Yeast starter using dry yeast??

bjolu340 said:

Sorry for the bump, however I believe that there is a dimension not covered in the above discussion. As a brewer from the far northern parts of europe, it is not as easy as just buying another pack as the nearest brewshop is far away and ordering only a yeast pack would make the yeast unproportionally expensive - and sometimes you find yourself with a little time on your hands - not next week but perhaps next day.

So: question: - if I were aiming for doing a 20l (5 gal) lager and hence needed almost double the cell count that is in a 11.5 dry pack according to the mrmalty calculator and the fridge has one and only one pack of yeast - is there anyone here that still would go against doing a 1l starter the day before - as the alternative would be to just hydrate the yeast and pitch it as is (underpitching!)?

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You could do a starter since more dry yeast isn't an option, but you would probably need one about ~4 L to get to the proper pitch rate. I would guess the preferred method would be to rehydrate in ~100cc of water for ~30 minutes, then pitch into the 3-4 L starter. Chill it after it finishes (~24 hours), then pour off the spent liquid and pitch the slurry.

Doing a 1L starter may be counter productive since you won't get much growth, and the yeast will not be in the ideal state like they are when freshly rehydrated. Tough call, though, since this is an odd situation. Probably a tossup. More chance of contamination doing the starter, though.

You could also do a 10L batch, and just use the one packet, rehydrated.

Perfect answer, thanks. Now what to do with my 1l starter on the stir plate.. Oh well, it will probably be beer still.

unionrdr said:

It boosts the cell count up to where it needs to be.

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And.... ensures viablility. For days like today, where you find a swollen SmackPack inside of your kit of the month club box.

mcaple1 said:

General rule of thumb for dry yeast:

For every 5 gallons of OG Wort 1.060 or lower use 1 packet 11.5 g of yeast. Anything higher than 1.060, use 2 packets per 5 gallons. I always sprinkle, and I've never had an issue.

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Same for me....dry yeast has always been reliable for me, and I've never done the rehydration

Ugh...I'm reading this now after I just made a starter (800ml) for S-33 yeast for a brewers best Belgian Tripel...

I'm not planning on brewing until tomorrow...can I leave the starter go, or should I abort?

Let the starter go. You probably needed 2 packets of yeast(just guessing your triple would be higher OG) anyway.

I think this is insane advice and some weird truism that has developed on this site and others about dry yeast. If you need more yeast to hit a correct pitch rate and you only have one pack, there is no problem whatsoever making a starter with dry yeast. You can't just say, "oh you don't need to make a starter because 11 gram packs have enough." Not true, if you are making a high gravity beer. Download the specs on your yeast, if you need more, make a starter. Its that simple. Yes you could just throw two pack in but I have never, NEVER had a problem with making a starter from dry yeast.

brewhaha_rva said:

You can't just say, "oh you don't need to make a starter because 11 gram packs have enough."

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Who said that? Obviously one pack is under pitching in some cases.

logan3825 said:

Who said that? Obviously one pack is under pitching in some cases.

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Probably not well put. My bone to pick is more with the idea that you shouldn't make a starter with dry yeast. If you need to make a starter because you are trying to save a few dollars here or there, there is no issue with that at all.

brewhaha_rva said:

Probably not well put. My bone to pick is more with the idea that you shouldn't make a starter with dry yeast. If you need to make a starter because you are trying to save a few dollars here or there, there is no issue with that at all.

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You might check your facts and educate yourself before you go denigrating other's correct advice, and preaching your own preferences.

The reason not to do a starter with dry yeast are (at least) two fold-

1. The yeast, after proper rehydration, are in a much better state than after the typical stir starter cycle. They play tricks on the yeast prior to drying to load them with nutrients. Dry yeast don't even need to have the wort aerated. (If you are harvesting, maybe a case could be made for aerating.)

2. It costs almost as much, or possibly more, for the DME/LME to make a starter to double the cell count, than the cost of simply buying another sachet of dry yeast for $3. If they keep ratcheting up the price of dry yeast like they have been, this may not hold up over time. (The OP did not have ready access to a LHBS, whereas most people do, or have a few extra packs of dry yeast in the freezer.)

At ~$6/100 billion pack, making a starter for liquid yeast makes economic sense. If you make your own starter wort from grain, it even makes sense for dry yeast. From a time/sanitation/health angle, it probably doesn't, but that is a subjective/personal choice.

The false truism that constantly gets repeated is that sprinkling dry yeast in/on wort is just as good as a proper rehydration- it is absolutely not. Dry yeast should always be properly rehydrated. Not doing so invariably results in high mortality (even higher than 50%, depending), and unhealthy yeast that do manage to survive.

