What's best for ME with dry yeast

I am very new to brewing beer, with only 4 batches under my belt...so far. I use dry yeast from a packet.
Is it best to dump the dry yeast into the carboy, or should I dump the yeast into a bit of water and then dump the water/yeast mix into the carboy?

 

It is not necessary to rehydrate the dry yeast before you pitch. With re-hydrating yeast it takes a little practice. I would get two packets of the yeast you want to use. Try and rehydrate and pitch. If for some reason you screw up just pitch the other packet..

 

Thanks for the reply.
So, what can go wrong with re-hydrating? I typically use 2 packets already, since my brews OG has been 1.080 and above with my goofy recipies

 

Rehydrating is pretty easy, though I mostly just pitch it right into the fermenter from the packet and haven't had any issues.

 

Not much to go wrong, unless you use water from your toilet or something. Just use sanitary (preferably boiled) water and cool it to 80-90 degrees, stir the yeast in and let it sit for 30 min. or so before pitching. Long as the water is free of germs and in the right temp range, you should be fine!

 

Thanks, guys!

 

Dry yeast packets generally has more viable cells than liquid yeast. I believe the recommended procedure is to rehydrate. Boil and cool 2 cups of water, then pitch the yeast and place it in a warm location under a peice of sanitized plastic wrap. I usually do starters for all my yeasts, but for my first 6 batches (both dry and liquid yeast) I either rehydrated (dry) or pitched the vial directly (liquid). If you pitch the dryh packet directly you will likely get a longer lag time ( how long it takes for fermentation to begin)

 

Nothing is wrong with rehydrating. Both Lallemand/Danstar and Fermentis advocate rehydrating their yeasts. I find rehydrating gives superior results, though I admit to often just sprinkling the powder on the bitter wort in the primary. I always rehydrate lager dry yeast according to manufacturer specs, because I want to give myself every advantage in a lager beer.

Cheers,

Bob

 

Have you made lagers with dry and liquid yeast? If so, have you found any difference? Which do you prefer?

Back on topic: I have used dry in my last three brews and have had no problem re-hydrating them. I figured it would give them the best start at fermentation, so why not...

 

Agree, it's not at all hard. Only hard part is remembering to boil the water early enough for it to cool before you get impatient.

Also, the different yeast strains / manufacturers have different recommendations for temperatures. I don't think it's critical---after all, you can get by just fine skipping the step---but I think it's a good idea to check the package or the manufacturer's web site for their suggestions.

 

FWIW I quit boiling my water and risked using distilled water from a new bottle. It was room temp and just so easy. I didn't have any problems.

Then I started canning my starter wort and realized that I could do the same thing with plain water for making sterile water for rehydrating. Takes the "work" out of rehydrating.

Now I'm not saying that I recommend people start rehydrating their yeast with bottled distilled water, only that I tried it a few times and it worked fine. When you think about it, the chances of anything bad being in distilled water is extremely low. I used it because I am pretty lazy and having to boil stuff for what seems like every step in the brewing process was getting in the way of my enjoyment of brewing.

 

@Homercidal
Boiling also removes oxygen which is toxic during rehydration though it won't kill all the yeast, distilled water isn't recommended because the yeast will be under osmotic stress from the lack of dissolved minerals.

 

Won't the yeast have the minerals from before dehydration?

See, another reason I need to read the yeast book.

 

The minerals on the inside of the cells will want to equalize with the minerals on the outside leading to a hypotonic state.
http://www.mansfield.ohio-state.edu/~sabedon/010plasm.gif

 

I'd think bottled water would be sufficiently sanitized out of the bottle. It needs to keep a long shelf life. I'd stay away from distilled, though.

 

Maybe. I think that some bacteria in spring water might still be there. There are lots of bacteria that aren't harmful to drink, but that might start growing once there is an ample source of food.

Good catch on the minerals though. The yeast people call it Osmotic shock.

Not sure about needing a lack of oxygen, I can't find any information about that.

At any rate, now that I can my water I'm sure I'm getting plenty of minerals and none of the bacterias. If I didn't, I'd probably switch form distilled water to bottled spring water and take a chance. There is probably a ton more bacteria floating around in the air that could land in your wort than there is in bottled water.

 

I might be getting my wires crossed, removal of oxygen is important for yeast storage when washing it. I might be thinking of older sources, where boiling would remove some of the chlorine.