Baker's Yeast for Gotlandsdricka?

[foomench]

Randy Mosher's recipe for this beer (an indigenous style from Gotland, Sweden) from Radical Brewing, calls for baker's yeast, as does another recipe found on the web. What kind of character will this impart, and what do you think of using it? I'm a bit worried and was thinking of using a Scottish ale yeast, but if people have had reasonable success with baker's yeast, I'm willing to try it. If you've used baker's yeast, how did you prepare it and how much did you use? I'm going to brew a 15 gallon batch to go in a gin barrel.

[maxwell]

Maybe try fermenting a starter culture with it and taste it to see whether you like it before committing yourself to 15 gal? I'd be curious to hear how it turns out.

[foomench]

Maybe try fermenting a starter culture with it and taste it to see whether you like it before committing yourself to 15 gal? I'd be curious to hear how it turns out.

Good idea. I brewed Baltic Porter today and pulled off 500 ml to ferment with baker's yeast. It isn't the same beer, but closer than nothing. I'll have the Baltic fermented with SF Lager yeast to compare to.

[foomench]

Maybe try fermenting a starter culture with it and taste it to see whether you like it before committing yourself to 15 gal? I'd be curious to hear how it turns out.

Very phenolic. I haven't tasted the control, but the bread yeast porter I made had lots of spicy phenols, more than I think I can stand for this beer. I tasted a little, and bottled the rest to carbonate and then compare against the control, which was fermented with SF lager yeast.

[maxwell]

Too bad the phenols are out of control. Do you think that it might be a temperature issue?

[Ozwald]

James Spencer did a really interesting experiment with this on BBR. I can't find the exact episode without a bit more digging, but I would suggest throwing him an email. james@basicbrewing.com