There is a recent experiment on redydration methods and yeast health that is fairly thorough. I think it may have been Braukaiser. The knowledge level is always increasing, and some of the latest is that dry yeast packets may only have 100 billion per typical 11g sachet. Braukaiser has also done some recent work on yeast starter results with stir plates, and his numbers show much more growth than the typical online calcs (Mr. Malty, YeastCalc, BeerSmith, etc.)

cwi said:

There is a recent experiment on redydration methods and yeast health that is fairly thorough. I think it may have been Braukaiser. The knowledge level is always increasing, and some of the latest is that dry yeast packets may only have 100 billion per typical 11g sachet. Braukaiser has also done some recent work on yeast starter results with stir plates, and his numbers show much more growth than the typical online calcs (Mr. Malty, YeastCalc, BeerSmith, etc.)

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I am sure you can get more growth out of a stir plate than the online calculators indicate. They probably have to be fudged a bit for all the variance in making starters. You have to underestimate a bit for less than ideal conditions.

Just for the record, I'm in the rehydrade, then pitch group for Dry yeast. I always have at least two packs in my fridge, so pitching another packet is never an issue either.

I was wondering though, since it seems some are set on building starters with dry yeast, if it would be OK to do so, following the regular protocol of dry yeast. If they properly rehydrated, then put it in the starter to start building the cell count, would that be OK? Granted, not worth they time and money with the price of another packet, but after reading through this thread, it just got my curiosity going.

If the problem with a dry yeast starter, is mortality and unhealthy yeast without rehydrating, if you rehydrated before adding to the starter, would that be OK? I know, I know, why even do it? I'm asking myself the same thing, but this whole yeast thing fascinates me and this question is now resonating in my head.

Clonefan94 said:

I was wondering though, since it seems some are set on building starters with dry yeast, if it would be OK to do so, following the regular protocol of dry yeast. If they properly rehydrated, then put it in the starter to start building the cell count, would that be OK?

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If you're going to do it, that's the way to do it. Otherwise, you take a big step backward (in cell count) by sprinkling dry into starter wort. The yeast then have to culture in the starter just to get back to the count at which you began.

logan3825 said:

I am sure you can get more growth out of a stir plate than the online calculators indicate. They probably have to be fudged a bit for all the variance in making starters. You have to underestimate a bit for less than ideal conditions.

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According to Braukaiser, the numbers of the popular calc tools go well beyond 'fudging' or 'conservative estimates'. They are grossly in error. I don't think the other tools are underestimating to compensate for user methods/error, they are just built upon incorrect assumptions. If you are talking about stir vs. shaking, most calculators can be set up to return figures for stir-plate vs. shaken (and some, even degree of shaking).

You can read his report to decide for yourself. He has also contributed to an online calc tool based on his results- at brewersfriend, or something like that. You can see what the difference in counts are by comparing the outputs of various tools to his new one.

Clonefan94 said:

I was wondering though, since it seems some are set on building starters with dry yeast, if it would be OK to do so, following the regular protocol of dry yeast. If they properly rehydrated, then put it in the starter to start building the cell count, would that be OK? Granted, not worth they time and money with the price of another packet, but after reading through this thread, it just got my curiosity going.

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This has been answered not too many posts back in the thread. You must have missed it. Like the subsequent answer confirming your method; rehydrating, then doing a starter is feasible (just not economically). It also results in inferior yeast health vs. using more dry.

If you need/use large quantities of a dry yeast, look into a bulk pack, then split it up into usable sizes. If handled with even moderate care, it is more sanitary and keeps much better than they let on.

So, I'm bringing this back up to start a riot! :fro: I have one pack of yeast for a 10.5 gallon batch. I see no difference in rehydrating dry yeast, putting it into a big starter, letting it ferment, cold crashing it and pitching the slurry after decanting liquid.

Can someone say "yeast washing"? WTF is the difference between pitching on the yeast cake or washing yeast that was started with dry yeast and making a starter with correctly hydrated yeast.

If you can explain that to me the inherent difference, I may just buy you a sachet of yeast. Haha.

Lost_Arkitekt said:

So, I'm bringing this back up to start a riot! :fro: I have one pack of yeast for a 10.5 gallon batch. I see no difference in rehydrating dry yeast, putting it into a big starter, letting it ferment, cold crashing it and pitching the slurry after decanting liquid.

Can someone say "yeast washing"? WTF is the difference between pitching on the yeast cake or washing yeast that was started with dry yeast and making a starter with correctly hydrated yeast.

