Do you rehydrate? Sprinkle on top? Add to water? This is out of curiosity because I have read that different ways are better but I just sprinkle.
I hydrate at the beginning of each brew session. I love that bready smell of fresh yeast.
Direct pitching costs you about 50% of the yeast and weakens the rest. I rehydrate per the manufacturer's instructions. A very minor investment in time & effort.
There is nothing quite like that smell. When I bake bread I always stick my nose in the bloomed yeast and get a good whiff. Yum!I hydrate at the beginning of each brew session. I love that bready smell of fresh yeast.
I rehydrate... Since, I'm an extract brewer I take a couple spoons of LME (scrape the sides of the container) and boil that in a couple cups of water... Cool it to temp and let the yeast go at it for a while.
I usually get that started during the boil, then by the time I'm pitching they are nice happy fat yeast!
It's well known that dry sprinkling in higher gravity worts reduces your starting cell count (1). Now, whether or not it causes a problem for you will depend on the disolved oxygen in the wort and just how much character you were looking for. If you wanted a high attenuation at a rather low temp for a really clean ale, you might want to rehydrate. For many beers, you probably wouldn't know the difference even in an A/B comparison on the finished batch.
(1) I did a side by side test for this and rehydrating significantly reduced lag time.
Do you see how I employed a footnote to sound more credible? That's how you know you can trust me.
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