What's the best way to rehydrate yeast?

Hey guys,

Soon im going to make an extract Ale using the Coopers real ale kit how should i go about rehydrating the yeast so that there is prime culture?

Put warm tap water in a measuring cup...sprinkle yeast on it...walk away for 15 minutes to 1/2 hour...swirl and pitch in fermenter.

About 15 minutes before I pitch, I just boil some water in a sanitized container then cool down to about 70 degrees. Sprinkle yeast, stir w/ sanitized spoon when it's all hydrated then pour into carboy.

It can be instructional to look up the manufacturers recommended rehydrating practices. For example, these are the instructions for rehydrating Fermentis SafAle US-05:

"Re-hydrate the dry yeast into yeast cream in a stirred vessel prior to pitching. Sprinkle the dry yeast in 10 times its own weight of sterile water or wort at 27C ± 3C (80F ± 6F). Once the expected weight of dry yeast is reconstituted into cream by this method (this takes about 15 to
30 minutes), maintain a gentle stirring for another 30 minutes. Then pitch the resultant cream into the fermentation vessel."

And these are the instructions for rehydrating Nottingham:

"Sprinkle the yeast on the surface of 10 times its weight of clean, sterilized (boiled) water at 30–35°C. Do not use wort, or distilled or reverse osmosis water, as loss in viability will result. DO NOT STIR. Leave undisturbed for 15 minutes, then stir to suspend yeast completely, and leave it for 5 more
minutes at 30–35°C. Then adjust temperature to that of the wort and inoculate without delay."

There aren't many differences, but there are some, including temperature range and whether to stir or not during the first 15-30 minutes.

I combine a turkey baster of warm wort with a cup of tap water in a bowl. Add the dry yeast to this. This sort of gives the dry yeast a jump start.

I know many of us just pitch directly on the wort. Not the best practice, but common.

I always cover the measuring cup I mixed the yeast in with plastic or aluminum wrap while it sits.

Is that overkill?

Boil a cup of water, chill to 90F, sprinkle yeast on top and cover with plastic wrap. 15 minutes later, stir it with a sanitized implement and pour into fermenter. This is rehydrating and not proofing. Do not add any wort. If you do that, you might as well just dry pitch it on to the wort.

Cpt_Kirks said:

I always cover the measuring cup I mixed the yeast in with plastic or aluminum wrap while it sits.

Is that overkill?

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I do the same. With two indoor cats, fruit flys from somewhere, and two sneezing kids, I don't consider it overkill.

I use a half cup warm tap water, cover it with plastic wrap and swirl it now and then, then pitch it when it's creamy. Happy yeast make better beer.

olllllo said:

I know many of us just pitch directly on the wort. Not the best practice, but common.

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+1

Unless it has an extremely high O.G.

It may take 2 hours more to start fermenting, but honestly, all the extra work (clean and sanitize measuring cup, boil water, cool water, add yeast, wait, pitch) is too much for me, again, if the O.G. is decent (lower than 1.050).

I've only done this once recently,and it sounds like I went too far with my process....I boiled about 1/4 cup of water with maybe a teaspoon of priming sugar. Sterilized a beer mug and when all was cool put the yeast in. A very few minutes later the mug was FULL so I pitched. My brew has been bubbling for 5 days now so I guess it worked ok.

Revvy said:

Put warm tap water in a measuring cup...sprinkle yeast on it...walk away for 15 minutes to 1/2 hour...swirl and pitch in fermenter.

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This is what I do...only I boil the tap water first, then let it cool. Otherwise, its just as simple as what Revvy wrote.

Well, I'm starting batch no. 2 tonight and will try re-hydrating the yeast for the first time and will see how it goes.

I put a jug and thermometer in steriliser, then went off to santitise my bucket and other equipment for 10 mins. Then cleaned jug and thermometer with plenty of cold water. Filled jug with hot water and adjust temperature to 30 C with cold water. Drop the dried yeast in and leave while finishing cleaning all of the other equipment and start to mix the wort. After 15 mins, the yeast is frothing, looks good.

Thw following morning I have a brew which over night has frothed to the top of the lid , it must have had a 2 - 3 inch head at one point and still has a shed load of bubbly stuff on top.

Now I may make the decision not to stir the whole bucket up to get the yeast going like I did on my first attempt because firstly, this did not seem to help the process, and secondly, the yeast was just about in liquid form when I put it in so I can't imagine it is sitting on the bottom?

Definitive Bitter Reading before fermenting : 1.044