Dry Yeast vs Liquid Yeast

I used to have to drive almost an hour to get to my home brew supply store. I would try to combine trips so didn't go very often. A real pita when I would get the urge to cook up a batch.
Now there is a new HBS about 20 minutes away with an apparently experienced home brewer plus with nine years experience with a brewery in Anchorage.
To get to the point: he is enthusiastic about a couple "new" dry yeast products which he says he simply sprinkles on the wort - lets it sit for about 10 minutes and then swirls or aireates. He doesn't do a starter and says he gets good action in good time.
For a Viennese Spiced Porter he gave me a Safale US56 from Fermentis, a division of S. I. Lesaffre. Oh yes, I paid $2.00 as compared to $6 plus. He only has 4 or 5 varieties but a pretty good selection of liquid.
Comments?

2pugbrews said:

I used to have to drive almost an hour to get to my home brew supply store. I would try to combine trips so didn't go very often. A real pita when I would get the urge to cook up a batch.
Now there is a new HBS about 20 minutes away with an apparently experienced home brewer plus with nine years experience with a brewery in Anchorage.
To get to the point: he is enthusiastic about a couple "new" dry yeast products which he says he simply sprinkles on the wort - lets it sit for about 10 minutes and then swirls or aireates. He doesn't do a starter and says he gets good action in good time.
For a Viennese Spiced Porter he gave me a Safale US56 from Fermentis, a division of S. I. Lesaffre. Oh yes, I paid $2.00 as compared to $6 plus. He only has 4 or 5 varieties but a pretty good selection of liquid.
Comments?

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I swear by the Safale 56. Quick starting, clean yeast. Love it.
the nottingham is awesome too--although I don't think those two strains are very different. I haven't used any of th eothers, but the ones I have used--two thumbs up.

What brewery in Anchorage?

I've used the Safale 56 and am the happiest with it. A couple of the others didn't fare as well but unfortunately I can't remember which ones they were. I'll try to check them out tomorrow at my LHBS.

Wild

Having done only 2 brews, I'm only making an observation since I can't
speak from experience yet.

My first brew used nottingham and second I upgraded to Wyeast and did
a starter.

The liquid yeast appeared to have a more linear ferment and maybe a day or
two longer. The nottingham seemed to get real agressive then stop.

The guy at the HBS pretty much stated the same as most on the forum
that it was personnal preference. He was very interested in my opinion
either way though.

I did a yeast wash on the Wyeast and plan to do a starter on the next brew

On the advice of my HBS guy, I've mostly used Nottingham with consistently good results. I simply sprinkle on the top of the brew tank, I do stir at any point. It does not seem to be necessary. I am always leery about any extra intervention because of concerns about maintaining the cleanest possible brew environment, and any action taken can introduce contamination.

I have only used dry thus far, and I have made 3 batches with the 56 and 2 with S-04. I am very happy with both so far. I have given samples to brew buddies who use liquid without telling them what I used for yeast, and they liked it-they were also surprised when I told them it was w/ dry yeast. I do hydrate and proof(mini starter) all my yeast before pitching instead of just dumping it in dry.

I keep Nottingham, Safale-04 and 56 in the fridge. I've used Cooper's once. Hydrating and doing a starter will always improve the ferment, but I generally just hydrate and pitch. I only buy liquid yeasts for ales where the yeast is a major flavor contributor. Since I mainly do IPA, Mild, Brown, porters & stouts, that isn't very often. Last fall, I did two batches of Austinhomebrew's Rogue Mocha Porter clone, one with Nottingham and one with WL Cal V. No one was able to detect any difference.

Dude said:

I swear by the Safale 56. Quick starting, clean yeast. Love it.
the nottingham is awesome too--although I don't think those two strains are very different. I haven't used any of th eothers, but the ones I have used--two thumbs up.

What brewery in Anchorage?

Click to expand...

Midnight Sun. They have a website - www.hopsandberries.com

Dude said:

I swear by the Safale 56. Quick starting, clean yeast. Love it.
the nottingham is awesome too--although I don't think those two strains are very different. I haven't used any of th eothers, but the ones I have used--two thumbs up.

Click to expand...

Safale 56 is great. Very clean and neutral.

ive only used liquid but ive heard great things about dry, the only downside ive read is inconsistancy, or its hard to duplicat results,but isnt that good? who wants to make the same exact beer everytime???

OH MY GOD, a homebrewer on this forum within driving distance of me. (I'm in Thornton)

You joined september? Man, I never noticed.

I haven't used the safale, but I've used the Nottingham a few times, and it's reliable. Cooper's dry yeast I would put on the line against darn near anything. That stuff is so fast and aggressive it's just silly. We've had fermentations done to within a degree or two of completion within 30 hours. Like, pitch a handful of cooper's, and then come back the next day and rack it kind of thing.

I am currently trying out Morgan's dry lager yeast. It got going in about 24 hours, and then bubbled up pretty good. It has been in primary at 14 C for about 2 weeks now, and bubbling in the airlock is slowing quite a bit. Time will tell how the beer tastes, which of course is the final tally we all care about. As a comparison, my beer is ahead of Cheyco's lager, which started about a week ahead, and he used a Wyeast smack.

One of the things you need to think of is that yeast really grows quickly (exponentially) until it reaches a certain point. So whether you pitch a lot or a little, after a few hours, you have a lot. Just my $.02

Right after Christmas when I went to buy stuff for a new batch, the store was out of Wyeast, so they sold me a pack of Safale US56. I made an amber ale with it. It seemed to work well. I just bottled it a week ago, so we'll see how it turns out, but at least for now I am very happy with how it worked.

Dry yeast is definately good yeast. The only down side is many times you will not get the same results twice. At least that has been my experience with Nottingham and other dry yeasts. The Safale 56 is a good, high quality yeast, and is about the most consistant of all dry yeasts, and will give a clean flavor almost every time. Its a good yeast to have as a back up in case you run out of yeast or have a starter that fails to start. I believe it will do the job of WYeast 1056 and WLP001 easily.

I just got 5 packs of the dried 1056 and plan to do some experimenting.
I am going to brew a pilsner recipe with it and compare it to the recipe brewed with lager yeast. Next up is a semi-sweet vanilla mead then a wheat braggot. After that an american IPA.
I've used Safale-04 in an imperial stout and was very happy with the results.