For my first few batches I've used both dry yeast and smack packs. While I admit the smack packs are way more fun, they're also more expensive and difficult for someone with limited refrigeration abilities (me).
Is the general consensus that liquid yeast usually makes a better beer or are there some award winners that use dried yeast?
If it is so, are there any techniques I can use with dried yeast to help it come out as good as liquid?
BrewOnBoard
There's no "general consensus" that liquid yeast is better than dry, or that one makes "award winning beers" more times than the other....There really is no "better" or "worst" in one ingredient over another, or one method of brewing over another in ANY aspect of brewing....it's not the ingredients or the methodology that makes for great beers. it's the brewer....so don't fall into that trap...what is the best in brewing, is
what works best for you. There is many ways to skin this cat, and you will find a number of passionate zealots for each way.
I use dry yeast for 99% of my beers, for basic ales I use safale 05, for more british styles I us safale 04 and for basic lagers I use saflager..
The only time I use liquid yeast is if I am making a beer where the
yeast drives the style, where certain flavor characteristics are derived from the yeast, such as phenols. Like Belgian beers, where you get spicy/peppery flavors from the yeast and higher temp fermentation. Or let's say a wheat beer (needing a lowly flocculant yest) or a Kholsch, where the style of the beer uses a specific yeast strain that is un available in dry form.
I have found that a lot of new brewers especially, THINK they HAVE to use liquid yeast, but in reality most ales can be made with Notty, Windsor, Us-05, Us-04 and many lagers with basic Saflager.....7-8 bucks a pop for liquid as opposed to $1.50-2.50 for dry, with more cell count, is imho just a waste of money for the majority of a brewer's recipe bank...
most commercial ales us a limited range of strains, and those liquid strains are really the same strains that the afore mentioned dry strains cover, for example Us-05 is the famed "Chico strain", so if you are paying 7-8 bucks for Wyeast 1056 American/Chico Ale Yeast, and you STILL have to make a starter to have enough viable cells, then you are ripping yourself off, in terms of time and money....
But if you are looking for a "clean" yeast profile, meaning about 90% of american ales, the 05, or nottingham is the way to go. Need "Bready" or yeasty for English ales, then 04 or windsor. Want a clean, low profile lager yeast- saflager usually does the trick.
That's one thing about dry...you don't need to reproduce anymore yeasts than are already in the packets of dry. Also if you are brewing gluten free, Fermentis (safale/saflager) yeasts are
the only true gluten free yeasts available. They are grown on molasses plates as opposed to malt plates. And as long as you only use them for no more that 2-3 re-uses they still remain gluten free (evidently after the 3rd or 4th generation the yeast itself will spontaneously produce gluten.)
There are many schools of thought on how to best use dry...to rehydrate, or pitch on the surface of the beer wait a half hour (rehydrating with wort) and stirring it in, or just pitching it into the fermenter and shaking it up. I've done all three over hundreds of gallons of beer, and I haven't noticed on way working any better that the other....the yeast figured out what to do and did it.
I have adopted the rehydrate on the surface of the fermenter for 30 minutes then give the fermenter a swirl methodology for the last year of brewing. I have worked it into my routine...I sprinkle the yeast on top of the aerated wort, and seal up the fermenter. Then I start cleaning up, or if it's been a long brewing session, just grab a beer and sit for 30 mintues. After that time I move the fermenter into my fermenting closet giving the beer a big shake to mix the rehydrated yeast into the beer. And that's that.
