Can we address the dry yeast yeast starter concept again?

[Gregory T]

You seem to be targeting in on Belgian styles, Zee Trappists in general.

Always remember that their yeast is HIGHLY viable and healthy slurry so underpitching in that case is not the same as someone underpitching fresh lab yeast.

Boom. This is right. I only brew Belgians and read every sliver of information I can find about them. There is a strategy to underpitch Belgians. I have tried it and always got stuck Fermentations

The 2 most important thing in a Belgian is yeast vitality and temperature control. I typically choose 1.0. Then adjust the starter size to get something close to that pitch rate

I also like to know my yeast is good before I pitch it. Which is another reason for a starter

Granted, I have never used dry yeast, but most Belgian liquid strains are slow to get going. A yeast starter also helps with this

 

[Gregory T]

While home brewing is largely an exercise in brewing shortcuts, under pitching is never a good thing (<0.5 m/c/ml). Making a dry yeast starter and repitching dry yeast are also not good practices - and you'd be better off just starting with liquid yeast if doing so - but it works well enough most of the time.

If "it works most of the time" is good enough, then either making a starter or only pitching one pack is acceptable.

Why is making a starter with dry yeaast not a good option? This is precisely what I’m after. The only reason I’ve read is money. Obviously, that isn’t correct here

Is there another reason not to make a starter with dry yeast?

 

[cactusgarrett]

Is there another reason not to make a starter with dry yeast?

The thought is that in dry yeast is manufactured to have all the appropriate nutrients available as-is (glycogen, etc.). Making a starter from it does get the cell count up, but at the same time (the theory is that) it removes these "optimal conditions".

 

[hopjuice_71]

The thought is that in dry yeast is manufactured to have all the appropriate nutrients available as-is (glycogen, etc.). Making a starter from it does get the cell count up, but at the same time (the theory is that) it removes these "optimal conditions".

Yes, true, but is the resulting cell population from a dry yeast starter worse equipped to ferment wort than if one started with liquid yeast? I would argue likely not, if your starter was appropriately prepared.

 

[Gregory T]

I’m planning on making at least 3 of these blondes. I’m willing to experiment with this a little bit.

I think for this one I will pitch BE-256 and T-58. If I make a 1 liter starter, that hits my 1.0 pitch rate

Then I could make one using BE-256 and T-58 without rehydrating

One of them I’m gonna use Omega Belgian A. I really want to try this highly flocculent Belgian yeast

I can ducument the OG and FG. A LHBS (local being about 40 minutes each way ) has a get together every 2nd Friday. I can take them there and see what people think.

Obviously the conditioning will be different amounts. Any other variables I’m missing?

 

[bierhaus15]

While making a starter or repitching has forfeited all the advantages that went along with preparing the dried yeast, as long as the growth conditions are appropriate, the progeny cells should be as healthy as if the starting point were liquid yeast, possibly even more so.

There is lots of information on dry yeast manufacture and testing, available through IBD, MBAA, WBC, and other journals. You can imagine the allure of using dry yeast among large breweries like ABI, Miller, Asahi, ect, was strong and some like Whitbread jumped in head first; a yeast medium that lasts almost indefinitely, takes little space for storage, easy to move from facility to facility, produces the same results.... it should be a major clue that none of those breweries now use dry yeast for regular beer production, even now that the manufacturing process and cost has been streamlined.

Not to draw the ire of the dry yeast mafia, but the process of producing dry yeast is detrimental to the yeast cell. Most dry yeast is grown in molasses type sugars under the crabtree threshold and as such, the yeast never sees alcohol until the first pitch. Some yeast companies put the yeast through trehalose and glycerol hydrolosis to ensure proper lipids and a healthy start; making a starter completely undoes that process. Hence no rehydration. Also, the drying process both shrinks and destroys cell; most dry yeast contains >25% dead cells by weight. So they add more yeast to make up for that. Think about that for a sec. If you were reusing liquid yeast, would you ever pitch a <75% viable culture with the intention of harvesting.... no freaking way. The resulting dry yeast second gen have more petite mutants and the budding scars take up more of the cell since it is smaller, resulting in less than optimal fermentation in successive generations. Also flocculation is generally impaired, with smaller floccs, and more dead yeast in suspension. This can cause haze issues along with other things like autolyis flavors, ect, ect, one could go on forever.

