SevenFields

Recipes 

I am looking at brewing an Oatmeal Stout for my 1st brew and have looked at the recipe kits on Midwest. But I am a little confused on which one to get since there are 4 different Oatmeal Stouts.
Whats the difference between Activator & Propagator Yeast?
Also, if anyone can recommend a good Oatmeal Stout kit for my 1st brew, that would be great. Thanks

woollybugger2

Recipes 

Size...

Propagator™ packages are designed for and require a propagation step (starter culture) before brewing.

The Activator™ has a minimum of 100 billion cells of pure, ready-to-pitch yeast, plus an internal nutrient packet. The Activator™ is designed to inoculate five gallons of wort (up to 1.060 SG) providing the pitching rate recommended by professional brewers.

You're still better off making a starter for either... but you can get by w/o one if pitching the Activator to a low (1.040) gravity beer....

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McGarnigle

Recipes 

If this is a first brew, you may want to go with dry yeast. I think all of Midwest's recipes are the same, they just list it several times with the choice of yeast.

I have never made Midwest's Oatmeal Stout, but they have good kits, as do Northern brewer and Austin Homebrew and a few others.

rico567

Recipes 

I have been brewing for about a year and a half, and have made about 30 5-gal. batches. All but two have used the Wyeast Activator. On my third batch, I inadvertently ordered a Propagator, and followed the directions, made a starter, and it worked fine. All the Activators have worked as advertised.....although some will take a little longer to get going than others. The odd batch out was when I threw a batch I concocted myself on the yeast cake of a previous batch- ant it worked fine too.

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