Done with liquid yeast

[Dog House Brew]

The answer for me is, it depends. Dry is easy, ships well, lasts long, and makes great beer. Liquid has shelf life, expensive in summer to ship, and isn’t easy. I personally use liquid 90% of the time. I use liquid because the strains I prefer are not in dry. You can make beers that are similar, but not exactly what I use. You can make great beer with each. I’ve gone dry for my lager beers. Liquid for my Kolsch 021, Triple 3864, IPA 007 & 001, and dark beers usually Pac-Man or 1450. I don’t think one is any better than the other. Dry is so easy and reliable, yet I’ve always stuck with these liquid yeasts. Saison is another beer I brew a lot and have yet to find a dry that I like. I’ve done many split batches to compare. That is what I suggest if you’re splitting batches. I used to do 20g batches and split it with 4 different yeasts. I now usually split with 2. Really helps you find what you like. I’d probably feel differently if I just started brewing. The dry selection is so much better now. I’m willing to starter harvest and keep them going. All in what fits your style.

 

[Slim M]

And on the other hand, people have been extrapolating the findings of some Brulosophy experiments (short and shoddy, etc) and concluding that you can cut almost every corner there is and still make a beer that people can't discern from a more traditionally (carefully) brewed version.

People don't tend to split their batches and put liquid and dry yeast strains head to head because it's a lot of work to make sure you're controlling for things like pitch count. There are two very different approaches one might take:

1. Pitch one pack of dry and one pack of liquid, no starters and no concern for liquid pack age. This would most accurately represent how a very casual brewer would make beer. The problem though is that a happenstance old pack of liquid yeast would likely drive a "dry yeast is better" conclusion by accident. The other pitfall here is if someone usually makes 5 gallons and they decide to split that into two 2.5g experimental batches, they'll be pitching twice the yeast as normal and skewing the results.

2. Calculate the pitch rates for both the dry and liquid yeasts paying close attention to OG and pack age, etc. This would product a result I'm much more interested in because I do calculate pitch rates and would never pitch liquid of some random age and just wing it. I do feel like sharing these results would have to come with the specific caveat that a certain rate was used via a specific calculator.


The other issue with making any conclusive decisions about ingredients and process choice is that nothing fully isolated. You use dry yeast and taste the beer. Yeah, it's great. Could it be better with a different yeast strain? Maybe. How about the liquid strain of the same? Maybe. What about a fermentation temperature + or - 3F? Maybe.

This made me think of last year when I made a Festbier for Christmas. I brewed my usually 12 gallons like always but split the batch and pitched 2 packs of Diamond in one & 2 packs of Omega 106 no starter for the other. Fermented them in the mid 50s side by side and ended up liking the Diamond batch better. They were very close in ways but different.

The Diamond batch was consumed at about 7 weeks old and the Omega around 10. So not exactly head to head. One thing though was the Omega took off like a rocket after pitching.

 

[Beerstein]

I've done that deal. I use US-05 a lot, and considered buying a brick, but the cost/gram isn't much more with that 10 packet deal, so I do that.

I've been buying bricks too. Watch amazon. I've picked up bricks at $80/each before. A brick also gives you the ability to use more when you inoculate.

 

[bwible]

Just randomly felt like sharing my latest aha brewing moment. For my first several years of brewing I’ve strictly built up yeast starters from single packets of liquid yeast over what has usually been the coarse of a weeks time and 2-3 stages to obtain cell counts high enough for 10-15 gallon ~1.050 OG lagers and 1.060 IPA’s. My frequency of brewing has dropped since having a couple kids, and my first venture with dry yeast was the Verdant strain with a hazy IPA. It turned out awesome and most notably I recall feeling less stressed that week because all I did was re-hydrate during my boil and my brew day was laid back. I recently had a series of German lagers to brew for an event (Helles Bock, Festbier, Munich Dunkel) and decided I’d give the CellarScience German dry yeast a chance. Picked up a 500g block and portioned individual pitches in vacuum sealed bags and waited to pitch them after knockout. First two batches I made mini starters with DME on brew day (2-3 hours before pitching) and noticed the krausen in the 5L flask had dropped by the time I pitched the beer. 3rd time around I just sprinkled the pitch directly onto the wort and holy moly, it took off like a rocket and was bubbling within 6 hours (55F pitch temp). This may have been over dramatized because I elected to also not add fermcap to this latest beer, because I woke up to yeast overblown blowoff tube in the morning, it was awesome.

