SafAle S-04

Pros

• They're hard to fuck up, the temperature is very forgiving if you use a yeast like S-04, and they go down pretty easily.
• For ales, S-04.
• Some of the best beers I have ever brewed (out of hundreds) have been with good old simple S-04. It produces beer that is clean and malty and delicious.
• I’m likely to reach for S-04 before us-05. Old habits die hard. It’s also insanely cheap.
• I agree that S-04 would be a solid choice.

Cons

• I did intentionally underpitch S-04 **10-fold** once out of curiosity; it fermented out to the same extent as the regular pitch, lagging behind the regular pitch by 18h. Tasted like shit though (yeasty, it never cleared up… pretty sure t...
• S-04 won't do a dang thing in combo with lactose and US-05 which has much higher attenuative properties than S-04.
• I used so4 to finish it off. Came out great.
• One thought is that it can be somewhat attenuative. If s-04 was less attenuating, that could be a reason to consider it. I would have to check my notes but I seem to recall a-04 tends to finish a little higher for me than kveik.
• I tried recreating something akin to Old Speckled Hen and used S-04. It did not work well for me being more like unsweetened British tea.