rehydrate yeast?

this weekend im going to start my first batch of brew. i have made alot of wine before in my wine i pitch it in,, i have seen alot of people talk about rehydrateing yeast before putting it in. my question is how to do it?

I add the yeast to a cup of warm water 10-15 minutes before pitching. Easy as that.

'warm' is probably not a good description though.

make the water about 80-85degrees F. 'warm' water is gonna have to be 100F or above or the body will tell you its cool (since your finger is about 98 degrees).

main reason to rehydrate is really high gravity wort makes it harder for the yeast to rehydrate, but water is no problem.

the ideal thing to do is boil some water, then cover it and let it cool back down to 85F, then stir in the yeast, wait 15 minutes, and then pitch that into the fermenter with the wort, and give it a really good stir/shake (to aerate the wort).

thank for the reply!! that helps alot .

When I screwed up pitching my yeast the first time around, I tried hydrating the second. I just threw it in a sanitized cup of distilled water and let it sit for about 15 mins before i stirred it into the wort. Having done that, I wish I had boiled then added the yeast because I think the warmer water would have worked better.

A lot of people including myself just dry pitch. Just pour in your yeast when the wort reaches the desired temperature, let it hydrate for a few minutes, swirl and thats it.

In Palmer's book, he says to rehydrate the yeast before you start boiling the wort. But that you need to pitch the yeast within 15-20 minutes of when you rehydrated it. That doesn't make sense.

Shouldn't you rehydrate the yeast about the time that you stop the boil? It seems like you should take the kettle off the stove and put it in the ice bath. Then rehydrate the yeast in the warm, pre-boiled water. Assuming of course you can get it down to 75 in about 20-30 minutes.

What's the max time that the yeast can sit rehydrated before it's too late to pitch it? 30 minutes? 1 hour? 2 hours?

I'm sure rehydrating time is not a huge deal, I don't think you're gonna find a definitive answer.

I rehydrate in 90-95 F water for 20 mins and since I've started doing that I haven't had a single beer that hasn't required a blowoff tube.