Can you mix yeasts instead of

[Willy Boner]

Seems like I read instead of stepping up starters, you can pitch some liquid strain and then pitch some "neutral" yeast strains with it to get your cell count up without the hassle. I'm fairly new to this more advanced stage of brewing but I'd like to start making bigger volumes, either 7.5 or 10 gal. batches and would like to find out if all you do is 1.5 or 2X all the ingredients. I will going to the LBHS for supplies and equipment this weekend. What are these "neutral" strains I think I read? (can't find the info)

 

[Bobby_M]

If you're looking for a strain that is only available in liquid form, you can either buy twice as much ~$12 which is obviously cost prohibitive. You don't want to mix yeast strains because you'll never know which one did the work.

If you're trying to go easy and cheap, just use the best suited dry yeast for your style. English ales, go Danstar Nottingham or Safale S-04. If you're doing an American Ale, go with US-05.

 

[Catfish]

I am not sure why you want to mix yeasts. Are you trying to save money, get mixed or milder yeast flavors (esters and such), or something totally different?
Also what kind of beer are you making; what yeast are you using?
You can mix yeasts but if you are mixing a Belgian yeast and some Nottingham dry yeast in your Triple it may not be worth saving the money.

 

[Funkenjaeger]

It seems to me that if you pitch a small amount of liquid yeast, and then pitch a larger cell count of dry yeast, you're just going to end up with more of the 'neutral' yeast and only a smaller percentage of the specialty liquid yeast, which seems a waste since the liquid yeast is more expensive. I don't know how significant this would be, but if you're only getting a small fraction of the effects/flavor from your liquid yeast, why not just save the money and pitch all dry yeast?

 

[kvh]

Someone at my HB Meeting last night brought in a hefe with 2 different WL yeasts, mixed. I don't recall which two, but they were both for hefewizens and I think he said one was more banana-y and the other more clove-y.... He let them 'duke it out' in the fermentor. Seems like a fine idea with me... The beer was great.

kvh

 

[cubbies]

Seems like I read instead of stepping up starters, you can pitch some liquid strain and then pitch some "neutral" yeast strains with it to get your cell count up without the hassle.

Just make a starter...do it once and you will see that it really is not much of a hassle at all.

 

[Barley-Davidson]

I haven't tried this myself, but it seems you should be able to make a starter and step it up a few times.

People do it for high gravity beer to get a huge cell count, it should work just as well for a larger batch.

 

[david_42]

If a liquid yeast starts at 10 billion cells and you add 100 billion dry yeast cells, over 90% of the fermentation will be by the dry yeast. You'll get very little of the character the liquid yeast would produce by itself.

 

[CBBaron]

Starters are really easy to do. If you are starting with a White labs tube or a Wyeast XL pack you can make a 2 liter starter the night before you brew and should have plenty of yeast for most beers. If you are doing a really big beer consider making a smaller beer with the same yeast strain and then pitching on the yeast cake. A big 10gal batch should get plenty of yeast from a small 5gal batch.

I know I wondered why people went through the bother of a starter until I had some problems with a long lag time on a batch. So the next batch I used a starter and realized it really is quite easy.

Craig

 

[malkore]

+1 for a starter. keep things sterile and its really easy to do.