Can yeast nutrient make up for low cell count?

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Ragman

Ragman

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Making a 4.5gal batch of 7% IPA. (1.072OG) Using yeast calculator it says I need somewhere near 224 Billion cells.

I would rather not make a starter and would like to try Omega's Tropica IPA liquid yeast which boasts a cell count of 200 billion.

Will yeast nutrient help make up the difference or will it just stress the yeast?
 
DBhomebrew said:
Excellent maxim. Vague enough to allow for wide interpretation.

Agreed with a good enough amount of healthy, vigorous yeast.
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The minimum is what those calculators spit out. Or dry yeast manufacturer recommendations, but doesn't hurt to be on the safe side and pitch more. It is actually beneficial in most cases. I definitely do not trust liquid yeast manufacturer recommendations. Learned that the hard way. Even Imperial yeast is not direct pitch once the pack is a few months old.
 
Yeast cell count is upped by the yeast's aerobic phase, in other words, the time it spends in the wort while it has oxygen available. During the aerobic phase the yeast cells will consume the oxygen and multiply, which is why a starter is constantly stirred to get oxygen into the mix, which boosts the cell count drastically.

If you want to pitch yeast and you don't have enough, you can limit the damage done from a low pitch rate by oxygenating the wort prior to pitch, or during the first few hours of pitching. I've fermented a few successful lagers by pitching one pack instead of two, just by really shaking up the cold wort prior to pitch. The colder the wort, the better it'll absorb O2 from the atmosphere.

But yeah, it's easier and safer to just buy another pack of yeast and pitch it.
 
I, personally, despise liquid yeast. I've used it a few times and never had a great result. I think it's purely because storage for it is sensitive and it's not always possible to keep it perfectly over here, so I don't like it. Dry yeasts for me, is king, specially with modern recommendations that aeration and rehydrating is no longer really needed. Just pitch it.
 
Toxxyc said:
I, personally, despise liquid yeast. I've used it a few times and never had a great result. I think it's purely because storage for it is sensitive and it's not always possible to keep it perfectly over here, so I don't like it. Dry yeasts for me, is king, specially with modern recommendations that aeration and rehydrating is no longer really needed. Just pitch it.
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Unfortunately, my best beer so far was fermented with a liquid strain and there is no comparable dry strain available........ Otherwise I agree 100%.
 
I also have to add we don't have the convenient smack packs here like other places in the world. We have limited liquid yeasts available, and WAY more dry yeasts, of which I've tried a lot. Liquid is also quite a bit more expensive here, so perhaps that's why we have a love for dry...
 
so this leads me to another question. How do you measure yeast cells from re harvested yeast?
 
It's all about the resources available to each individual brewer. Me? I put an Omega order in at my LHBS on Wednesday at noon, pick up no later then 5p Friday. I've never received a package more than 2wks old.

Ragman said:
so this leads me to another question. How do you measure yeast cells from re harvested yeast?
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Typically, by volume of slurry with an estimate of how clean it is. I believe Palmer includes this info in How to Brew.
 
I guess you could buy a microscope and learn how they do it in yeast labs. But I've found that a quart of fresh yeasty beer from bottom of fermentor for 10 gallons wort gets going fast & healthy. Ideally you want yeasty beer or slurry, not trub solids.


Ragman said:
so this leads me to another question. How do you measure yeast cells from re harvested yeast?
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Ragman said:
Will yeast nutrient help make up the difference or will it just stress the yeast?
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Unfortunately, yeast nutrients don't ferment wort. At best, if added, they reduce the chances of nutrient deficiency developing in the viable yeast pitched and their daughter cells. It's always better to make a starter. The problem with bigger packs of wet yeast is they have a death rate comparable to smaller packs stored under the same conditions. Just means more cells are dying in the bigger packs. You don't have to make a starter, but, after spending a day or so brewing some nice wort, why take a punt on the yeast? Ignore online calculators that are claimed to be able to predict the length of a piece of string by guessing what the two ends look like. The only thing that confirms these calculators work is superstition. Pitch as much yeast as you can lay your hands on. Harvesting healthy yeast at the end of a fermentation and repitching fresh results in the 'gold standard' for what a good fermentation looks like. Compare it with what you're doing now then make up your own mind what works best for you.
 