If you can explain that to me the inherent difference, I may just buy you a sachet of yeast. Haha.

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I think you're probably correct in this case. It's a way to save money on dry yeast by making a starter for a large brew. That being said, you could save yourself time and possible headaches by just pitching two packets of rehydrated yeast instead of making a starter.

Lost_Arkitekt said:

I see no difference in rehydrating dry yeast, putting it into a big starter, letting it ferment, cold crashing it and pitching the slurry after decanting liquid.

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Just be sure to make a large enough starter to at least double the initial cell count and you'll be fine. If you use a stirplate, your yeast should be about equally as healthy and nutrient-loaded as the yeast was in its dry state.

I don't think there is a huge difference. The state of the yeast after eating through all the various complex sugars that would be involved in a full beer fermentation vs a starter that only ate through some DME might be a little different. The yeast cake from the full beer would be better, but how much better if any would probably be variable.

Also of note on the economic viability of using a starter for a dry yeast... I recently did a quadruple brewday with a friend. We brewed 2 large beer and then took second runnings from each beer and made 2 smaller beers. I used 1 dry packet of yeast and made a starter with the 3/4 cup DME + 2 cup water method. Then I took that starter and split it 2 ways again with 3/4 cups DME 2 cups water. So I had 2 very large starters that we used to to pitch onto all 4 beers. The double IPA and RIS would have required at least 2 packets themselves and then 1 packet for each of the smaller beers. So 1 packet of yeast and 1 lb of DME was turned into the equivalent of 6 packets.

And for what it's worth all 4 beers fermented all the way down to acceptable FG just fine.

I love how people pontificate, on here, as if they really know what is what. I think most people can agree, that with dry yeast, one should probably simply buy enough packs to meet your specific brew need. However, if one finds oneself in a situation, then make a damn starter. Some people take what they read and extrapolate it in every direction.

For me, the one and only reason I ever use dry yeast over liquid yeast is so that I DON'T have to make a starter. I plan my beer and when I order the ingredients I just make sure to order however many sachets of dry yeast I will need for my OG. On brew day I rehydrate in WATER according to manufacture instructions and pitch. If you are dead set on making starters, just forget about purchasing dry yeast and go with liquid. It's that simple. Otherwise you're just making your (homebrewing) life more complicated for absolutely no reason, since you are certainly not saving money by not purchasing a 2nd sachet of yeast.

Clearly there are some circumstances where you can't purchase additional dry yeast sachets on or before brew day. But you can easily avoid that by planning your brew day ahead of time and compensating for your OG to ensure you will have enough viable cells to ferment your wort. Then when you order the rest of your ingredients make sure you purchase the correct number of sachets for the beer you plan on brewing. Seems pretty straight forward to me.

Nice comments, Sir-Brews-Alot. Planning out brew day is a good idea. Sometimes, in my case, I have a ton of ingredients, decide Thurs to brew Saturday, and don't have time to get to LHBS. The question was more of a "if it is bad to" rather than trying to receive a bunch of responses explaining best practices.

In a perfect world, we'd all have the right number of dry yeast sachets at time of brewing, but this isn't a perfect world. Haha. Also, for some people, driving to and fro the LHBS for one sachet of yeast would cost more in gas than the one packet of yeast.

So, if you have LDME or XLDME (or any DME for that matter), the question is if it is bad for yeast/beer to make a starter with dry yeast, and if it is okay to do, what would be the cell count, etc.?

Exactly. As an example: I planned a brew with US-04. Easy enough, right? Placed my order. Order delivered 3 days before I brewed. Opened box and realized I, somehow, had only ordered one package of yeast instead of two. DOH! Oh well... Cancel brew day? Why? I had the equipment, and the DME for a starter. Consulted a yeast calculator for this particular brew. Starter took off, nicely. Brew day goes off without a hitch, and I had a perfect amount of yeast to appropriately pitch into 10 gallons of a lovely American Blond. It's finishing up in my fermentation chamber (temp controlled freezer) as I type.
Do I ALWAYS make a starter from dry yeast? Hell no! Almost never. Financially, it simply doesn't make sense. But would I hesitate to do it in such a situation as I was presented with, simply because some people feel it's verboten? Again, hell no! I guess the proof will be in the pudding.

And your point of the cost of driving to, and fro, an LHBS is valid. Even giving our current low gas prices. For me to get this yeast, I would have driven 3+ hours (round trip.) Even with the current gas prices, it would not have been worth it. My time is worth more than the cost of the DME.