So with that, I’m over building up starters and plenty happy with the results (performance & taste) I’ve been getting from various dry yeasts.

Prost!

Yes, you need alot of yeast for 15 gallons. You could try brewing a smaller batch first, like a 5 gallon batch? Then you have plenty of yeast for 15 gallons. Even with dry yeast, 1 package is not enough for 15 gallons. So blaming your problem on liquid yeast is not accurate.

 

[apache_brew]

Yes, you need alot of yeast for 15 gallons. You could try brewing a smaller batch first, like a 5 gallon batch? Then you have plenty of yeast for 15 gallons. Even with dry yeast, 1 package is not enough for 15 gallons. So blaming your problem on liquid yeast is not accurate.

My point is I’d rather buy bulk dry yeast and pitch on brew day by skipping the multi day yeast starter required to build up a single liquid yeast pack to the required amount for my batch size. I don’t have time to brew 5 gallon batches but I get the idea of 5 gallon yeast starters for bigger batches. I’m too lazy to do the math but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that dry yeast is cheaper by the cell than liquid yeast. So because I can buy bulk blocks of it cheaper than I can buy bulk liquid pitches I think it’s a fair complaint for me.

 

[gaviga]

I was using liquid yeast exclusively for years and enjoying spinning it up and propagating from a starter. Then came covid, LHBS closing, moving to desert SW. Now I get all my supplies from MoreBeer including dry yeast. Just hydrate and it’s a big time saver. Many of the commercial brewers where I came from were also using dry yeast. I’m an IPA guy, so Chico yeast is a no-brainer.

Don't rehydrate - you'll get better, more consistent results just sprinkling it on your wort.

 

[cubalz]

I switched to dry yeast exclusively about 4 years ago. Never had an issue, ever.

 

[Yesfan]

Yes, you need alot of yeast for 15 gallons. You could try brewing a smaller batch first, like a 5 gallon batch? Then you have plenty of yeast for 15 gallons. Even with dry yeast, 1 package is not enough for 15 gallons. So blaming your problem on liquid yeast is not accurate.

That's what I do. If it's a new recipe, I do a 5 gallon batch and then use the slurry for a 10 gallon batch of a favorite recipe that uses the same yeast. This is a good option for those (especially liquid) seasonal yeast releases.

 

[Yesfan]

Here’s an old brulosophy post exploring this topic. I don’t see a direct control for pitch rate and some other variables. However, it looks like this is one of the relatively rare instances where there was a significant effect for tasters to identify the odd beer out in the triangle test. BUT NOTE: there’s a fairly even split in terms of preference between the dry and liquid yeast. So, I guess it really is just personal preference!

https://brulosophy.com/2017/04/03/y...afale-us-05-american-ale-exbeeriment-results/

from the article.....

"From the very first time I compared the beers once kegged and carbonated, I perceived what I thought was a rather drastic difference that left me very curious how I’d perform on blind triangle tests. I attempted 8 trials over a 2 week period and was able to identify the odd-beer-out… every single time. The beer fermented with WLP001 was very clean, allowing the malt and hops to take a starring role; while I’d still describe the US-05 fermented beer as clean, it had an interesting spiciness to it, not necessarily phenolic, and it was quite subtle. My preference when choosing blindly was consistently for the WLP001 fermented beer."


I use US-05 a lot. I know this article is from 2017, but sometimes I wonder if I should venture away from US-05 for a while. My last few batches, while good, felt like they were just lacking.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I use US-05 a lot. I know this article is from 2017, but sometimes I wonder if I should venture away from US-05 for a while. My last few batches, while good, felt like they were just lacking.

I tend to think that dry yeast, even the old standbys like US-05 and S-04, have continued to improve in quality. It is definitely worth doing a split batch or two to see how you like each yeast. As Bobby mentioned earlier, it is difficult to figure out a "same" pitch rate between dry yeast and liquid yeast for these types of trails though. Is the driver of the difference in that article the yeasts or the fact that the liquid yeast was spun up in a starter?

