Dry yeast question

[Tony B]

Last weekend I was grabbing a few things at the local home brew mart and decided to buy a pouch of dry Omega Lutra to try out as temperatures start to rise here. I live in southern CA and have no temperature control for my fermentation.
Anyhow, I was thinking of building a starter with the dry Lutra and then harvesting and freezing vilals of it to keep me brewing through the warmer months.
Has anyone done this with dry yeast and in particular a Kveik?

 

[Tony B]

I read a couple related posts. I’m going to go for it. Worst case, I have to buy more yeast.

 

[hottpeper13]

I used Omega Lutra and did an overbuild starter and also dried the cake from the first beer. I'm drinking an IPA fermented with my dry yeast that was in primary for 7 days then kegged and lagered at 33* on CO2 for 3 days then put on tap. Lutra makes a clean beer if you pitch at normal ale yeast pitch rate and try to keep it 86* or under. I made 3 beers 1st one at 68*, took 2 weeks. 2nd one at 76* took 7 days. 3rd one at 86* took 3 days. None had the twang, not lager like but clean ale like. I've noticed in smaller lighter beers it subdues the malt flavor. I add 1 lb of Munich malt to all existing recipes. I fermented my Munich Dunkel recipe with Lutra and had the best brown ale ever. As home brewers if it doesn't work out we just change the name!

 

[hotbeer]

What ambient temps can you maintain? I keep my FV in my airconditioned home. The temp of the beer briefly goes to the max ideal temp while krausening. But then drops to about ambient there after. I've never used Lutra or any other Kveik type yeast. Usually US-03, S-04 and a few other normal ale yeast that are dry. Never tried liquid yet. Don't think I ever will.

You might not need to be worried about it so much that you have to resort to the Kveik type yeast. So experiment and also do some brews with some regular dry ale yeast and see what you get.

 

[Tony B]

What ambient temps can you maintain? I keep my FV in my airconditioned home. The temp of the beer briefly goes to the max ideal temp while krausening. But then drops to about ambient there after. I've never used Lutra or any other Kveik type yeast. Usually US-03, S-04 and a few other normal ale yeast that are dry. Never tried liquid yet. Don't think I ever will.

You might not need to be worried about it so much that you have to resort to the Kveik type yeast. So experiment and also do some brews with some regular dry ale yeast and see what you get.

We have AC in our condo, but usually set it around 76-78. Power bills are no joke in CA. Temperatures through the winter and early spring in our condo usually hang nicely between 65-70, which has been great so far. I just wrap a wet towel around my FV when it gets over 68 and it has worked well. I know soon enough we will be averaging mid seventies inside and out and during the summer months outside temps are high 70’s- high 80’s and sometimes higher. The AC will help, but I want something that will ferment cleanly between 70-80. Probably from May- October.

 

[waynetempro]

Everything that I’ve read about kveik says that it does not need a starter and does well under pitching. I did 2 beers recently with Lutra, I used half a packet each and they took off quicker and any ale yeast and came out great. And they were fermented a regular indoor AC temp.

 

[hotbeer]

Everything that I’ve read about kveik says that it does not need a starter and does well under pitching. I did 2 beers recently with Lutra, I used half a packet each and they took off quicker and any ale yeast and came out great. And they were fermented a regular indoor AC temp.

And just to add a IMO, to this. You don't really need to make a starter with any dry yeast. The only reason I might think one would need to is if there is not enough dry yeast for the calculated pitch amount and it wasn't desired to risk under pitching.

But with most dry yeast, the cell count that is guaranteed on the package seems likely to be a gross understatement from recent threads and other information I've read recently.