Prefect style to showcase yeast profile?

[Totes.McGoats]

I'm trying to figure out an ideal style to show yeast character. My brew club got talking about not rehydrating dry yeast. I have done cell counts and other things but want to show everyone in the club the difference in two side by side beers. I plan on brewing a 5 gallon batch and splitting it into two different carboys (after oxygenation) I will scale out the proper amount of dry yeast for both and rehydrate one, sprinkle the yeast on top in the other. They'll be fermented together in my temp controlled fridge.

Any other steps I should take? I'm thinking the beer needs to be light so it won't have a buffering compactly of roasted malts. Maybe a blonde ale?

[Ozwald]

Depends on the yeast. That's like saying '... the best style to showcase specialty malt'.

[Totes.McGoats]

Ohh yea that's true. I just want to be able to taste the difference in strain on the yeast. I did some research in school on rehydrating dry yeast VS. sprinkling on to and found. Difference in the cell counts.

So I'm looking for a beer I can brew with dry yeast, that has enough yeast character to show you a proper pitch VS under pitching. My guess is that I could do that with any yeast strain because its just stressed yeast VS proper pitch

[tlael]

[thinking aloud]
I'd make it something simple... not a 'beer' per style, but a simple pils or 2 row @ ~1.050 with a single addition of a single hop to the 15-25 IBU range.

Pils or 2-Row & Perle or Hallertauer?

That way the hops don't dominate and the malt is present & gives the yeast something to do.

That said, if you want to stress an underpitch or non-hydrated yeast a bit, a higher gravity with the same combination may work better. maybe bump the OG up to 1.065-1.070 and keep the IBU in the same 15-25 range so neither the malt or hops dominate one another.

[/thinking]

[Totes.McGoats]

Yea that's what I was thinking like a blonde ale, because in that you just have a little bit of crystal 10 and you really need a clean fermentation. But my concern is using a pretty neutral yeast strain like WLP 001 I think it's like SAF 04 in dry. But if the yeast was stressed it wouldn't have such a clen fermentation even with a neutral strain right?

[Ozwald]

Yea that's what I was thinking like a blonde ale, because in that you just have a little bit of crystal 10 and you really need a clean fermentation. But my concern is using a pretty neutral yeast strain like WLP 001 I think it's like SAF 04 in dry. But if the yeast was stressed it wouldn't have such a clen fermentation even with a neutral strain right?

05 I think. Don't quote me on that, I haven't payed attention to dry yeast in a very long time. You are correct, a stressed yeast will produce different flavors that that same yeast under non-stressful conditions. You can stress them out in a variety of ways. Sometimes it can actually help, but it takes a lot of experimenting & knowing the strain inside and out. I used to have a strain of 001 that I purposefully mutated over several generations & could get it do some really fun things depending on the cell count/temp. My ESB was absolutely fantastic when I underpitched it & kept it on the cool side but other recipes I could get to come out almost lager-like.

[Totes.McGoats]

Ohh wow that's really cool! I will definitely do some experiments. I think you're right it is 05, I don't ever use dry yeast I just wanted to see if sprinkling on the top really made a difference; I think it'd be a great experiment to do for my Homebrew club because lots of brewers use dry yeast and they think it's better it sprinkle VS rehydrate. So I decided we should let our pallets do the testing! Thank you guys for all your input!

[BDawg]

I agree with going the blonde ale route with moderately low amounts of clean hops at 60 and 10.
Hallertaur for both or Perle/Magnum bittering and Hallertaur or Saaz or one of the American Hallertaur descendants like Crystal, Liberty or Mount Hood.
25 IBUs total with about a 1/2 oz of flavor hops, just to have some hop flavor is how I'd go.
A little crystal 10 (1/2 lb in a 5 gallon batch) would be a nice touch too.
You want a beer you can enjoy even if its an experiment base.
Oh, and I'd go for about 1.050 OG