 

[Big Monk]

I’m planning on making at least 3 of these blondes. I’m willing to experiment with this a little bit.

I think for this one I will pitch BE-256 and T-58. If I make a 1 liter starter, that hits my 1.0 pitch rate

Then I could make one using BE-256 and T-58 without rehydrating

One of them I’m gonna use Omega Belgian A. I really want to try this highly flocculent Belgian yeast

I can ducument the OG and FG. A LHBS (local being about 40 minutes each way ) has a get together every 2nd Friday. I can take them there and see what people think.

Obviously the conditioning will be different amounts. Any other variables I’m missing?

I would try Lallemand Abbaye if you can get it. IMO it's the best dry Belgian yeast out there. TRUE Belgian yeast.

 

[hopjuice_71]

There is lots of information on dry yeast manufacture and testing, available through IBD, MBAA, WBC, and other journals. You can imagine the allure of using dry yeast among large breweries like ABI, Miller, Asahi, ect, was strong and some like Whitbread jumped in head first; a yeast medium that lasts almost indefinitely, takes little space for storage, easy to move from facility to facility, produces the same results.... it should be a major clue that none of those breweries now use dry yeast for regular beer production, even now that the manufacturing process and cost has been streamlined.

Not to draw the ire of the dry yeast mafia, but the process of producing dry yeast is detrimental to the yeast cell. Most dry yeast is grown in molasses type sugars under the crabtree threshold and as such, the yeast never sees alcohol until the first pitch. Some yeast companies put the yeast through trehalose and glycerol hydrolosis to ensure proper lipids and a healthy start; making a starter completely undoes that process. Hence no rehydration. Also, the drying process both shrinks and destroys cell; most dry yeast contains >25% dead cells by weight. So they add more yeast to make up for that. Think about that for a sec. If you were reusing liquid yeast, would you ever pitch a <75% viable culture with the intention of harvesting.... no freaking way. The resulting dry yeast second gen have more petite mutants and the budding scars take up more of the cell since it is smaller, resulting in less than optimal fermentation in successive generations. Also flocculation is generally impaired, with smaller floccs, and more dead yeast in suspension. This can cause haze issues along with other things like autolyis flavors, ect, ect, one could go on forever.

Thanks for the info. Honestly, I don't think there is a dry yeast mafia Most seem to acknowledge that it simply serves a purpose - convenience. Personally, I use mostly liquid yeast (I happen to have full lab I can use for culturing and long term storage of yeast), but occasionally I use dried yeast for convenience.. ..or when I am simply lazy. My issue with the dried yeast, which seems to be the theme of this thread, is its elevating cost. So, I have tried to stretch the value of that yeast when I do use it. My experience doing this doesn't seem to align with the issues you describe, but I confess that I have only ever repitched yeast from beer made with dried yeast for 1 generation (i.e. never repitched a repitch) and never repitched after propping-up the dried yeast with a starter. I didn't experience any performance issues, but acknowledge that maybe would have if I kept going additional generations.. ..I just don't know.

 

[Horseflesh]

Back to OP's cost concern, which I share...

Does anyone know what kind of sanitary conditions you need to weigh and handle dry yeast? If you don't need to take precautions beyond normal sanitation and vacuum sealing, it may be a good idea to buy a 500 g pack and weigh out what you need.

$6/11.5 g = @0.52/g
$140/500 g = $0.28/g
(first prices I found)

So, if you buy a big pack of 34/70 and weigh out what you need, it costs about half as much as buying the 11.5 g packs.

