Dry yeast in a starter?

[Bobb25]

I would like to make sure that I am on the right track. I have bought a hop head double IPA extract kit, and it came with Safale dry US-05 yeast. On tuesday I pitched it into a 1 liter starter on a stir plate in my 75 degree kitchen. The first night it foamed up quite a bit, and then it settled down to a uniform milky color.
Is it good to go for a brewing session this afternoon? Reading around I have seen about rehydrating dry yeast, but not using it in a starter. Any reason this would not work?
Bob

 

[thegreatmaibockaddict]

i made a starter with dry yeast before. Worked fine and don't worry. I have read that dry yeasts are not the best for re-pitching after a batch has fermented because it is not as pure as liquid yeast, but doing a starter should be fine-it worked for me.

 

[ColoHox]

Generally you dont need to make a starter from dry yeast, they just need rehydration. It will still work fine though.

 

[peterj]

It should work just fine but it is completely unnecessary to make a starter with dry yeast. There are plenty of cells in one pack of dry yeast (I think about 2x as much as a liquid yeast) to give you the correct pitching rate for most ales.

Also, the manufacturer builds a lot of lipid and sterol reserves into the cell walls (which is why they say you don't have to aerate wort when using dry yeast) so by making a starter you are using up those reserves before the yeast gets to work in the actual beer. This is not really detrimental (this is the condition of all liquid yeasts), but it removes one of the benefits of using dry yeast.

 

[johngaltsmotor]

You are fine using this for today's brew.
In the future you should avoid making a starter from dry yeast. The # of yeast cells in a dry pack is suitable for a 5gal batch. By making the starter you increase the # of cells you pitch, so you end up over-pitching. With only a 1L starter it is likely okay, but with larger starters you run the risk of off flavors from over-pitching.

 

[kh54s10]

You can make a starter with dry yeast but I have read that it depletes some of the reserves that are created in the engineering of the yeast. So what you end up with is yeast that is about the same quality as if you just rehydrated. peterj said it better!

Also it is usually about the same $$ just to buy another pack for a higher gravity beer as it is to make the starter so there is really no point in making a starter with dry yeast.

 

[flars]

Pitching dry yeast into a wort damages quite a few cells from the osmotic pressure. Not sure without looking it up. May be 20% to 50%.
A starter can be made with dry yeast, but it must be rehydrated first. After rehydration you basically have liquid yeast.
To be safe estimate a 50% loss of yeast cells in the pack of dry. Enter that number in this starter calculator with the volume of your wort for an estimate of new cells propagated.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/
or
http://www.mrmalty.com/yeast-tools.php

There is more information in the yeast calculator pages.

You may be okay yet depending on the OG of your brew and the volume.

 

[boydster]

First, you need to know this: Pitching dry yeast into a 1L starter without first rehydrating it is going to net you nothing. What I mean is, about half the cells die when you pitch the yeast into a sugary environment (be it starter wort, beer wort, wine must, or sugar water) so the growth from the starter is just regrowing the cells you killed initially. Using YeastCalculator.com, and using 100 billion cells as a starting number (200 billion in the packet initially, 50% surviving the pitch into the starter wort), and doing a 1L stir plate starter, you end up with 236 billion cells.

Properly rehydrating the yeast would have gotten you in the 150-200 billion cell range. Pitching those cells into a 1.5L stirplate starter would have doubled your cell count, meaning all of the original cells would have had a chance to divide, and ensuring that you get at least one doubling is really the healthiest way to propagate the cells. Usually with dry yeast, it is cheaper and easier just to buy a second packet of yeast if you need more than 200 billion cells.

