Stop bashing my yeast friends!!!

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COLObrewer

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I don't know why everyone has to go around knocking my yeast friends. They have done a fine job for me, in the few years I have been brewing with them the only problems I have had, have been actually MY problem and not theirs.


I have been ignorant with my yeast friends;

When I pitch less than half of the recommended amount of friends in a beer with a ton of unfermentables and they don't attenuate well, I call them bad names and try to manipulate them into being more attenuative.

When they DON’T attenuate further and they go to sleep and I procrastinate long enough that it allows their cousins Brett, Lacto and Pedio to take over, it still doesn’t matter. They are a little hungrier and usually uglier than cousin Sac and I feed them different food but they still get the job done and so far in my experience, they do an excellent job, probably because they are slower and force me to wait for them to finish. As a result their work is usually more elegant and complex than cousin sac’s work.

When I do pitch a bunch of my healthy friends in a wheat beer and they start partying out the top of the vessel shooting each other and their airlock all over the place I curse about having to clean up their mess and then I will have to let them blow off and let the party go outside.


I have been impatient with my yeast friends;

Sometimes my friends sleep a long time, like an entire week, when they don't wake up soon enough or adhere to my schedule sometimes I go and shake them furiously, they have always awoke and performed their chores diligently, in spite of me and my disturbances.

When my yeast friends aren’t at the right temperature (Some like it hot, like Saison my French farmhouse friend. And some like it cold, like lager my friend with German descents) They start smelling and tasting bad or different so sometimes I have to adjust the temperature and let them clean up a little, they seem to be fine after that, it messes with my schedule but it has to be done.

Sometimes I try to force my friends to work faster and I bottle their beer before they are finished, when they explode the beer out of the bottle sending flying shards of glass all over the place I curse them and can’t believe they would do that to me, but it was not their fault, I was impatient with them.

There are probably a lot more times that my friends don’t do exactly what I want and there will probably be a lot more. I have come to realize that my friends are not like me and they have their own life, I can’t FORCE them to be faster or go further or act this way or that. All I can do is ask and be patient and give them what they need, in time I hope I can get them to do what I want.

Now, my other friend, Malt that is a whole nother story.

Keep on yeasting my friends.:mug:
 
Poor Notty, my friends redheaded step child. He's been takin a beatin lately, I have no problems with him though.
 
A very interesting read. I think I've insulted my yeast in all those ways you mentioned.

Malt is also another abused guest to our carboys.
 
Thanks for this.

You should also probably add "sometimes I leave my yeasty friends in my mailbox all day, and then they take forever to get back to work."
 
Brother colobrewer...I think I love you. In a manly non gay watching football and talking squirrel hunting way. Seriously this rant is getting linked in my no bad yeast post. Salud.
 
I don't know why everyone has to go around knocking my yeast friends.
...
Keep on yeasting my friends.:mug:
I don't know about you, but I don't force my 'friends' to go on orgy for a few days, so they each produce a bunch of babies, before shoving them in the fridge so they all go to sleep.

After that I don't feed my 'friends' an ideal mixture of food, oxygen and nutrients so they work like little slaves for a few weeks.

When they have done all I want them to do, usually surviving for a week or few, I don't (usually) murder my 'friends' by tipping them out into my back garden to die a slow agonaizing death.

... but I do do all that to my yeast, and they are usually work great! :mug:
 
. . . . ... but I do do all that to my yeast, and they are usually work great! :mug:

And I bet you've never heard them complain about it either, nope not once.:mug:

Brother colobrewer...I think I love you. In a manly non gay watching football and talking squirrel hunting way. Seriously this rant is getting linked in my no bad yeast post. Salud.

Thanx Rev, and thanx for posting the very informative posts that you do, they are very helpfull, and . . . . . . I think I love you too. In a masculine sort of fishing, non gay elk hunting, caveman sort of way. Koombaayaa . . . . . .wow . . . . .not sure I want to post this, . . . .I feel all . . . . dirty.:mug:
 
And I bet you've never heard them complain about it either, nope not once.:mug:
True, I've never heard them complain once.
But you know what's better still .... if I give them some food and somewhere suitable to live, they'll leave me a stack of beer in return ... most 'friends' tend to drink all the beer and leave only empty bottles.
 
I am done with Notty. We had a spat and are now separated. Lots of other yeasts out there and I want to try them all.
 
My favorite way to abuse yeast is to make a lovely, comfortable, cozy starter for them, then leave them in it for way toooo long. But, they never seem to mind.

Of course, when I make sparkling cider, I also murder them in the prime of their lives by pasteurizing them. Sometimes I even take pictures of the crime . . .
 
Yeast is a wild beast, it can survive in the harshest of environments.

We can neglect it and send it in the mail for days where it is subjected to temperatures upwards of 100F and sometimes near freezing temps and still it thrives. It thrives in the wild in winter after all, freezing and thawing, day and night. In the summer enduring weeks or months of temperatures ABOVE 100F.

We can treat it like a fragile little emaciated lost kitten but it still ends up as a ferocious beast eating all it can, when it runs out of food, it starts to eat its dead friends, HOW BEASTLY!

We have manipulated it for years trying to get it to do its job in very low temperatures when it wants to sleep, then when it does accomplish this, we use the same yeast to ferment in warmer temperatures just to see what happens, it still works!! Then we name its by products unflattering names like California Common.

We have manipulated it for years making it do its job on a certain TYPE of sugar like that made from wheat, then when it does this to our satisfaction, we use the same yeast to ferment a different sugar such as that made from barley just to see what happens, it still works!! This is sometimes known as Dampfbier.

All this starts to makes me feel sorry for my yeast friends but in the end I know it doesn't matter to them, because they are WILD BEASTS, they will survive no matter what I do to them or what i try to make them do for me.
 
Yeast is a wild beast, it can survive in the harshest of environments.

We can neglect it and send it in the mail for days where it is subjected to temperatures upwards of 100F and sometimes near freezing temps and still it thrives. It thrives in the wild in winter after all, freezing and thawing, day and night. In the summer enduring weeks or months of temperatures ABOVE 100F....

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Yep, our friends are hearty beasties aren't they?

It never ceases to amaze me that they can harvest a tiny bit of yeast that has been encased in amber for 45 million years and make a beer with it.

But it also never ceases to amaze me, that despite this fact, people still manage to doubt that the yeast is going to work for them. :confused:
 
That really, really puts things into perspective. Hopefully folks learn from that and not just read it and laugh.
 
I'm a yeast intern. I do all the heavy lifting, they make the beer. Gotta keep the yeastie beasties happy.
 
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