I don't really need 500 g of 34/70 but I could maybe use half that amount over a year or so. Might be able to split a big pack with someone in my club.

 

[Vale71]

Sanitation is not that big of a concern, the real issue is with moisture exposure. Dry yeast is extremely hygroscopic and will absorb atmospheric moisture real fast, once its water content rises above a certain threshold it will start degrading pretty quickly. I belive it would be quite difficult to avoid excessive exposure without specialized equipment.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

It's getting to where dry yeast costs almost as much as liquid yeast. Does anyone know why dry yeast pricing has skyrocketed?

 

[Gregory T]

There is lots of information on dry yeast manufacture and testing, available through IBD, MBAA, WBC, and other journals. You can imagine the allure of using dry yeast among large breweries like ABI, Miller, Asahi, ect, was strong and some like Whitbread jumped in head first; a yeast medium that lasts almost indefinitely, takes little space for storage, easy to move from facility to facility, produces the same results.... it should be a major clue that none of those breweries now use dry yeast for regular beer production, even now that the manufacturing process and cost has been streamlined.

Not to draw the ire of the dry yeast mafia, but the process of producing dry yeast is detrimental to the yeast cell. Most dry yeast is grown in molasses type sugars under the crabtree threshold and as such, the yeast never sees alcohol until the first pitch. Some yeast companies put the yeast through trehalose and glycerol hydrolosis to ensure proper lipids and a healthy start; making a starter completely undoes that process. Hence no rehydration. Also, the drying process both shrinks and destroys cell; most dry yeast contains >25% dead cells by weight. So they add more yeast to make up for that. Think about that for a sec. If you were reusing liquid yeast, would you ever pitch a <75% viable culture with the intention of harvesting.... no freaking way. The resulting dry yeast second gen have more petite mutants and the budding scars take up more of the cell since it is smaller, resulting in less than optimal fermentation in successive generations. Also flocculation is generally impaired, with smaller floccs, and more dead yeast in suspension. This can cause haze issues along with other things like autolyis flavors, ect, ect, one could go on forever.

Omg now I don’t want to pitch it at all. I through a fit when I got 5 month old yeast for a Tripel I was making and got new yeast

 

[schematix]

Recently I decided to buy a 500g block of US-05. It was half the price per gram as buying packets.

I am normally a lager brewer and wanted to experiment with US-05 again to see how clean and crisp of a brew i could get it. It's a hassle to chill wort in the summer down to 45F, and it's a hassle to collect and repitch the yeast. So i am going to redo all my standard lager recipes and see how it goes.

 

[Gregory T]

Neither of my LHBS (these are a pretty good drive for me) had all the malts or the yeast I wanted. That forced me to order it online. My favorite online shop recently sent me 2 packs of WLP500 that was 5 months old when I received them. (Fill price). Speaking of <75% viability.

I took real issue with that and hesitate to order liquid yeast online, especially during the summer.

That left me with a chance to try out dry yeast since I’ve never done it. Which led to this situation

I’m intrigued by the concept that making a starter somehow u does part of the mfg process

Once I get my hands on some Belgian A, I just asked a shop to order me some, I will probably top crop that for awhile.

In this case, it is not my beloved Tripel, So I’m willing to experiment a little. But the idea of a bunch of dead yeast in my beer at the start is making me ill

 

[Horseflesh]

I wonder if it would be practical to crack open a big pack and divide it into, say, 20x 25 g vac-sealed packs before moisture was a problem.

Hmm, my vac sealer also has a setting where I can pump down and then hold vacuum for a while before sealing. That would help boil off moisture.

Baker's yeast comes freeze-dried and people keep jars in the fridge without a problem, so it seems like you should have a bit of working time with brewer's yeast.

 

[Miraculix]

Sanitation is not that big of a concern, the real issue is with moisture exposure. Dry yeast is extremely hygroscopic and will absorb atmospheric moisture real fast, once its water content rises above a certain threshold it will start degrading pretty quickly. I belive it would be quite difficult to avoid excessive exposure without specialized equipment.

