Rehydration on Nottingham Ale Yeast?

Hi all- I'm a newbie to brewing, just getting ready for my first batch, in fact. I bought a Brewer's Best kit for English Brown Ale. The dry yeast package (Nottingham Ale Yeast) includes instructions for rehydrating. However, my Brewer's Best instructions specifically say not to rehydrate. Any thoughts on which instruction to follow?

Thanks in advance for your expertise!

 

When in doubt always follow the manufacturer's recommendations.

Re-Hydrate.

 

My first brew was using a Brewers Best kit for an American amber ale. an we follow the kit instructions and rehydrated. it worked well and we made tasty libations.

 

I've used notty once and just sprinkled it right on top of the wort turned out great.

 

I have done both and gotten identical results.

 

Best practice for dry yeast is to always rehydrate. With rehydration you will have more viable yeast cells ready to ferment your wort.

 

My practice depends on the gravity of the beer. Low gravity like a mild or small beer I don't bother hydrating. If it is a mid-range beer like a dry stout, brown porter, etc. I hydrate. If high gravity, I pitch extra packets. For your batch I would rehydrate. You won't do any harm by doing it.

 

We always rehydrate Notty yeast. Or any dry yeast, for that matter.

 

I did the same kit and sprinkled it over the top without rehydrating. The sucker TOOK OFF within 24 hours and turned out good.

 

I always rehydrate, why? Because the manufacturer recommends it. And honestly, it's such a simple process, why not do it? Usually, while heating up my strike water, I just fill my flask with RO water and boil it for a bit, then put sanitized foil on the top of it and let it sit while I do my brewing. Then, while cooling the wort, I usually just come in and put the yeast in the flask and get it rehydrating. In my house, that amount of time usually puts the water in the flask back down to good temp for rehydration.

Yeah, it's an extra couple of steps, but over all, I've found that I get better results. Not necessarily in taste, but more-so the lag time. I've never had a beer not kick into fermentation within 12 hours with rehydrated yeast. The one time I just sprinkled, it took a good day to really get going. Both tasted fine, I'd just rather have the yeast kick in as soon as possible.

Plus, there has been some research that suggests rehydrating gives you more viable cells to do the job than just sprinkling.

I'm not knocking sprinkling, it's that just for me, I really don't find it any more of a hassle to do hat the manufacturer suggests.

 

Yes the manufacturer says you can sprinkle it directly on the wort and, to their credit, they are completely correct. However, there is a difference between what will work and what works best.

 

I rehydrate because folks who study yeast for a living say that it gives you a better cell count. Simply sprinkling it dry into wort can kill up to half of the dry cells before they have a chance to reconstitute their cell walls. Folks often get away with sprinkling dry due to the high number of cells (about 220 billion) in an 11g packet.

1/2 cup of 100*F tap water does the job nicely. Before pitching, attemperate the slurry to get it to within about 10*F of the wort temp (which ought to be as close to 60*F as you can get it).

A big word of caution about Nottingham yeast. It loves cooler temps and will ferment very cleanly as low as 55*F. That's the lowest I've used it, so I don't know if it can go cooler or not. It does not, however, like warm pitch/ferment temps. If you let it get above 68*F during the active phases of fermentation (the first 3-5 days), you will likely end up with some funky off-flavors. Keep it cool and it can produce a very nice brew.

 

This!

 

+1

 

I had the same doubt and so decided to call the kit manufacturer directly. Their response was - either way works. However, there are several critical things that new brewers overlook or screw up while re-hydrating the yeast.

The reason the kit instructions indicate "DO NOT REHYDRATE" the yeast is because if this process isn’t done just right it will greatly harm the effectiveness of the yeast and more than likely kill it. The yeast packet instructions make it seem like a really basic process, however a couple crucial key points that the yeast manufacturers leave out on the packet is; Firstly, you cannot use chlorinated tap as contact with this will immediately kill the yeast. Secondly, they fail to mention that while stirring the yeast into the water, for rehydration, if done too vigorously it will harm the yeasts effectiveness and ability to reproduce and ferment properly. Thirdly, they also fail to mention that if the rehydrated yeast is at a greater temperature differential than the wort you’re about to pitch it into, you will thermally shock the yeast, affecting its effectiveness - with the potential of even killing it. All these things can cause great frustration to a novice brewer who’s not familiar with the technical side of the brewing process and can potentially ruin a batch of beer which can be costly depending on the kit and could cause them to not want to brew again.

As you can see, there can be several areas where the novice brewers can mess things up. Lastly, the yeast packets don't have enough space on the back to include all the above instructions. So they ask the kit manufacturers to include the "DO NOT REHYDRATE" instruction on their kit instructions. Now, if one were to go the yeast manufacturers website and check out the "Techincal Data Sheet" of a particular yeast, then the data sheet would include all of the above instructions and much more. I am attaching the Technical Data sheet for the Nottingham Ale yeast , that I downloaded from their website.
As you can see, it has got a lot lot more information.

When the kit manufacturer's do multiple test batches prior to the release of a kit they always pitch the yeast dry and have equally great results as the same beer brewed using rehydrated yeast.

With all that said if rehydrating is a process that you’re very familiar with and have done successfully then feel free to rehydrate.

Hope this helps !

 

Brewing is fun. Rehydrating yeast can be part of that fun. If it's not, then sprinkle it in dry.

 

Going to the source can get the right answer.

 

I agree that it's better to sprinkle dry and lose some cells if a brewer doesn't know how to rehydrate or is uncomfortable with the process than to do it badly and potentially lose even more.

However, claiming that the rehydrated yeast slurry has to be the exact temp of the wort before pitching is absolute rubbish and scare-mongering. First, it's impossible to match the temp of 60*F wort even with the best attemperation technique. In reality, rehydrated slurry should be within 15*F of the wort temp before pitching to avoid thermal shock (which is why you attemperate).

From Dr. Clayton Cone, yeast microbiologist - "We also recommend that you attemperate the rehydrated yeast to with in 15F of the wort before adding to the wort. 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. The attemperation can take place over a very brief period by adding, in encrements, a small amount of the cooler wort to the rehydrated yeast."

 

You are right BigFloyd. On that note, I have updated my post.

 

Thanks.

 

Thanks all for your thoughts! I ended up rehydrating per the Nottingham data sheet. Yeast took off right away, now it's just a waiting game to eventually see how it tastes.

 

Out of curiosity, have any of you tried washing Notty? I've been thinking of doing a few 1 gal. BIAB sampler batches to try different recipes and I'd hate to waste a whole packet on a 1 gal. batch.

 

Harvesting yeast from a fermentation initiated with dry yeast is done in the same manner as a fermentation initiated with liquid yeast.