimented myself with differences in yeast affects, but as pointed out, the yeast can make a lot of difference in beer so why not wine. For example, using a neutral strain compared to one that attenuates less could produce a wine with different body and mouthfeel, or using a yeast that produces more esters than another strain should show up even after considerable aging.

Here's a study comparing the same white wine after fermenting with different strains of yeast. Tastings conducted 3 months after fermentation was complete showed several noticable differences. I didn't search very long, but would be surprised if there aren't similar tests with reds.

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Reply to
miker

Miker,

It may be worth pointing out that the paper is comparing indigenous yeast isolates from a vineyard in Spain and the effects on 3 month old wine. I think the discussion above is centered on the effects of commercially available isolates, that is, strains that have already been selected for good fermentation characteristics.

3 month old wine is young wine. It would have been interesting to see if the sensorial analyses held up at 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, etc. Perhaps the authors have published a follow-up study?

Thanks for the reference.

RD

miker wrote:

Reply to
RD

Tried to find some more references but no time now, too many references for genetically modified wine yeast for me to wade through. Unfortunately (in my opinion) we will be seeing definite differences in the effects yeast have on wine once these gm yeasts start hitting the market (see my other post about "Red wine with a DNA chaser")

Mike

Reply to
miker

Hey Rick did you receive the files.

Walter

Reply to
Walter Venables

Yes, sorry I couldn't seem to get an email to you. Paul was kind enough to forward them to me from you. I appreciate them, it's great to be able to get on a forum like this and get soooo much great information and lots of opinions.

Rick

Reply to
EnoNut

Good to hear. My email provider can be a pain sometime. My goal in life is to help as many people as I can. Knowledge is meant to be shared

Reply to
Walter Venables

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