Lately US-05 has been my go to yeast, but over the years I have made lots of good beers with WLP001, Wy1056, WLP051, and BRY-97. I am curious to do a dry vs liquid comparison, but I am very happy with the performance and convenience of dry yeast.

 

[user 341102]

Sounds like we need some liquid yeast users to dry some of their yeast then brew side-by-side using liquid and the home-dried yeast. Dry yeast would need to be rehydrate before pitching and cell count of each standardized by use of hemocytometer to count yeast cell density. Most importantly, they'd need to report their results here for us all to see.

Of course, to make firm conclusions about the effects of drying, we'd need to test many different strains.

Personally, I don't have the bandwidth. I like my current approach, but will be more open to exploring dry yeast in the future

 

[SanPancho]

once omega or whoever throws the thiolizing yeasts into a dry pack I’ll gladly go dry. not an option currently. And Baja has been not great replacement for 940, three day lag even after hydration and nutrients. So I’d be happy to go dry, but not an option yet.

 

[Somesaymybeerisdrinkable]

I thought most yeast did not survive drying and doing the process properly requires expensive equipment. Some have had luck with home drying yeast (kveik and Nottingham according to a Brülosophy) probably won't get good results drying liquid strains.
IMPACT FERMENTING WITH HOME-DRIED YEAST HAS ON A BRITISH GOLDEN ALE

 

[user 341102]

I thought most yeast did not survive drying and doing the process properly requires expensive equipment. Some have had luck with home drying yeast (kveik and Nottingham according to a Brülosophy) probably won't get good results drying liquid strains.
IMPACT FERMENTING WITH HOME-DRIED YEAST HAS ON A BRITISH GOLDEN ALE

I’ve never attempted drying, but have heard of a few strains being successful.

My main point was to illustrate that it’s very difficult to actually determine how dry and liquid yeast affect beer. There are differences in yeast strain, generation, viability, pitch rate, etc. which can’t be compared directly by just purchasing a packet of each. Also, the effects of drying may be different for various strains. At the home brew level, we likely don’t have the tools, time, and equipment to scientifically determine how yeast processing and packaging affect beer.

Quality beer can be made with either dry or liquid yeast. Your brewing process will be just as big, if not bigger, factor of success. What’s more important, IMO is to be familiar with your particular ingredients (including yeast) and have a solid process in place to get good results.

Incidentally, here’s an article that attempted to examine the use of dry and liquid yeast. I can’t access the full text, but it could be of interest to those on this thread.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0963996921000223

 

[Yesfan]

I tend to think that dry yeast, even the old standbys like US-05 and S-04, have continued to improve in quality. It is definitely worth doing a split batch or two to see how you like each yeast. As Bobby mentioned earlier, it is difficult to figure out a "same" pitch rate between dry yeast and liquid yeast for these types of trails though. Is the driver of the difference in that article the yeasts or the fact that the liquid yeast was spun up in a starter?

Lately US-05 has been my go to yeast, but over the years I have made lots of good beers with WLP001, Wy1056, WLP051, and BRY-97. I am curious to do a dry vs liquid comparison, but I am very happy with the performance and convenience of dry yeast.

I agree. I'm not unhappy with US-05 as a performer (other than a slow lag time), but I have felt my beers over the last few years have been lacking. A recent batch I brewed, I split it evenly with US-05 and K-97. Between those two, I liked the K-97 much better. My brews have been somewhere between "good enough to not dump" to decent and when I drink a commercial brand, I really notice it. I have in the past made that "I'd buy this in a store" quality brew, and I want to get back to that. Maybe I need to quit being so cheap as most of my yeast inventory is multi packs of US-05/S-04 I've bought from Amazon.



As for a liquid vs dry comparison, do any of you all think slurry re-pitches would even the playing fields a bit? I agree trying to equal the pitch rate for one vs the other would be difficult to keep the comparison fair, but what about waiting until the second brew to do an evaluation? I'm thinking with both being harvested slurries, you can better equate the pitch rates for the next batch. Just an idea.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Incidentally, here’s an article that attempted to examine the use of dry and liquid yeast. I can’t access the full text, but it could be of interest to those on this thread.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0963996921000223

With a "duck duck go" web search of the title, I found a pre-print (link to PDF).