Don't know how much truth is in this. I got this jar of dried bread yeast, open since more than a year.... Poorly closed with a lid that won't really shut. Still works. So the majority still seems to be alive.

 

[eric19312]

At the boot camp in Asheville I attended two yeast workshops, one put on by Chris White himself (as in the guy who started White Labs). He said he wouldn't make a starter with his yeast, he'd just pitch it in with no starter unless it was a very big beer. Well. You perhaps can imagine my response to this, perplexed as I was.

I've heard this before and it always comes across as self serving on Dr White's part. He is behind the data that says the liquid yeast degrades stupid fast that underpins everyone's yeast calculators. At 3 months past manufacturing date Mr Malty says the yeast is 32% viable. But White Labs continues to provide information regarding starters on their website although it follows this statement...

"One package of White Labs yeast within proper date ranges will work for any 5-gallon batch of beer of any gravity."

OK so here is the interesting thing I found...
With White Labs current packaging 3 month old yeast is over 90% viable...
https://www.whitelabs.com/news/purepitch-shelf-life

Be nice to see the many online calculators updated to include this information

 

[schematix]

will work

Notice they didn't qualify how well it "will work"

Will it fully attenuate...
How clean will it be...
How long will it take to ferment...

Most of us know that pitching 1 vial into any 5G of wort is bad because we've done it and determined over time that pitching more yeast makes better beer and consequently we've never gone back.

 

[mongoose33]

I've heard this before and it always comes across as self serving on Dr White's part. He is behind the data that says the liquid yeast degrades stupid fast that underpins everyone's yeast calculators. At 3 months past manufacturing date Mr Malty says the yeast is 32% viable. But White Labs continues to provide information regarding starters on their website although it follows this statement...

"One package of White Labs yeast within proper date ranges will work for any 5-gallon batch of beer of any gravity."

OK so here is the interesting thing I found...
With White Labs current packaging 3 month old yeast is over 90% viable...
https://www.whitelabs.com/news/purepitch-shelf-life

Be nice to see the many online calculators updated to include this information

This is on my list of things to investigate.

While in Asheville we visited the local homebrew store. The owner said that they'd done some evaluation of both Wyeast and White Labs yeast, and found that at 6 months White Labs yeast was still 90 percent viable, while the Wyeast was something like 30 percent.

I'm only relating what he said, and before anyone says "well, they produce yeast there in Asheville," yes they do--but only commercial yeast. The small packets we homebrewers use come from San Diego.

I do have a microscope, a hemocytograph, and the ability to evaluate viability. I'm going to do that at some point in the near future.

But....while that may appear to be self-serving w/r/t White's conflict of interest in this, both my son's and my own experience, at least anecdotally, support what White said.

I will try to do some more objective testing, but to do it right is not a 10-minute experiment. I have a variety of packs of yeast, including some fairly old. But I need to figure a way to do multiple batches at the same time so I can test them. I do have some quart canning jars; just a matter of setting it all up and then testing. Only that....

 

[bierhaus15]

Omg now I don’t want to pitch it at all.

To clarify, there is nothing wrong with using dried yeast when pitched at proper amounts. The issue comes when under pitching, making starters with it, or reusing and storing for future reuse. Good yeast management practices apply to liquid as well. Dry yeast is designed to be a single use product, but plenty of people re-pitch it and say it makes great beer. I don't believe them, but that is the beauty of this hobby... do what you want.

 

[eric19312]

Notice they didn't qualify how well it "will work"

Will it fully attenuate...
How clean will it be...
How long will it take to ferment...

Most of us know that pitching 1 vial into any 5G of wort is bad because we've done it and determined over time that pitching more yeast makes better beer and consequently we've never gone back.

Many of the things "most of us know" seem to shift over time and turns out we didn't really know them all that well at all. In this case I think it is possible that the quality of liquid yeast has changed over time and what we all knew to be true five years ago may not exactly apply today.