So I have a packet of US-04, but it must be pretty old - so old that I literally can not read the expiration date on the yeast. I have read some people have had success using dried yeast a year or even two after the expiration date. So, there would be no harm in me making a starter for this 04 just to check the yeast's viability, right? If I get foam in my flask the next day or so, then the yeast is viable, right? And, if not, I head up to the store and buy another packet. But, I have DME and possible yeast, so there's no harm in trying, is there?

I'm one of those that mention on occasion about the time I used a 2 year old Cooper's yeast packet in a small starter. Looking back, I would've rehydrated it first. Let it settle out & decanted it into that small starter. But just pouring it dry into that small starter worked so well, it needed a blow-off!

Bytor1100 said:

The point of a starter is to propagate more yeast cells in order to have a healthy amount at pitching time. A packet of dry yeast contains enough for most regular gravity beers (5 gallons) and would require no increase in cell count.
Everyone has their opinion whether to rehydrate or not, ultimately that is your call. Re hydration basically lessens the shock, as opposed to pitching into fresh wort.

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Agreed...

So this is an old post, but so am I, so what the hell....

I'm also cheap so when I need a big batch of yeast or will be brewing with in a week or two I make a starter with rehydrated yeast. I'm not a micro biologist but I could not see the issues with making more healthy yeast from rehydrated healthy yeast. The size is based on Mr Malty or yeastcalc. The starter gets 1/4 tsp of yeast nutrient and 30 seconds of O2 and then on to the stir plate. I've followed this process around a dozen times with 0 issues - FWIW

I work part time at a home brew supply shop. The national sales manager for a major dry yeast producer comes in all the time. He worked in the commercial brewing side prior. He recommends dry pitching dry yeast, no rehydrating. He also has told us that making a started with dry yeast can damage the cell walls of the yeast. Just dry pitch. 1.056 and below 1 pack, above 2packs

That's why he mentioned rehydrating the dry yeast first, then make a starter. In that scenario, it's ok. That said, I've made small starters for 2 year old Cooper's ale yeast packets (6g) & it worked so well the ale batch needed a blow off! Rehydrating in warm water around 90-100F or so leaves more yeast cells alive & healthy, according to tests by yeast labs & such. It's when pitching dry yeast into a starter that can make for weaker cell walls, etc. It lets things through the dry cell walls that shouldn't, vs rehydrating in water. It works well when pitched into wort that's within 10 degrees of the rehydrate temp.

Some dry yeast comes in 5 gram packs. Hence 2 packs. I believe Coopers sells the smaller packets. I don't know who else does however.

xgjyuj said:

Some dry yeast comes in 5 gram packs. Hence 2 packs. I believe Coopers sells the smaller packets. I don't know who else does however.

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Cooper's yeast packets that come in the false lids are 7g. Munton's were 6g the last time I saw. NB & Midwest both carry the cooper's yeast (ale) in 15g packets that are fresher than those in the false lids.

(This post has been around almost longer than I've been home brewing) I've made yeast starters from dry yeast several times, I've even save a portion of the starter for a future brew day. I can't say how healthy the yeast were but the fermentation were active and the beers were solid (no unplanned flavors). My process is basically determine starter size > hydrate yeast (I assume ~ 20B cells/gram) > ~1.037 DME starter with 1/4 tsp of yeast nutrient and 30 sec of O2 (might be overkill) > ferment on stir plate ~ 24 hours > pitch. Any portion I save goes longer. The beers I've made from the save portion of the starter have been solid as well.

In terms cost, I figure ~$1.5 to double the yeast count from 200 to 400 B, so it saves a little if I ignore the amortized cost of stir plate, flask, etc.

Huh.

In my ignorance, I always made a starter with my dry yeast packets. Typically boiled 1L water, 1/2 cup DME, 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient, for every one packet. Added yeast @80deg and let it sit anywhere from 2-12 hours.

I've always had a nice frothy starter and great fermentation.

I'll try the "simple rehydration" method next batch and see how it goes.

http://brulosophy.com/2014/09/15/sprinkled-vs-rehydrated-dry-yeast-exbeeriment-results/

FWIW, I brew 10 gallon batches using 1 package of dry yeast in a starter all the time with great results. I get quick starts, complete attenuation, and clean beers. Malt extract costs me about $.01/gram so I use about $2 worth for a typical ale starter or $4.50 of it for a lager starter. Both those are less than the cost of another package of dry yeast, $4.50 and $7.50 respectively (LHBS prices), so this is economically a win. I almost always rehydrate the yeast before adding it to the starter but at times I've just sprinkled it and haven't noticed any difference in the results.