On to your question, your yeast will work pretty much just as well now as it would have had you properly rehydrated it. It seems like you are going to want to pitch the entire starter, since you don't have time to really cold crash it and get the yeast to all settle out. That doesn't really pose a problem, lots of people pitch their starter. There is a good chance that you would benefit from pitching more cells than you have in that starter, though. Take a look at a pitch rate calculator like the one I mentioned earlier and that will help you. You enter in the volume of wort you are making and the original gravity, and it tells you how many cells you need to hit a healthy pitch rate. With a double IPA, generally you need more than 200 billion cells. If that is the case, and you have a LHBS nearby, I'd suggest grabbing a second packet of yeast. The most important factors that impact the flavor of your beer, IMO, are sanitation, pitch rate, and fermentation temperature (beer temp, not ambient), so getting the right number of cells to do the job is a biggie in my book.

 

[peterj]

i made a starter with dry yeast before. Worked fine and don't worry. I have read that dry yeasts are not the best for re-pitching after a batch has fermented because it is not as pure as liquid yeast, but doing a starter should be fine-it worked for me.

-1. I remember reading a discussion about this and what I gathered and found out was that dry yeast manufacturers list a possible contaminants range for their product (which is very low) whereas the liquid yeast manufacturers just don't list it. I would pretty much guarantee however that the risk of contamination is pretty similar between dry and liquid.

 

[boydster]

i made a starter with dry yeast before. Worked fine and don't worry. I have read that dry yeasts are not the best for re-pitching after a batch has fermented because it is not as pure as liquid yeast, but doing a starter should be fine-it worked for me.

Dry yeasts from major companies like Fermentis and Lallemand are every bit as pure as their liquid counterparts. One thing to know about US-05 (and other Chico strains) is that the yeast get much more attenuative if you serial pitch them over several generations, but depending on how a particular brewer handles sanitation, it is certainly easy to introduce contamination when reusing any kind of yeast.

 

[Bobb25]

Just to let you guys know, within a couple of hours of pitching the dry yeast starter, the airlock was bubbling, and this morning it is going crazy. Of course we won't have a taste for three months, but I think all is well.
Bob

 

[boydster]

Good! 3 months is a long time to wait before drinking a IIPA, even with bottle conditioning. Is there any reason you plan on waiting so long?

 

[AndytheBeave]

i made a starter with dry yeast before. Worked fine and don't worry. I have read that dry yeasts are not the best for re-pitching after a batch has fermented because it is not as pure as liquid yeast, but doing a starter should be fine-it worked for me.

I don't know about other dry yeasts but I just pitched a starter made from my washed S-04 out of a primary and had great results.

 

[boydster]

I don't know about other dry yeasts but I just pitched a starter made from my washed S-04 out of a primary and had great results.

I don't wash/rinse my yeast usually, but I do harvest it for reuse. Once the yeast is hydrated, it's absolutely no different than liquid. I've got 04, 05, Notty, and T-58 in my fridge and I have absolutely no reservations about using them. As long as you are diligent about sanitation, there is no harm in reusing yeast, whether it started out as a liquid culture or a dry culture.

In a strange way, Fermentis may be to blame for people thinking dry yeast is less pure than liquid. While liquid yeast companies claim to have 100% pure cultures (that should be an immediate red flag......) with no mention of the scale to which they have tested, Fermentis states in their spec sheets the potential margin of error due to the scale to which they have tested their cultures for purity. Frankly, that is a more honest statement than what the liquid yeast companies make, but it seems to be the source of the confusion or uncertainty IMO.

 

[kh54s10]

I don't know about other dry yeasts but I just pitched a starter made from my washed S-04 out of a primary and had great results.

This is different than the situation of the OP. He started with new yeast.

Depending on how old the washed yeast was it was either good (older) or unnecessary (recently harvested) that a starter was made.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Bobb25]

Good! 3 months is a long time to wait before drinking a IIPA, even with bottle conditioning. Is there any reason you plan on waiting so long?

Well, as a newby ( and an ex-engineer) I have been carefully following instructions, and Midwest says " following a 7 to 14 day primary fermentation, a 10 week secondary fermentation " is recommended for this kit.