 

[Somesaymybeerisdrinkable]

I don't think we necessarily need any dry vs liquid comparisons to prove which is better. If you try a great beer that was made with dry yeast and you could not tell it was made with dry yeast then that should be proof enough that this is not corner cutting. The same beer could be rebrewed with liquid, or some other dry strain and be a different beer.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

cross-linking some related recent topics

• Done with liquid yeast
• White Labs WLP001 Dry Yeast Coming Soon
• WLP001 Dry
• Anyone try the new DRY wlp066?

 

[Bassman2003]

This is homebrewing. Even if it was proven that liquid is best, many, many would still use dry for the convenience. The only person that matters in this equation is you. I have come to realize over the years that this hobby is very self centered. I say that not to criticize but to point out that one's own tastes and tolerance for complicated or involved processes is the only thing that matters. This is a great thing about homebrewing for me. It is an escape and I get to fine tune beers to my liking without answering to anybody.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

As for a liquid vs dry comparison, do any of you all think slurry re-pitches would even the playing fields a bit? I agree trying to equal the pitch rate for one vs the other would be difficult to keep the comparison fair, but what about waiting until the second brew to do an evaluation? I'm thinking with both being harvested slurries, you can better equate the pitch rates for the next batch. Just an idea.

First off, I have read that dry yeast can sometimes impart different flavors on a first pitch vs a repitch. Personally, I have harvested and reused dry yeast a few times, and no drastic differences jumped out at me. It was not a controlled experiment though.

For a while I was using S-04 for my English beers. A buddy of mine pointed out a sour twang in one of my beers made with S-04. In a split batch vs WLP013, the S-04 batch had a noticeable sour note. I have used S-04 once or twice recently and could not detect that twang. Is S-04 better (as some have claimed) or was this just a one off fluke?

For me, a comparison of dry vs liquid would have to simulate what my process would be. For dry yeast, I am fine stocking a pack for a few years and direct pitching 1 pack into about 5.5 gallons of 1.060 wort. My standard liquid yeast process had been to build a small starter (up to 1L) the night before and pitch the active starter. These days I am more likely to direct pitch a pack from Omega or Imperial (though I also brew a lot of 2.5 gal batches, and I am using mostly dry yeast these days - I have not tried the larger White Labs packs).

 

[balrog]

Is S-04 better

I've only brewed about 10yrs.
I was underwhelmed with S04 "way back" when I started. Tart, slow to start, just didn't tickle my fancy.
Within the last 1-2yrs I've purchased and tried again (per suggestion by I think @dmtaylor ) to try it again, and I have to say the twang I recall being so up front is nowhere to be found.

One man's experience.

 

[dmtaylor]

I've only brewed about 10yrs.
I was underwhelmed with S04 "way back" when I started. Tart, slow to start, just didn't tickle my fancy.
Within the last 1-2yrs I've purchased and tried again (per suggestion by I think @dmtaylor ) to try it again, and I have to say the twang I recall being so up front is nowhere to be found.

One man's experience.

Two men's.

 

[AmarikinBrew]

On the subject of drying yeast, why not just immobilize them?

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/yeast-immobilization-magic-beans-fermentation-404698/
Supposedly good for 4000 repitches in the immobilized form. So why not just one "bean" in a flask to make a starter, when done, dry it out and place back in freezer?

Eureka! Genius! -I wand a dime anyone does this with a "bean"!

 

[WestMichBrewer]

I use liquid yeast with starter on all my beers nowadays

I find lag time too long with dry yeast

With active liquid starters I'm bubbling within 4 hours max

I'm not having this issue with dry yeast. I think it depends more on how much you are pitching and it activity level rather than dry vs. liquid.
I rehydrated and pitched two packs into my 3.5 gallon batch and it was up and bubbling in a few hours as well.
Overpitch? Maybe, but I think illustrates my point.

