Nottinghame Starter after hydrating ?

[EdWort]

I'm going to use Nottingham yeast tomorrow on the o'l house brew. After hydrating it properly, I was going to pitch it into some starter wort tonight.

Any problems with this? I've read where it might not be necessary and some folks don't even bother with hydrating the yeast.

I just feel better knowing it's good plus there might be a few extra yeasty cells to do their magic.

Thoughts?

 

[Truble]

I always hydrate my dry yeast, and get it going in some extract/water (boiled and cooled, just like full wort). I have gotten it going the night before as well as a couple hours before.

 

[EdWort]

Cool. I'll get the starter going tonight. I'm stoked. SWMBO is out of town and tomorrow is a brew day. This means BDWI (Brew Day Without Interruptions). Sweet!

 

[Beer Snob]

I've always hydrated. But never made a starter, not with dry yeast. Be sure to keep up informed if it makes a difference.... I'm suspecting it won't, but hey it will extend the homebrewing fun you know

 

[Ol' Grog]

I just made my first batch this past weekend and rehydrated that exact same yeast. My LHBS told me that if you just rehydrate, you'd be OK just doing it for about 10 to 15 minutes. I did that after boiling some water and cooling it down and low and behold, I had lots of activity. So far, so good.

 

[sonvolt]

I use Nottingham a lot. I have never hydrated it. Sometimes I make a starter and sometimes I do not. It always seems to work the same.

I heard something recently on the BN that if you do not hydrate dried yeast, a bunch of them die when you [itch directly into the wort or starter wort Ooops.

I may start rehydrating after hearing this.

 

[EdWort]

Man, that Nottingham takes off. I hydrated with boiled water cooled to 97 degrees for 15 minutes, then swirled and waited 15 more minutes before pitching into a pint of wort in the Erlenmeyer flask. 30 minutes later and she's bubblin away. I'll be in great shape tomorrow when I pitch around 1 pm.

House Ale, here we come.

 

[sonvolt]

Whenever I use that strain, my beer ferments out in about 24-48 hours. It is really fast.

 

[Ol' Grog]

I was at my LHBS and asked some questions on this. The clerk there, who seemed very knowing, said that all he's ever done is sprinkle some of the yeast on top of the cooled wort, and then mix with a sanitized spoon. Keep doing that until all the yeast has been pitched directly out of the bag. He claims to never have had a problem using this method with Notinghams. I'm not so sure, I had quick and great results using the rehydrating method that if it ain't broke, I'm not going to fix it.

 

[boo boo]

I use Nottingham a fair bit.
I did rehydrate my yeast but found that I wasn't getting the same short lag time as when I just dry pitched. That could only be me not having the right rehydration tempertures for my yeast.
You are correct in that dry yeast when pitched to wort have some cells die. It is hard for the dry yeast to draw water from the sugar rich wort into the cell walls to rehydrate.
When rehydrating, make sure your water temperture is in the range for the yeast so as not to shock or kill the yeast. I have read that a lot of people actually don't rehydrate right and do more harm than just dry pitching it. I would say I can count myself in that statement.

As for making a starter, why? why not just increase your yeast amount? You'll get more active yeast than a starter in the same time frame will get.

 

[Beer Snob]

I was at my LHBS and asked some questions on this. The clerk there, who seemed very knowing, said that all he's ever done is sprinkle some of the yeast on top of the cooled wort, and then mix with a sanitized spoon. Keep doing that until all the yeast has been pitched directly out of the bag. He claims to never have had a problem using this method with Notinghams. I'm not so sure, I had quick and great results using the rehydrating method that if it ain't broke, I'm not going to fix it.

Thats how I did it for years. It is better to rehydrate though and takes only a few minutes.

 

[Ol' Grog]

After reading the rest on this topic, I'll stick with rehydrating for now.

 

[SpyFox]

I have used Nottingham soley for a long time. All, I do is dump the dry yeast into the primary and rack on top of it. Active airlocks usually in 4 hours.

For the one or two times I rehydrated and/or tried a starter, it took 10-20 hours for activity to start.

I never noticed a tatse difference between my batches.

 

[brewhead]

Nottingham will ferment water