 

[boydster]

Well, as a newby ( and an ex-engineer) I have been carefully following instructions, and Midwest says " following a 7 to 14 day primary fermentation, a 10 week secondary fermentation " is recommended for this kit.

I see. Personally, I wouldn't secondary this. I'd let it go until it was done (probably a week or so), then dry hop in primary for 4-5 days, then bottle. The reason is because hop aroma fades quickly, so the quicker you get the beer packaged and begin drinking, the better the hop aroma will be, but you want to be sure the beer is at a stable FG as measured by multiple hydrometer readings.

 

[estricklin]

I see. Personally, I wouldn't secondary this. I'd let it go until it was done (probably a week or so), then dry hop in primary for 4-5 days, then bottle. The reason is because hop aroma fades quickly, so the quicker you get the beer packaged and begin drinking, the better the hop aroma will be, but you want to be sure the beer is at a stable FG as measured by multiple hydrometer readings.

Ditto on the times.

I reuse a lot of my S-23, that stuff is 5 bucks a package or more these days so it pays to harvest some after a batch. I have made starters for my dry yeast when the packet was really old or I thought could have been seriously mishandled, or if I'm pitching a high gravity lager.

 

[aellis]

I don't wash/rinse my yeast usually, but I do harvest it for reuse.

do you mean that you take it out of the carboy after fermentation is complete and reuse it, or do you make a starter, and then pitch half and reserve half for later use/another starter?

i have a package of dry nottingham that i want to use to make graff, and i just built a stir plate i'm itching to try out. so my plan was to make a starter with it (rehydrating first), then save half of the starter for a later use. would that work?

 

[boydster]

I mean after a fermentation is complete, I harvest the yeast cake (trub and all, no washing) into 4-5 jars to reuse. If I store yeast more than 2 weeks, I make a starter, otherwise I just pitch one jar into 5 gallons of 1.050-ish ale.

If you have a package of Notty, you've got enough for 5 gallons of 1.050 ale/cider/graff. You can push that a little bit with no ill effects, but use a pitch rate calc like YeastCalc or Mr. Malty. If you are more than 25% below what you need, consider making a starter or pitching a second packet of yeast. Or if you simply want to make one just to make one, go for it. Again, use a calculator like YeastCalc and make sure you get at least one full doubling of cells and then harvest whatever you don't need for a future batch.

 

[masskrug]

Damn the effort. Just sprinkle it on top. It will go to work.

 

[aellis]

i have no doubt it'll work, i'm just interested in stretching my dollars as far as they'll go. i normally use EC1118, and that stuff's so cheap it doesn't make sense to do a starter. notty is $3.5/11g. if i can make a starter and double my cell count for just the cost of some DME, seems like it's worth it.

 

[boydster]

What is your target OG, and what size batch? In other terms, how many yeast cells do you need to be >= .75 million cells/ml/°P?

 

[tekhna]

I was under the impression a packet of US 05 had about 69 billion yeast cells in it?
The density of yeast is about 6 billion cells per gram, 11.5 grams in the packet.

I'd definitely make a starter if the density is even in that ballpark.

 

[boydster]

It's closer to 20 billion cells per gram. You are talking about the guaranteed minimum that Fermentis prints, but that is just that - a guaranteed minimum number of cells for a packet stored in less than optimal conditions and at or near its expiration. Actual cell counts show between 15 and 20 billion viable cells per gram when properly hydrated.

 

[boydster]

A lot of this is covered in the Dry Yeast FAQ sticky, and there are references and additional reading materials linked at the bottom of the first post.

 

[tekhna]

It's closer to 20 billion cells per gram. You are talking about the guaranteed minimum that Fermentis prints, but that is just that - a guaranteed minimum number of cells for a packet stored in less than optimal conditions and at or near its expiration. Actual cell counts show between 15 and 20 billion viable cells per gram when properly hydrated.

Got it, that makes sense.

Disregard my comment above!