dry yeast vs wet vs smack packs.

What seems to yield best results?

Is the cost per batch that much different?

Ive always used the smack packs with good results but lately Ive used the 2 dry yeat that came with the extract kits. Havent tried the beer yet though.

Modern dry yeast can make perfectly good beer, a lot of people use it almost exclusively. It's fine for a lot of american and english styles, and plenty of others where you just want a clean yeast character. Though, I shy away from the "budget" dry yeasts and stick with safale and nottingham.

Of course, the more expensive liquid yeast can get you very specific flavor and character for particular styles, if you're willing to pay the premium... Though many, (myself included) culture liquid yeast so it can essentially be re-used indefinitely while only buying a single vial/pack to get started.

There are some styles where you really need to be using the right yeast (belgian, weizen, wit, etc) in which case you're pretty much stuck with liquid, but you can make very good beer with either liquid or dry.

At my LHBS, their greatest variety is in Wyeast Smack Packs. So generally I use those. The next best variety is in White Labs liquid, so if I can't find the Wyeast, I use the White Lab.

I have used Safale dry yeast with success.

I have read that with dry yeast, you run a greater risk of it being contaminated in the packet with a wild yeast strain. But as Funkenjaeger points out, that's why you stay away from the cheap-o dry yeasts.

awesome-

I think I will spend the extra with the smack packs.