Changes

Var. ''diastaticus'' contamination in breweries has been a recent hot topic. These strains are effectively eliminated by standard cleaning and sanitation practices, although inadequate cleaning hygiene can lead to biofilm formation which makes them more resistant to cleaning regiments <ref name="Meier-Dörnberg" />. The source of some contaminations has also been suspected to potentially come from yeast suppliers, although there is no known percentage of infections which originate from yeast suppliers versus poor hygiene in the brewery. For example, a lawsuit by Left Hand Brewing Co. accused White Labs as being the source for the brewery's ''diastaticus'' contamination issues <ref>[https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Left-Hand-v-White-Labs-COMPLAINT.pdf District Court, Boulder County, Colorado. Case Number 2017CV31132. Filed 11/14/2017.]</ref>. Detection of ''S. cerevisiae'' var. ''diastaticus'' as a contaminant can be difficult. Contamination usually occurs as a secondary contaminant (meaning in the packaging system), and can come from contact with beer lines, by air circulation in the area of the packaging equipment, or by insufficient heat treatment of the packaging line. Since a very small number of cells is enough to contaminate beer, contaminations can be sporadic with only a percentage of bottles being contaminated <ref name="Meier-Dörnberg_2018" />. Documented attenuation percentages above 75% for any strain of ''S. cerevisiae'' is also an indicator that the strain could be ''diastaticus'', however, some non-diastaticus strains can also attenuate higher than 75%, so this indicator is not a reliable method to be sure that a given strain is ''diastaticus'' <ref>[https://www.facebook.com/groups/MilkTheFunk/permalink/2004689559559248/?comment_id=2004695002892037&reply_comment_id=2005133672848170&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R1%22%7D Adi Hastings. Milk The Funk Facebook Group post on non-diastaticus strains with high attenuation. 02/27/2018.]</ref><ref name="mbaa_diastaticus" />. Often this contamination can only be detected by sensory testing weeks after packaging. This yeast has reportedly been detected using [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.1981.tb04005.x/pdf LCSM agar plates], although other species of wild ''Saccharomyces'' yeast can grow on this media <ref name="mbaa_diastaticus" />(~18 mins) and PCR DNA analysis is required to give a positive identification of ''diastaticus''. Cheaper methods of doing PCR are recently becoming available, and could help breweries with smaller budgets sufficiently detect this as a contaminant (see [[Laboratory_Techniques#PCR.2FqPCR|PCR Lab Techniques]]). A recent study used agar plates with 15 g/L^-1 of starch as the only nutrient with 40 mg/L^-1 bromophenol blue in anaerobic conditions to detect the fermentation of starch (a pH drop from 5.2 to 4.6-3.0 will change the color of the agar plate to blue/violet). For some of the slower growing strains, 14 days were required to verify that they were ''diastaticus'' while other strains grew as quickly as two days and most strains grew after five days. The yeast cells had to be thoroughly washed of all other carbohydrate material and starved in order to avoid false positives. Using dextrin agar plates instead of starch also led to false positives <ref name="Meier-Dörnberg_2018" />.

White Labs now reports that the strains [https://whitelabs.com/yeast-bank/wlp590-french-saison-ale-yeast WLP590], [https://www.whitelabs.com/yeast-bank/wlp099-super-high-gravity-ale-yeast WLP099], [https://www.whitelabs.com/yeast-bank/wlp045-scotch-whisky-yeast WLP045], [https://www.whitelabs.com/yeast-bank/wlp570-belgian-golden-ale-yeast WLP570], and [https://www.whitelabs.com/yeast-bank/wlp644-saccharomyces-bruxellensis-trois WLP644] are ''diastaticus''. Some hints as to which other White Labs products might also be ''diastaticus'' have been deduced from the [[Saccharomyces#History_of_Domestication|Gallone et al. study]] which published DNA sequencing on most of the yeast strains in the White Labs bank. However, the codes used in the Gallone paper for each strain of yeast were not defined as far as which White Labs products they correspond to. Some of the codes have been speculated on which White Labs strains they might refer to (see [[Saccharomyces#History_of_Domestication|History of Domestication]] above). The strains from the Gallone paper that appear to contain STA1 are Beer002, Wine019, Beer092 and Beer059. The Beer059 code might correspond to WLP026 according to this speculative [https://www.facebook.com/groups/MilkTheFunk/permalink/1400297539998456/?comment_id=1908170505877821&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R0%22%7D table], which has had reports of high attenuation. It is not clear at this time whether this strain is ''diastaticus'' or not <ref>[https://www.facebook.com/groups/MilkTheFunk/permalink/1400297539998456/?comment_id=1909596632401875&reply_comment_id=1910328215662050&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D MTF thread on STA1 gene and White Labs strains that might have it or not. Milk The Funk Facebook group. 12/07/2017.]</ref>. There has been a report by Richard Preiss of [[Escarpment Laboratories]] that WLP570 and [https://www.whitelabs.com/yeast-bank/wlp585-belgian-saison-iii-ale-yeast WLP585] both have the STA1 gene, but it takes weeks before they hyper-attenuate <ref>[https://www.facebook.com/groups/MilkTheFunk/permalink/1888017211226484/?comment_id=1911782002183338&reply_comment_id=1982274298467441&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D Richard Preiss. Milk The Funk Facebook group post on WLP570 and WLP585 being diastaticus. 02/08/2018.]</ref>. Other yeast labs such as [http://www.lallemand.com/ Lallemand], [https://inlandislandyeast.com/yeast-library/inis-491-saison-french/ Inland Island], [https://www.escarpmentlabs.com/strains Escarpment Labs], and [https://www.theyeastbay.com The Yeast Bay] also list which strains they offer are ''diastaticus''.