Steam Beer Yeast

From the American Brewers’ Review – November 1910

STEAM BEER YEAST

In the case of the so-called steam beer which is made in great quantities in San Francisco and surrounding cities, where the work is done with a very primitive outfit, where the wort is cooled neither by a Baudelot nor a closed cooler, but by simple air contact, such cooling being accelerated by blowing air on the wort standing on the surface cooler, where fermentation is carried on  in shallow vessels similar to surface coolers, so that the aeration of wort and beer may be called intensive, here it is found that the yeast after completing the fermentation settles with uncommon rapidity, the beer is run quite brilliant in to the shipping packages immediately after fermentation without finings or filter, cutting it in the package with 15-30% krausen.  It is then taken to the saloon, where it ferments for about two days in the cask and is then tapped and runs into the glass as clear as fined and filtered lager beer.

A yeast of this kind, although undoubtedly originally derived from a lager beer yeast, has become unfit for the preparation of lager beer.  It has adapted itself to the vigorous aeration, reacting upon it by strong clumping and rapid sedimentation, which is an indispensable condition for steam beer.  When introduced into lager beer wort under the ordinary conditions this yeast will not function, the fermentation is inert or fails altogether because the yeast settles too quickly on the bottom of the tub.  On the other hand, we know that by continued insufficient aeration the yeast will lose the faculty of balling up and finally turn into “Staubhefe”.

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Editor’s note 2024 – I am unfamiliar with the term “Staubhefe”.  “Staub” in German means dust.  “Hefe” means yeast.  My guess is that it refers to a stuck ferment or sedimented yeast, since insufficient aeration leads to yeast that prematurely sediments out and falls to the bottom of the fermenting vessel.