Belgian yeast experiment......................

[Duxuk]

The results are in. In the heat of summer I decided to brew one of my familiar IPAs but substitute the Nottingham yeast for Mangrave Jacks M29 Belgian Abbey yeast.
My reason was that, without temperature control, other than environmental, I thought I could keep things below the danger point. This I did. Never going beyond the mid 20s celcius.
I have given it a good few months in the bottle and am not thrilled by the results.
It seems to have 3 aspects of it's flavour, which instead of complimenting each other, appear to clash.
The initial bitterness is harsh because of the relative lack of sweetness. The yeast has left a typically Belgian dryish beer. The very fruity late hops (Simcoe) also would be far better with a dose of sweetness.
Overlaying this is the taste of a classic Trappist yeast flavour, which just seems a bit lost.
I've tasted worse beer but wouldn't buy a second pint.
Only about 30 more bottles to go

 

[JFB]

That's a shame.. Have you used the MJ29 with good results?? Ive used it to make a Belgium ale and I didn't get a great result either. I've used a few of there yeasts and the only ones I like are the Saison and there clean American one. The others all have a little twang of sorts. It pains me to say it as I love the packet designs, there just so dam hip

 

[strange-steve]

Shame it didn't work out. Belgian flavours can work well with hops, check out Cloudwater Belgian Citra or Boulevard Tank 7 which are both fantastic. A Belgian IPA is on my brew list but I haven't come up with a recipe yet.

 

[GerritT]

MJ is a class on its own. I wouldn't have compared a notty with an MJ. Danstar leaves sweetness, MJ chews.

 

[jceg316]

I find Belgian yeasts are the fussiest and will only use them if I can control the temperature quite well. For hot temperatures saison can work, and I find saflager S-23 is quite robust.

 

[Duxuk]

That's a shame.. Have you used the MJ29 with good results??

Yes, I've made a few more traditional Belgian style beers with MJ29. I used continental hops and included a good proportion of wheat malt. They were good drinking and 5kg of grain gave me up to 6.7% ABV in 23l!

 

[Snoop]

I did something similar. I have a fermentation fridge but it doubles up as my kegerator. I had 4 kegs on tap and no way to use the fridge to make a beer in summer. So figured I'd make a beer for winter but use a heat tolerant yeast. So a Belgium breakfast stout. Epic fail. Yeast added lots of banana, lactose added the sweetness, oats added the porridge flavour. So... Basically banana porridge. Nah

Did do an absolute cracking saison with the safale Belgium saison yeast tho. That was chugging away at the height of summer at high 20s and was basically just Belgium pilsner, spelt and spalt select hops. Good yeast that stuff because that was a cracking beer for minimal cost.

 

[AdeDunn]

I think you might have your names and numbers mixed up there a bit? MJ M29 is French Saison, I use this regularly for brewing saisons. Ferments very dry (1.000 at the lowest, 1.005 was the highest FG I got with it), usually with a hint of honey and lemon to it. M47 is Belgian Abbey, and I've not used this. I have however used M41 Belgian Ale, and I would say that using it in a pale patersbier was a mistake, as it tasted ruddy horrid... You COULD use M29 in an IPA, but you'd have to mash at about 69 degrees C to dry to slow it down a bit, and odds are it'd still break the sugars down and eat through them... There was a thread on here recently discussing this phenomena, attributing it to a "contaminant" yeast strain present in both M29 and Belle Saison that can produce enzymes to break down complex sugars or something. To be honest, I kinda reached the conclusion that if you want a decent tasting Belgian yeast, you're probably looking at using a liquid one (not counting Saison ones).

I'm usually a fan of the MJ yeasts, M29 is excellent for Saisons, M36 produces delicious British ales, M44 went nuts with a US IPA, and M21 produced a delicious Wit, but M41 was flippin' horrible... So sounds to me like the Abbey may be it's kissing cousin....

 

[chthon]

The M41 is good for brewing something like Duvel.

However, I have also used to restart fermentation after I did a brew with Westmalle yeast, which stalled, and which was dry-hopped. It became too dry, and the dry hop became too bitter (mind you, it could also be because I dry hopped with a little bit of Magnum that I wanted to be gone). After six months it is now starting to get a little bit better.

 

[Duxuk]

I think you're. It was M47 that I used. I used M29 last year but didn't like it as much. It left the beer bone dry.