A Quest for Data: Yeast Strain Repitching

Our R&D team enjoys quests – one recently completed expedition involved answering the question that has surrounded our dry yeast range for years: repitchability of the LalBrew® range.

To start, we conducted a survey of the previous studies done on dry yeast repitching.  In 2010, our Senior R&D manager, Tobias Fischborn, conducted a study with industry colleague Chris Powell to investigate repitching LalBrew Diamond™, a German lager strain. Published in the Journal of American Society of Brewing Chemists, they found consistent fermentation performance with no genetic variance
or mutation across these repitches.  

Beer styles and brewing strains have significantly advanced in the past 13 years, including in our own portfolio. Also, this previous study only examined a lager yeast. Would ale strains perform differently?  

To answer this question, we continued our expedition in partnership with the University of Nottingham, with the goal of examining different ale yeast strains through multiple repitches. As we wanted to capture a variety of beer styles, five yeast strains were selected for this study: LalBrew Verdant IPA™, LalBrew New England™, LalBrew Wit™, LalBrew Belle Saison™, and LalBrew Nottingham™.  

What did we discover?  One, that all strains were healthy with no significant difference in fermentation character across multiple generations. Specifically, live cell concentrations increased throughout the generations for all strains, apart from LalBrew Nottingham™ where live cell concentrations remained the same from generation 1 and 2.

This study highlights the high quality of LalBrew® strains and gives confidence to brewers that these strains maintain high viability when repitched. But our R&D explorations do not end here. For example, this year we are excited to collaborate with White Labs on various research projects that offer additional technical insights into the recently introduced dried strains in their range.

Furthermore, we continue to partner with other research institutions in our journey to explore the depths of fermentation. Our research encompasses areas such as: nutrition and fermentation performance, yeast strain influence on thiols and effective biotransformation, as well as the development of new and exciting yeast strains to cater to diverse brewer requirements. Onward.