Choosing a Yeast Strain: Baker’s, Distiller’s, Wine, Champagne

Yeast selection becomes clear once you stop asking “Which yeast is best?” and start asking “Which yeast tolerates the stress I want to use to build this flavor profile?”.

You’ll compare yeast families and tie them back to neutrality (vodka) versus flavor-rich spirits (whiskey, rum, and brandy).

Quick summary

Context: strain + stress

This position is that flavor comes from stressing yeast (temperature and sourness), not from a magic strain label. Strains differ mainly in tolerance: how hard you can push them and what happens when you do.

So we talked about how you really need to manage your fermentation in order to create certain flavor profiles. We also dived into how certain varieties, certain families of yeast have less tolerance for temperature or less tolerance for acidity and by definition in a slightly warm or slightly sour environment create a lot of the flavors that are associated with fruitiness at the beginning and rooty and earthy flavors at the back. So if somebody tells you you should ferment your whiskey at 26 degrees Celsius, really should he?

Distiller’s yeast

Distiller’s yeast is relatively neutral and able to work across a wide range of conditions. It is a reasonable default for a starting distiller.

Because I like to ferment my whiskeys at around 28 to 30 degrees Celsius. Most people say, oh that's way too high, you get a lot of fruity flavors in there. But I chose distiller's yeast and as a starting distiller it makes perfectly sense to buy distiller's yeast because I'm not a brewer, I'm a distiller, so I need distiller's yeast.

Baker’s yeast

Baker’s yeast has higher tolerance and is useful for faster ferments and flavor-rich products. It was developed around grains and grown on molasses, which is why it works well for whiskey (grains) and rum (molasses).

But what if you would have chosen baker's yeast instead? Higher tolerance, you can go for faster ferments, you can create more fruity flavors or you can create less fruity flavors basically by managing your temperature in your fermentation. There's not a lot of money to be made in baker's so most people won't sell you baker's yeast or if they do they call it sugar optimization yeast, whiskey optimization yeast, the best rum yeast in the world.

Beer and lager yeast

Beer yeast is discussed as a tempting idea (“great beer makes great whiskey”), but this approach argues against it for flavor-rich spirits: whiskey and rum should be stressed rather than optimized for a perfect consumer beer. Lager yeast is a poor fit in this approach.

Please remember that baker's yeast is actually developed to work with grains together and it is grown on molasses before it's harvested and sold to you. So baker's yeast works pretty darn well with grains and with molasses. So for almost all taste-rich products that you're going to make, the cheap option of baker's yeast is not a bad choice at all.

Wine yeast (for brandy)

For brandy, try wine yeast and notes there are many options. It also mentions champagne yeast as a very strong yeast, but frames it as better for neutrality than for flavorful whiskey/rum.

Some will tell you you need beer yeast because if the beer tastes amazing, by definition the whiskey or vodka should taste amazing. I would almost say and argue against that because a whiskey as a flavor-rich product, a rum as a flavor-rich product doesn't need to be neutral. It needs to be stressed out to actually create an interesting front of mouth feeling based on fruity flavors, a long-lasting finish based on those rooty, nutty, earthy flavors that come from stressing the yeast out towards a very sour environment.

Champagne yeast (for neutrality)

Champagne yeast is very strong and tolerant of sour environments and higher temperatures. That strength is a reason it tends to produce more one-dimensional results, which is a benefit for vodka.

If you use the perfect beer as a beer maker, consumer's beer to make whiskey, I can tell you it will become only one-dimensional. If you stress out your yeast, you actually create a beginning and an end. It's not just about the heart's flavors, a little bit of heads mixing in and a little bit of tails mixing in.

Turbo yeast

Turbo yeast is champagne yeast packaged with nutrients and pH stabilizers. It’s built as a neutral-sugarwash tool that fails with other organics and can create off flavors. Treat it as a no-go for professional distilling.

Continue with Vodka Production: Vodka Basics: Purity, Proof, and Taste to build directly on this foundation.

You get a three-dimensional whiskey, which is, I think, exactly what you want. You're a craft distiller, you're not going to out-compete Jack Daniels on efficiency or on scale or in marketing budget. The only road open to you if you want to become successful is to be able to make a whiskey that is more flavorsome than Jack Daniels.

Key Takeaways