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Brewing Properties of Baker's Yeast

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NewBee
Registered Member
Apr 30, 2006
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I've just started brewing (got a batch of Joe's Ancient Orange going) and I'm interested in knowing what the brewing properties of standard baker's yeast are. Does anybody have any reliable info on this? There's exhaustive info on every strain of beer and wine yeast around, yet nothing on this!

On another note, Carlos Rossi wine jugs make excellent primary fermenters... :-)
 
It's a pretty rugged yeast to say the least. It'll take to most evironments, with or without adequate nutrients, and ferment to around 12%. It adds some fruity flavors if you leave it long enough, but also adds a lot of bready flavor which is why most people prefer it for bread or beer over wine and mead, though if you rack frequently and don't leave it on the lees too long you can avoid this. The greatest flaw is that it produces a generally flat character with a bit of bitterness, and is bred to produce lots of CO2, not to build good wine character. There are also super strains (like flechmann's rapid rise) that are super aggressive and ferment very rapidly. I use them alot for making hard lemonade, since the yeast gives out from sugar deprivation before they can really add any character, so strain isn't all too important. Plus all the CO2 means a quick and easy carbonation. All considering, if you can get a better yeast, do it. But if you can't, bread yeast isn't all that bad an alternative. It's certainly alot easier to look after than regular wine yeast -- Heck I've accidently frozen the stuff and it still keeps on fermenting!
 
Does anyone have any good recipes using bread yeast? How about good experiences with it in the past? Like I mentioned earlier, I've got a batch of Joe's Ancient Orange going and that was what inspired the original post. I'm looking for a better understanding of what bread yeast is capable of in brewing!

I figure I'll move up to real wine yeast once I'm ready to scale up to a five gallon fermenter.
 
I too have a 5 gallon batch of Joes Ancient orange going at the moment. His directions say not to rack until bottling. Should I follow his directions or tempt fate by racking at least once? to prevent any biterness or breadyness?
 
sgtp .... I'm the farthest thing from an expert on this board so take this for what it's worth:

I made a 5 gallon batch of JAO on February 21, and racked it on May 20. Why? Well, when I put my racking cane through the oranges that have been floating on the top since day 1, it created quite the 'fallout' of debris the dispersed throughout the entire 5 gallon batch. As I didn't want to bottle that stuff, I decided to rack it. Over the course of the last almost 7 days, another 1/2" of debris has settled to the bottom, and the mead is now clearer than it has ever been.

My plan is to give it another week and then rack it again. I'm still undecided if I'm going to bottle it shortly after that second racking, or let it bulk age for a few months. As everything I've been readinig about aging mead has nothing but positive effects on it, why would you not want to do the same with JAO?

Which leads me to a couple questions for the more experienced mazers who may read this post:

Has anyone who made JAO either bulk age, or bottle age it for over a year, and if so, has it made any significant difference with regard to overall quality? Just curious.

It only seems logical to me, but then again, what do I know? I hang out here in the NewBees forum more than anywhere else ! ;D
 
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