Thank you all for your input. I have been re-harvesting yeast but always afraid Im not getting enough out of it. Ive collected both after primary and after the keg is kicked. I have them labeled as such. Im pretty sure I will get more healthy cells from the primary but Ive heard you caneven pull yeast from the trub thats left in the bottom of the can or bottle from certain types of craft beers.

WHen I harvest, I will dump the remains of the primary after transfering to secondary, into a mason jar. I then put in fridge. WHen it comes time to pitch I dump out most of the clear liquid on top and pitch the rest. I get nervous because I dont ever seem to get as much fermenation activity in my starter as I seem to with fresh (packaged) yeast.
 
Ragman said:
Thank you all for your input. I have been re-harvesting yeast but always afraid Im not getting enough out of it. Ive collected both after primary and after the keg is kicked. I have them labeled as such. Im pretty sure I will get more healthy cells from the primary but Ive heard you caneven pull yeast from the trub thats left in certain types of craft beers.

WHen I harvest, I will dump the remains of the primary after transfering to secondary, into a mason jar. I then put in fridge. WHen it comes time to pitch I dump out most of the clear liquid on top and pitch the rest. I get nervous because I dont ever seem to get as much fermenation activity in my starter as I seem to with fresh (packaged) yeast.
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I did this very often myself and always had mixed results. Imo, this is not a good way. What happens is that you carryover a lot of dead yeast, trub etc. that you actually do not want in your new beer. Also, the number of yeast cells in the slurry can be surprisingly low even after just a few weeks.

What is actually better, is making a stepped up starter out of a small amount of that slurry. That way, most of the yeast cell in the final pitchable amount is alive and very healthy and ther's also not much trub that you carry over. Plus you can make sure that most of the slurry is actually living yeast and not dead material.

I lost some beers to slurry not being as alive as I thought it would be and many more were on the edge of being a dumper due to underpitching.

So only two ways for me, either bottling and directly dumping the new beer into the just emptied fermenter with the remaining yeastcake inside (no cleaning necessary, yay!), or a starter from slurry/bought yeast pack.
 
"What is actually better, is making a stepped up starter out of a small amount of that slurry"

How do I make a stepped up starter? Sorry just dont understand the lingo.

Also on that second part, say I dont plan to brew again for a month, how would I keep that keg with the yeastcake fresh? I mean, I usually clean out and sanitize my kegs after every batch. So in typing this out Im assuming this would only work if you plan to make another batch immediately after youve transfered off the primary?
 
THe beers I generally make, with yeast calc settings set kinda high (1-2 million per ml per deg Plato rather than 0.5), generally suggest 300 billion and I make 400 to save 100 for next starter. "Overbuilding" it is called.

You can indeed harvest from bottles of certain craft beers, the caveats being that you'll have to make several step up starters to get to even 100b, and the yeast they use to bottle condition might not be the yeast used to ferment.
 
Ragman said:
"What is actually better, is making a stepped up starter out of a small amount of that slurry"

How do I make a stepped up starter? Sorry just dont understand the lingo.
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Examples: make a 2 liter starter let it ride then put it in fridge to settle, decant spent wort( technically beer at this point) add another 2 l fresh wort , thats stepping up a starter
 
Ragman said:
"What is actually better, is making a stepped up starter out of a small amount of that slurry"

How do I make a stepped up starter? Sorry just dont understand the lingo.
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It is just a term to describe that you start from a relatively small amount of yeast and build that up with some wort, decant the starter beer, add new wort, decant the beer, add new wort..... and so on, up until you have a sufficient amount of yeast.
 
Ragman said:
ahh so stepping up is like making a starter from a starter, correct?
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Yup its like you make the initial starter the yeast grow then you remove the liquid by decanting add fresh wort and they grow again
 
Have you ever tried SNS( shaken not stirred) starter method? I have settled on that method i like the ease, healthy yeast and less thought, not focusing on cell count rather yeast health

Make a 1 liter batch of starter wort, cool it add it to sanitized gallon container ( must be 4:1 size container) shake it like a madman until its like foam on a cappuccino, add yeast pitch 18-24 hours later into your batch
 
So you just shake the wort starter after its cooled and before adding the yeast packet? Then just let it sit for 24 hrs? No stir plate?
 
Ragman said:
So you just shake the wort starter after its cooled and before adding the yeast packet? Then just let it sit for 24 hrs? No stir plate?
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Yup but aggressively so it turns into foam, its a bit different then standard intermittent shaking and it’s important to have a vessel that is 4 times bigger then the wort volume 1 liter of wort need 1 gallon container
 

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