About FRESH™ Chico
If you’re using a California ale yeast in your brewery, then switching to FRESH™ Chico is pure upside. Cleaner beer in less time.
Receiving and Storage
Once you receive the yeast, take the cube containers out of the box and place them in the fridge. If there is any swelling of the containers, simply crack the lid and press on the container to degas, and quickly reseal the container while maintaining positive pressure. We recommend receiving the yeast the day before you brew. Use the yeast as soon as possible. After 1 week, the yeast may lag. After 2 weeks, there could be other negative effects.
General Recommendations
Knockout Temperature: Chill your wort to 63-65°F.
Aeration: Target an oxygen level of 1 ppm per degree plato. If stacking beers over a couple of days, or double batching, aerate the second turn. For beers above 18° Plato, target 1.5 ppm per degree plato.
Pitch Rate:
- <18 °P → 750,000 cells/mL/°P
- 18–20 °P → 1,250,000 cells/mL/°P
- ≥21 °P → 1,500,000 cells/mL/°P
Fermentation Temp: 64-68°F
Alcohol Tolerance: 12%
Drauflassen/Multiple Turns: If brewing multiple batches in succession into one tank, aerate each knockout to promote yeast growth.
Soft Crashing and Yeast Harvest: You can expect to reach terminal gravity in 5-7 days. We recommend a soft crash into the low 60°s for 24 hours to harvest. Read our Harvesting Best Practices for more tips on maximizing the quantity and quality of the yeast. We recommend removing the flocculated FRESH™ Chico from the fermentor as soon as possible. This will help prevent beer pH rise and yeast autolysis as well as provide you with high viability yeast for repitching.
Dry Hopping: If dry hopping, set the jackets to the low 70°s to allow the temperature to free-rise naturally to promote attenuation, and ensure a complete fermentation. Allow for two consecutive days at terminal gravity before crashing the tank.
Clarification: If using silica or gelatin finings, we suggest performing a bench top trial in order to find a ballpark usage rate for the full batch. FRESH™ Chico fermented beers sometimes require higher fining rates for achieving high clarity. We recommend a range of 100-200 mL/barrel of Biofine.
Genetic Drift of ALDC: ALDC production does not change over time. The yeast will continue to effectively reduce alpha acetolactate for many generations. FRESH™ strains are genetically stable.
