spicolisays

Recipes 

Just picked up an activator pack of Pacman for a brew I was gonna do tomorrow. Pack says it's good for a 5 gal wort up to 1.060sg and contains 100bil cells. Mr Malty says I need 208bil cells for the same wort.

Which is it?

Rick500

Recipes 

208 billion.

It'll ferment with 100 billion... it'll ferment optimally with 208 billion.

Nugent

Recipes 

Once you try a few beers that have been properly pitched and fermented at the right temp, you'll never go back to pitching from the package.

spicolisays

Recipes 

so I think I will hold off on the Pacman until my next brew (don't have time for a starter right now) and opt for the Nottinghams I have lying around. Mr. Malty says 13 grams but the packet is 11g. I have heard that most feel this yeast is a workhorse and maybe even result in too dry a finish. Am I ok just using the 11g or do I have to add a few yeasties from another packet?

BuzzCraft

Recipes 

personally, i'd go with the 11 and call it close enough...if you want to add some from another pack, nothing wrong with that, but i wouldn't recommend trying to save the rest of the pack for later or anything.

Mongo64

Recipes 

You'll be fine with 11g of Notty, don't worry about it. Rehydrating your dry yeast it is probably a good idea too.

guinsu

Recipes 

Out of curiosity what is the difference in flavor between using the pack and making a starter?

Nugent

Recipes 

My take on it is that pitching enough yeast from a starter (for liquid yeast) + leaving the beer on the yeast for a week or two, after fermentation has stopped, has resulted in beer with fewer unwanted flavour elements.

What I mean is that the malt, hop and yeast components of the recipe are far more present in the flavour than those flavours that you say to yourself "there's something there that I don't like". I have found that now I can play around with a recipe much more and get a better idea of what the changes do to the beer. I guess that my beers are getting more consistent.

Mind you, I have been really focusing on my fermentation for the past four-five months - healthy yeast, starters with a stir bar, cold-crashing/decanting before pitching, working on managing fermentation temps and leaving in primary much longer (if not exclusively before I keg). This has worked for me; but, in the best of HBT tradition, you'll fine a number of differing, yet equally valid, opinions on what I have said.

I'm nowhere near brewing, what to me is, the "perfect beer". Yet, I'm having a hellva great time working towards it.

skiwithg

Recipes 

+1 IMO whoever said "yeast made the beer, you held the spoon" got it dead nuts on. Those steps for me yielded the biggest improvement in my beer. Don't forget proper aeration. Give the yeasties the best environment to do their work and keep them happy and you'll be rewarded with great beer.

Cheers,
Glenn

Nugent

Recipes 

Absolutely. I just bought an aeration stone set-up. Gonna be trying it out on an IPA that I'm brewing tomorrow with washed Pacman.