 

[user 341102]

I'm not having this issue with dry yeast. I think it depends more on how much you are pitching and it activity level rather than dry vs. liquid.
I rehydrated and pitched two packs into my 3.5 gallon batch and it was up and bubbling in a few hours as well.
Overpitch? Maybe, but I think illustrates my point.

Agreed. I notice some dry packs say to pitch two packs and all liquid yeast advises a starter for anything over about 1.050. Even with liquid starter, I have significant lag time. It's difficult to accurately determine pitch rate without a hemocytometer and microscope, though. Maybe I'll buy a cheap one and borrow the kids' scope in the future

 

[Bassman2003]

Lag time is influenced by yeast freshness and vitality, not just shear numbers.

 

[user 341102]

Lag time is influenced by yeast freshness and vitality, not just shear numbers.

Right. Vitality can also be assessed with methylene blue test using microscopy

 

[Northern_Brewer]

In a split batch vs WLP013, the S-04 batch had a noticeable sour note.

But that's not a direct comparison of dry with liquid, S-04 is not the same as WLP013.

Well, WLP001 and US-05 are actually not super closely related. Personal preference is definitely a factor there.

Good info dmtaylor. I haven't checked the genome sequence of either of these strains to see if they are comparable.

I wouldn't go that far - they're not identical, but you wouldn't want them marrying. The WLP001 subgroup and 1056/US-05 subgroup are still more closely related to each other than they are to the original BRY-96.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...f-white-labs-yeast.642831/page-2#post-8916547

It seems the main determent to dry yeast is that it is too clean for some yeast driven styles.

fI've never seen anybody say this.

You've obviously not been listening to the right people. The stress of drying inhibits ester production. For a lot of people that's not a problem, for instance if you just want something clean to ferment hoppy beers, and for lagers a lack of esters is a positive bonus. But it is a problem particularly for British and Belgian styles, compounded by the fact that the choice of dry yeasts for British styles is particularly unreflective of the diversity in the real world of British brewing.

At least that's changing a little bit - AEB are now doing (in the UK at least) 500g bricks of a yeast they claim is from Tetley, and WHC have just launched dried versions of several of their strains including their version of 1318 - but the options for British styles even in liquid form aren't great compared to what you can get from eg Brewlab.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

But that's not a direct comparison of dry with liquid, S-04 is not the same as WLP013.

A Dry vs Liquid comparison was not at all my goal. I was just trying to determine what yeast I liked for my English Porter recipe. I am wanting to rebrew that recipe with S-04 or maybe with Verdant too. I do like WLP013, but I just don't like the hassle of liquid yeast.

But on a related note...split batches with different yeasts are a very good way to really pick out the impact of a yeast. It is very common to brew a beer with a yeast and then make your judgement based on that one reference. If the beer turns out good or bad, then the yeast must be good or bad. But it is almost impossible to extrapolate between batches brewed months apart with sorta similar recipes.

 

[user 341102]

But that's not a direct comparison of dry with liquid, S-04 is not the same as WLP013.


I wouldn't go that far - they're not identical, but you wouldn't want them marrying. The WLP001 subgroup and 1056/US-05 subgroup are still more closely related to each other than they are to the original BRY-96.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...f-white-labs-yeast.642831/page-2#post-8916547
You've obviously not been listening to the right people. The stress of drying inhibits ester production. For a lot of people that's not a problem, for instance if you just want something clean to ferment hoppy beers, and for lagers a lack of esters is a positive bonus. But it is a problem particularly for British and Belgian styles, compounded by the fact that the choice of dry yeasts for British styles is particularly unreflective of the diversity in the real world of British brewing.

At least that's changing a little bit - AEB are now doing (in the UK at least) 500g bricks of a yeast they claim is from Tetley, and WHC have just launched dried versions of several of their strains including their version of 1318 - but the options for British styles even in liquid form aren't great compared to what you can get from eg Brewlab.

Thanks for the info about Ester production in dry v. liquid. Based on the discussion here, I've procured a couple packs of dry yeast. How do you suppose (or know from experience) the Ester profile changes if the yeast are saved and re-used? Would the lack of Ester production carry over to future generations even if they are never dried?