rehydrating dry yeast

I have been using S-05 and S-04 alot.

Rehydrate the yeast in warm water and not really knowing why i was using the warm water.
This write up explains why you need to use warm water and what happens if you do not.
Anyhow its good info.

http://koehlerbeer.com/2008/06/07/rehydrating-dry-yeast-with-dr-clayton-cone/

 

Good read since I been rehydrating my dry yeast the lag time seems to be cut in half with nice strong fermentation I usually boil water then bring it down to 100-105 degrees then rehydrate I do this about 30 min left to the boil.

 

Thanks for pointing that out. I enjoy learning the reasons why for so many things taken for granted. I've been thinking about getting the Yeast book by White and Zainasheff. Does anyone else who has read it have an opinion?

 

The one thing I will do different now after reading this. I will make sure the yeast slurry is cooled with 10-15F of my wort temp before pitching it.

The author says "Warm yeast into a cold wort will cause many of the yeast to produce petite mutants that will never grow or ferment properly and will cause them to
produce H2S."

I did not know that

 

I've always had success with just sprinkling the dry yeast on top of the wort and sealing the lid on the bucket. After it's below 80 degrees, of course. I'm getting ready to get into making my own starters with liquid yeast in the near future though, just as an advancement in the hobby.

 

Well IMO Liquid yeast is not needed f/ alot of styles. I have been brewing for 8yrs and started with dry yeast, then went to all liquid. Now i am back to dry yeasts from alot of my beers. I will go to liquid on some types of beer, but only if there is no suitable dry yeast. Liquid yeast is a pain in the Ass IMO. If you look at Mr. Malty and use it. You need to make some big starters for alot of beer. If you factor in the cost and time you send messing with liquid. 1 or 2 packs of dry yeast is the way to go. S-05 and S-04 fit 80% of the beer styels i brew.

 

Not to mention if brew day gets sidetracked, now you have to store the starter and maybe even dump it if you have to put it off more than a week or 2

 

I stopped yeast proofing in a seperate container years ago. In fact fermentis yeasts on their website, actually say that their yeast can be sprinkled or even rehydrated on wort (including the surface of the beer) there are lots threads discussing this, as I mentioned above. It's one of those debates like aluminum vs stainless, or Ag vs extract where it may not truly. There was a recent discussion about that here, http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/two-packs-safale-us-05-vs-rehydrating-198654/#post2318350

Here is some of that discussion;

That's just an FYI for you, that it isn't all that cut and dried these days where the rehydrate argument stands.

 

How much of an issue is this? I always rehydrate dry yeast and let it cool a bit but it is never the same temp as the wort. I usually pitch around 65F. Rehydrate at 90ish, then let it cool some. Nottingham says to add wort incrementally for temp adjustment. I think this is somewhat cumbersome

 

Hmmm..I believe the recommended range should be within 10F

 

Lately I have been thinking about using my canner for brewing. I made up a bunch of starter wort and canned it so I have jars of wort ready to pop open and pour into my flask. No boiling and messing around when I want a starter made.

Then I thought, why not do the same thing with priming sugar? Instead of messign around each time I want to bottle, I can can some STERILE priming solutions to have on hand and instead of boiling and cooling each time, just pop the top and pour it in.

Same thing could be done with spring water. Can it and have it on hand. It's sterile and ready to go. Just get to proper temp and use it to rehydrate with. I think it would work great with those tiny canning jars.

I think boiling and cooling is the biggest PITA for all of these steps. All of these could be done on the same day, making a few hours of work to save for a whole year's worth of brewing, and making it much easier to fit one of these processes in on the spur of the moment.

 

The more detailed methods of rehydration are more important to commercial brewers who need to get consistent results and get the most out of the yeast for cost saving purposes. Although I rehydrate usually, you are still going to get good results with just sprinkling the packet on the wort. That was explained by Cone in the referenced interview,

How do many beer and wine makers have successful fermentations when they
ignore all the above? I believe that it is just a numbers game. Each gram
of Active Dry Yeast contains about 20 billion live yeast cells. If you
slightly damage the cells, they have a remarkable ability to recover in the
rich wort. If you kill 60% of the cell you still have 8 billion cells per
gram that can go on to do the job at a slower rate.

 

I checked the Lallemand website and it recommends that the warm yeast-cool wort difference should be max 10C so 18F. I originally thought it was 10F as well. So if I pitch at 65, the yeast mix needs to be 83F. That is a bigger range and so I will put the rehydrated yeast in a mini- cool water bath to bring it down. I still don't want to incrementally add wort.

Pitching warmer yeast hasn't hurt my beer that I know of, but perhaps it could be better. I don't plan to do a side by side, as I don't think it matters that much.