Adding Yeast to the Boil?

I was buying my ingredients this morning and was helped by a guy who shared some knowledge with me. I decided to get a vile of liquid yeast instead of the dry variety that came with the kit. He told me if I wanted I could add the (dry) yeast to the boil around last 20 min for an added nutrient.

I was wondering if anyone has heard/done this. Is it beneficial or would I be wasting a pack of potential back up yeast?

Thanks in advance.

I am a noob, but I would think that the dry yeast packet has a nutrient in it to boost the yeast. He may be thinking that the yeast will die (obviously) and just leave the nutrient in the wort. This may help your yeast along the way. Just a guess.

Dead yeast is sometimes used as a nutrient but not really needed in this application. Personally I think it's a waste of yeast that could be used to ferment something.

If yeast is properly propagated and stored, the nutrient reserves it build up can be used as nutrients for another batch of yeast. I'm not real sure how effective it is, but that's the conventional wisdom.

Yep, yeast die and there are nutrients in yeast- you just don't want them in your beer lol

Dead yeast are the ideal source of nutrients for live yeast, but it's not an issue for beer. Much more of a concern for wine and mead.

I use "Yeast hulls" or "Yeast ghost" as they are called to the boil of many of my higher gravity beers.

It's not uncommon at all. Some folks buy "brewer's yeast" from health food stores, or old packets of yeast, even bread yeast to the boil.

They are also a pretty common fix for stuck fermentations as well.

Yeasts are cannibals, so some dead yeast gets them going. Like Denny says, many aren't sure how effective it is, but there's a lot of techniques that people use that may or may not be effective or any more effective (including adding ANY other nutrients, that it may or not made) but people do it anyway, and since it won't hurt the beer and could actually help, there's nothing wrong with doing it.