I know the guys at Brulosophy also claim to be believers in making starters and have posted extensively on their practices on making starters. Most experiments they have done continue to use starters. They have tried numerous times (7 or 8 I guess) to show pitching rate matters in ales or lagers which and have had no success in doing so. Of the three concerns you raised, in the experiments I recall and was able to google just now....

• under, over and target pitched all attenuated about the same (very similar final gravities in side by side tests using same wort)
• tasting panels were unable to distinguish differences between the beers (at least not a huge difference in "how clean")
• The higher pitched beers did tend to finish faster - by 1-2 days or so.

I understand this last point is relevant in commercial beer production but I think is of less so in homebrewing. My beers are normally done in 2 weeks but usually life gets in way and they go three weeks before packaging. Having them done in 10 days would really not help me as I am a weekend brewer and things don't happen mid week. I also manage to pump out enough beer to keep my beer on hand without speeding up the process.

I think Dr White might be right and it could be worth trying a single three month old pack (of the new packaging) in batch of 1.050 or so wort and see what happens.

 

[tellyho]

I NEVER make a starter. There, I said it. Been brewing for 13 years. My beers taste good.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Making a dry yeast starter and repitching dry yeast are also not good practices

Not true. What evidence do you have to support this?

Edit: I just read your follow up responses. I still don't agree with you - I've pitched starters many times from dry yeast and always repitch slurry from both dry and liquid yeast. The interesting part - I prefer beers from repitched US05 than from a first pitch of dry yeast. It might be in my head (no side-by-side) but I perceive them as cleaner and clearer. I now mostly make a 'sacrificial' small batch with a packet of dry yeast, and use the slurry for my 'good' batches. Maybe you should try it before you comment that it'd bad practice.

 

[mongoose33]

I think Dr White might be right and it could be worth trying a single three month old pack (of the new packaging) in batch of 1.050 or so wort and see what happens.

Don't do that unless you want to screw with your understanding of yeast and starters. It's certainly screwing with mine.

 

[eric19312]

Not true. What evidence do you have to support this?

Edit: I just read your follow up responses. I still don't agree with you - I've pitched starters many times from dry yeast and always repitch slurry from both dry and liquid yeast. The interesting part - I prefer beers from repitched US05 than from a first pitch of dry yeast. It might be in my head (no side-by-side) but I perceive them as cleaner and clearer. I now mostly make a 'sacrificial' small batch with a packet of dry yeast, and use the slurry for my 'good' batches. Maybe you should try it before you comment that it'd bad practice.

I also have good success with Re pitched US05. Maybe it is specific to this specific yeast.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

I also have good success with Re pitched US05. Maybe it is specific to this specific yeast.

I prefer beers from repitched US05 than from a first pitch of dry yeast.

AHA forums have had a number of topics on re-pitched dry yeast in the last couple of years (I don't know if they noted that the 1st pitch was dry, re-hydrated, or made with a starter). IIRC, Nottingham is another dry yeast where people anecdotally report good results when re-pitching it. And people occasionally mentioned that they get better beer with the re-pitches.

I've never sampled their beer - so for me it's a "trust, but verify" idea.

 

[schematix]

Brulosophy

 

[eric19312]

Obviously your opinions on brulosophy are well known and probably why I went there....but it’s interesting, at least to me, that Marshall is a committed starter guy, but can’t manage to show the value.

 

[eric19312]

duplicate post dang app

 

[Gregory T]

I think it’s good is relative

The thing with beer. I mean suddenly I apparently don’t know how to bottle beer so who knows. Even Though my undercarbed Saison still tastes better than most commercial varieties. Just not as good as The properly carbed saisons from the same batch. And yes, these were bottled 2 months ago, please don’t tell me to wait and they will even out

Sorry. I have had several bottles of this perfect saison and suddenly the last 2 were at about 1.5 instead of 3.25. Now I’m wondering whether the ones I entered are my beautiful 3.25 or these flat things