chefchris

Recipes 

Bob is right. I work in a homebrew shop and while we use to carry both brands we ended up dropping Wyeast. People were having a lot of problems with it and it was too expensive to have at least 2 of each strain in stock. Hell, the smack packs were swelling up in our shop before we could even sell them. You could return them ... but who wants to put up with all that hassle? IIRC Wyeast was more expensive shipping & product wise, too. They're product also takes up a lot more room.

You would not believe the price of shipping on yeast. The yeast itself is not cheap either, it's not a huge mark up like you think it is. If we marked up the same as we do other products the cost would be $10+ a vial.

I would not be upset with the LHBS, they are making a move for the better. Sure there's some strains that only Wyeast will have but most of them have White Labs equivalents. They can't cater to everyone. I would just do like others suggested; buy some Wyeast and wash it.

__________________
staygoldBREWING

Primary: RIS, Flanders Red, Berliner Weisse

On Tap: Brown Ale, American Stout, Pumpkin Porter, Pale Ale, Uncle Muscle's IPA, Rowsdower Canadian Dry Stout

Bottled: Berliner Weisse

I think you are confuisng circle k with a reach around. - Denny's Evil Concoctions

scottland

Recipes 

As long as they carry White Labs, i see no issue. I use them both interchangeably.

starrfish

Recipes 

I guess I need to give white labs a try... and wash the wyeast I have in stock.
just never used white labs in any brew always have used wyeast or dry.

__________________
Yankee Sand Flea on a Southern Beach.

“Son, you are a walking violation of the laws of nature, but you’re lucky, we don't enforce them laws.”

Dunerunner

Recipes 

Take me back in time and explain why the price of yeast has skyrocketed recently. I used to buy Fermentis products for $1.50 a pack...Now it's $4.50 an pack.

Wyeast and White Labs has gone up as well right along with Winsor and Notingham from Lallemand. What is driving this?

motobrewer

Recipes 

demand? also liquid yeast, for me, hasn't gone up....

__________________
"srsly, not intended to threadjack (big hairy)"

BBL_Brewer

Recipes 

Why freeze stressed/washed yeast when you can farm it ahead of time and freeze it while it's nice and healthy? Check out my post.

__________________
Slots Down Brewery
Stick with the plan....not the sparge.

Never Ending Liquid Yeast - How to Farm Yeast and Freeze it.

Bob

Recipes 

It's probably a combination of factors, including demand. As everyone is aware, energy costs are skyrocketing, too, and producing a biological product which spoils at the drop of a thermometer is extremely energy-intensive. Packaging in plastic is price-dependent on petrochemical prices. Transportation costs have gone WAY up.

Frankly, I think the price of those products has been kept artificially low for quite a long while (like fuel prices in the USA).* What chefchrish wrote above bears this out: Retailers would rather reduce their margins on yeast because if they marked it up to where it should be, their customers would suffer apoplexy. These increases are probably just a natural market adjustment to a more appropriate price point. Really, for all that goes into a vial or smack-pack of yeast, we really ought to be paying well over $10, probably closer to $20. Don't like it? Make friends with your local pub- or micro-brewer. If you're cool, you can probably get all the yeast you want for free.

Cheers,

Bob

* Probably because homebrewers are by and large parsimonious and bitchy. We really do bitch a lot about prices and start using horrid words like "ripoff" when prices adjust naturally, or when confronted with a premium product. It's funny - the same guys who'll buy a bottle of Pliny for any price will kvetch like a pauper if they're asked to pay another $0.25 per pound for pale malt.

__________________
http://www.reconstructinghistory.com

Bgrady34

Recipes 

Starfish, I'm guessing your in the CLT area??? I have used both the smackpacks ans the White Labs yeast, while i'm no master yeast yoda or anything. Only diff I could tell between the two in my two Oct fest's was one was cool to watch swell the other made me feel like a mad brewer.

Moe

starrfish

Recipes 

I'm actually down in Florence SC, but the shop in CLT is the closest I've found that has what I need most every time. I online order, and have my stuff in a day or two.

It's really no big deal I just need to relearn all the yeast numbers and find equivs. I just don't like change. Wyeast has been good for me.

Have a few more batches to go before I use up my stock of washed and unopened packs.

__________________
Yankee Sand Flea on a Southern Beach.

“Son, you are a walking violation of the laws of nature, but you’re lucky, we don't enforce them laws.”