Sahti + Bakers Yeast

[lokis333]

Hi!
New to this site/forum? Although have found some good answers here before. As a new home brewer I ran into a question that I have no answer to so now reaching out to you guys.

I am going to brew Sahti and want to keep it as traditional as possible as I am a fan of traditional ales. Rest is easy just when it comes to yeast, Finns use fresh baker’s yeast that come in this dough texture cube. Also being northern European in Lithuania we have same thing just not Finnish (I doubt that Finns have some sort of magical mega different baker’s yeast) so I am sure that would do, just how much of it do I use for brewing 20L (5.2 U.S. gallons) batch. Do I put whole pack in or should I somehow measure amount I need? And is it possible to over pitch yeast?

Sorry for long question though!

 

[unclebrazzie]

Hi!

I brewed a sahti sometime ago, and I just used a cube of live Belgian baker's yeast. Can be picked up in most supermarkets in Belgium, often in the fresh dairy aisles with the other refrigerated stuff like pastry dough and cream and the like.
I'm pretty sure finnish baker's yeast is not much different from Belgian, or in fact any other.

For a 15 liter batch, I used just over half a cube. More is probably okay but I didn't want to overpitch. Fresh baker's yeast gives a solid banana aroma, which goes well with the resiny flavours of the juniper.

As to the effects of overpitching: do't worry too much about it in this case. Baker's yeast is pretty enthousiastic stuff, but it bonks out pretty early. Expect low-ish attenuation and very poor flocculation.
Some beer styles benefit from underpitching, and others require a big big pitch (by means of a starter) but I've not heard about anyone actually overpitching.

Good luck, and let us know how your Sahti ends up!